Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great...

"The turning point of Madame Bovary, which Flaubert memorably set at the opera, is only the most famous example of a surprisingly long tradition, one common to a range of French literary styles and sub-genres. In the first book-length study of that tradition to appear in English, Cormac Newark examines representations of operatic performance from Balzac's La Come;die humaine to Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, by way of (among others) Dumas...

Witness two stories: the making of an opera, and the opera itself. This film follows the day-to-day creative process of staging a grand opera during a 21-day rehearsal period and on to the final spectacular production.