The Complete Phantom of the Opera by George Perry

Ok, I admit it; I had more than one motive for picking up this book. It's true I'm a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Phantom. But I had just seen the PBS broadcast of Love Never Dies -- which is Weber's sequel to Phantom Of The Opera -- and I wanted to check a few parts of the Libretto for continuity between the two works.

You see, in Love Never Dies, Christine shows up 10 years later with a child who has NONE of Raoul's characteristics. I also remember this line in the finale where Eric (The Phantom) implies that he is "incapable". Typical male line, obviously -- right up there with "the check is in the mail".

Anyway, this book not only gives the history of the story in all it's various incarnations, but also a history of the Paris Opera House that inspired it -- and yes, those waterways under the building really DO exist (in fact, they have to be drained on a regular basis so that the structural engineers can check the status of the foundations by boat).

Submitted by: Susan L. Rock