The Phantom of the Opera still used for training firefighters. The mysteries that Leroux uses in his novel about the Phantom are still mysteries. "The Phantom of the Opera"'s origins came from Leroux's curiosity with the Phantom being real. In the prologue he tells the readers about the Phantom and the research that he did to prove the truth of the ghost. His findings connected the corpse from the opera house to the Persian phantom himself. The claims from the prologue of his novel were ones that Leroux held onto even up until his death in 1927. In Paris in the 1880s, the Palais Garnier
Phantom of the Opera (1976 musical) Theatre of St. Louis. This production starred Sal Mistretta as The Phantom - his performance won him the St. Louis Theatre Critics Award. A second US production was mounted in 1988 in San Francisco at the Theatre in the Square, produced by Jonathan Reinis. The productions of "Phantom of the Opera" in St. Louis and San Francisco were so successful that Hill was asked to mount a national tour of the United States. Jonathan Reinis (who later produced Ken Hill’s "The Invisible Man" in London) formed Phantom Touring Company Inc. who acted as the producers for the tour, along with