The current London souvenir brochure has a photo of the tomb with the dates 1827 to 1870, which I think comes from the Manchester production. In Hamburg they are 1831 - 1874 the show there starts in 1871, so her father isn’t even dead yet! In Vienna, the dates were 1841 - 1870 (making him die at the age of 29 if the show there took place in 1871, one has to wonder how old this makes Christine!). The Hamburg production also gives the date as 1871.įurther confusion is caused by the dates on Monsieur Daaé’s tombstone. Although the dates have now been changed to 19, the Vienna production gave them as 19, when the opera house was still unfinished. My own feeling is that the reference to his age was added by someone who saw the two dates and worked it out from that, and not because the show is supposed to be set in 1861 or that Raoul was supposed to be 46 in the show. However, the libretto still says that Raoul is 70 in the auction scene, therefore he was born in 1835 and was 26 if the show takes place in 1861, or 46 if it takes place in 1881. I had always assumed this was a printing error as it was quickly corrected to 1881.
The first librettos date the auction in 1905, and the action of the play in 1861, before work on the opera house was even completed. These dates are now given for most of the productions around the world. The current London production of Phantom sets the action of the show in 1881, and the auction scene in 1911, consistent (almost) with Leroux’s novel. Obviously now long out of date regarding international Phantom tomb dating!
( Image above from the Phantom of the Opera in Vienna, 1990 brochure, with Alexander Goebel.)Ī short piece I wrote for "Beneath the Mask" issue 12 (Spring 1996), on the confusing dates given by the show’s librettos and Daddy Daaé’s tomb.
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