Part horror story, part historical romance, and part detective thriller, the timeless tale of a masked, disfigured musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House is familiar to millions of readers, as well as to movie and theater-goers. At the heart of the story's long-standing popularity lies its questioning of a universal theme: the relationship between outward appearance and the beauty or darkness of the human soul.
Despite finding little success in print after its 1911 publication, interest in and acclaim for Gaston Leroux's 'The Phantom of the Opera' intensified as a result of numerous film and stage adaptations, most notably Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 stage adaptation.