Rediscovering Phantom of the Opera as an Adult
When I was in highschool, I fell in love. While other teens were playing One Direction on repeat, I was blaring Phantom of the Opera. The emotional score and complex story haunted my dreams. Before the show closed on Broadway, I revisited this childhood obsession by traveling to NYC just to see it. It was life changing. But while I expected to cry along with the Phantom when his scheme to make a 16 year old fall in love with him failed, I instead sobbed while people repeatedly didn’t believe Christine. Turns out, Phantom isn’t the hero of his title musical. Christine is.
Many write Christine off as a simpering, weak woman because she seemingly flits between the Phantom and Raoul. But, in truth, she is a perfect representation of a child breaking free of grooming. She has been emotionally manipulated and abused for YEARS by the time the musical takes place.
Within the first few songs, we see how scared she is of the Phantom. Christine’s bestie, Meg, asks who her great music tutor is. Christine explains that her father used to speak of an angel of music that would guard over her (not nefarious at all that the Phantom took advantage of that context). When Christine tries to communicate how scared she is and that the Phantom is always around, aka inescapable, her bestie fails her tremendously.
Christine: He’s with me even now
Meg: Your hands are cold around your face, Christine. It’s white
Christine: It frightens me
Meg: Don’t be frightened.
Even though her friend notices the physical effects of Christine’s palpable fear, she still doesn’t believe her, instead insisting “Christine you must have been dreaming”. Christine’s first attempt to get help failed. If her best friend treated her like she was being over dramatic, who would possibly believe her?
Christine’s fear was well founded because the very next scene is the Phantom raging that another man dared talk to her. Christine cannot form relationships outside of the one she has with him without facing his immediate anger. Though the conversation with Raoul was short, Christine knows her Angel of Music may very well abandon her over it. Manipulation 101. Threaten to leave them at any small infraction so you can more effectively control them. To get the Phantom to calm down, she begs “Angel, my soul was weak, forgive me. Enter at last, Master.” She effectively maintained her safety in an incredibly unsafe situation. Right after this, he kidnaps her and brags “my power over you grows stronger yet, and though you turn from me to glance behind, the Phantom of the opera is there inside your mind.” She knows he is inescapable. Running is not an option. His “power” is growing stronger because she is learning that to survive in this very unsafe reality, it’s best to appease him. At least then she’s not physically harmed.
So you’re in an opera house controlled by a man you’re terrified of. Your best friend doesn’t believe you. You yourself feel conflicted about your fears. Is he sent by her father? Does she owe him for the music lessons? And if so, how far does that go? Maybe it’s safest to give in. She probably does owe him anyway.
The Phantom’s violent need for control, however, extends beyond Christine. He returns her to the theater once he realizes her absence will cause a search. But he also sends a list of demands. Obviously, this doesn’t sit well with the opera house owners. It’s assumed Christine is “a chorus girl who’s gone and slept with her patron.” The blame in this statement isn’t portraying anger at the writer of the demands. Instead, all the blame is placed on Christine herself. Despite being the victim, she is considered culpable. How could she trust these people with the full truth? Perhaps now she even does blame herself for the Phantom’s unwanted love. All these grown adults must be right.
Raoul sees through the list of demands as something more sinister. He starts putting the pieces together because “Christine once spoke of an Angel of Music”. His seeming care and willingness to look past the assumption she’s at fault, signals he’s potentially safe. So when he confesses his love to her and says he’ll protect her, it’s logical she begins to trust him enough to tell him. People often view the song “All I Ask of You” as the real highlight of the love triangle building up, but even in this song Christine is blatantly clear she doesn't want the Phantom when she proclaims “all I want is freedom, a world with no more night, and you, always beside me to hold me and to hide me.” This phrasing implies she hasn’t felt free heretofore. She has felt trapped. More damningly, given Phantom sang an entire song about the music of the night, her saying she wants a world with no more night (important to note this is often when he visited her too) couldn’t be more on the nose. This is a terrified child.
