Unfortunately, Erique is not in their presence, and because of his sour relationship with Playel, he believes the publisher is stealing his music. Liszt and the man standing with him comment on the high quality of this piece, saying it is sure to be published. It is none other than Franz Liszt playing his music in another room. Dejected, Erique is preparing to leave when he hears a familiar melody from somewhere in the building. Playel doesn’t like Erique, and doesn’t know or care what happened to his concerto, speculating it must have been thrown in the wastebasket. When he’s had enough waiting, he ventures down to see Playel himself. The look on his face while he anxiously waits for a response is affecting. Erique takes his music to the local publisher, Playel & Desjardin, and hands it over.
But Erique has a backup plan-the concerto he has written, which he is confident will be published and land him a significant pay day. To make matters worse, he has been using his wages to anonymously pay for Christine’s singing lessons, and now without a steady salary Christine won’t be able to continue them. The conductor has noticed, and Erique is unceremoniously dismissed after twenty years with the Opera. Erique is a violinist for the Paris Opera, but he has developed an arthritic condition in his left hand which has impacted his playing. As Erique, Claude Rains hits all the right notes of melancholy and menace. Between the two stands this underrated take on the story, which shows the Phantom in a much more sympathetic light. Typically, any piece of media regarding the classic tale of the spook beneath the Paris Opera House is about either the legendary Lon Chaney silent film or the modern classic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Such is the tragedy at the heart of the 1943 version of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera. But in one personal calamity after another, Erique’s life falls apart, and he is driven to madness and murder. His only beacons of light are his passion for music and the care he bestows upon a young rising star of the Paris Opera, Christine DuBois. Erique Claudin floats adrift in the dark seas of a lonely life, growing older, growing weaker.