Unfortunately for Christine, the Phantom overheard Raoul’s love confession and her own admittance she didn’t want the Phantom. His reaction shows just how dangerous and abusive he is. This scene gave me literal chills in the theater. Chills of fear FOR Christine. I cried as he sang that she OWED him her love because he made “her song take wing”. This scary possessive feeling for a “gift” he gave to a teenager is something most women have experienced. Because she was nice to him and thought he was a teacher, a person of authority, he now feels entitled to her body and mind. How the hell do you escape that? Instead he screams that she will “regret the day she didn’t do all that the Phantom asked of you.”
The second act starts with Christine and Raoul discussing their secret engagement at the Masquerade. But Raoul is dismissive of Christine’s panic to make it public knowledge. He still doesn't take her seriously. The murder, poisoning, notes, and fallen chandelier aren’t enough for Raoul. It takes the Phantom upping the stakes by making a big, public scene complete with a list of demands.
Only then does Raoul realize there is a real threat, and hatches a plan. But to succeed, Christine has to play bait. She repeatedly asserts that she doesn’t want to sing in Phantom’s opera. Despite the escalating events Carlotta still implies Christine is somehow behind everything. The collective group adds insult to injury by implying that she’s crazy when she protests that Phantom will steal her away if she plays along with their plan (which he’s done once and does indeed succeed at doing again). The mounting evidence that Christine has been telling the truth is staggering. They all agree that the Phantom is real at this point, but just like in real life where no amount of proof makes people believe victims, they still think that he couldn’t POSSIBLY be as dangerous as Christine warns them.
Distressed by the events, Christine goes to her father’s grave seeking comfort. She cries that she “wishes he were somehow here again.” Her song almost comes off as a terrified prayer for help. The soft musical scoring and repetitive nature add to the litany. Phantom, as the professional, abusive devil he is, however, takes advantage of this spiritual moment by pretending to be her father and calling to her. Because Phantom has lost power over Christine and she’s fought to become more independent, this is Phantom’s only recourse. To emotionally manipulate her while she’s at her weakest. At his urging to come closer, Christine slowly does. One can imagine she thinks this is a sign from God/her father given the timing. Which Phantom damn well knows. Raoul interferes by screaming for Phantom to “let her go”. Phantom is a master at manipulating Christine with every piece of information he has on her.
The supposed love triangle hinges mostly on “The Point of No Return” which is nothing more than Phantom forcing Christine to act out his fantasy. It’s a fetish. The song is within the opera Phantom himself wrote and forced Christine to play that part of his willing, passionate partner.. By killing off the male lead, he takes over the male role opposite of her. To react to it being Phantom suddenly on the stage with her during the sexual climax of the opera would be putting herself in danger. So she fawns. People often hear about fight or flight, but fawn is also a biological response to threats. It's the process of someone acting in a pleasing way to an instigator in order to keep the situation from escalating. It’s harm reduction for victims. This can be confusing for victims themselves because just like fight or flight, they don’t always necessarily choose the response consciously.
Look, I’m on BookTok. I know we all love a morally gray character. But Phantom isn’t morally gray. He’s pure evil. No tragic backstory changes the murders, kidnapping, emotional abuse, and threats. Holding him up as a hero and putting him on a pedestal is a red flag to victims around you. Him freeing the woman he’s kidnapped and threatened at the last minute isn’t a redemption arc. The reason I probably loved him as a kid? I, too, had been groomed. I thought that’s what love felt like from authority figures. Giving abusers all the emotional grace in the world was the only way for me to survive the unsurvivable. As an adult, I’ve been in years of trauma therapy, however, and as I watch Christine’s plight, I mourn for younger versions of myself who were repeatedly abused by multiple people. And just like people don’t take Phantom’s abuse seriously, neither did they take mine. Men take on all the grace, while women and young girls take on all the shame. Somehow we brought it on ourselves. We should be grateful, really. So next time you listen to the powerful score, I implore you not to look through the lens of Phantom’s sad backstory, but to see the scared child begging for freedom. And eventually having to physically fight for it in the last scenes. No one else was capable of saving her. It was not her guardian figure, Madame Giry, who let this go on too long when she knew from the beginning and could’ve whisked Christine away. Nor was it her useless admirer Raoul who still thinks he knows better than her. Christine saves herself, just as all girls ultimately must.