Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) Erik (also known as The Phantom of the Opera, commonly referred to as The Phantom) is the title character from Gaston Leroux's novel "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" (1910), best known to English speakers as "The Phantom of the Opera". He is unique in that he is both the titular protagonist and at times the antagonist of the novel. The character has been adapted to alternate media several times, including in the 1925 film adaptation starring Lon Chaney, the 1943 remake starring Claude Rains and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. In the original novel, few details
Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) finally confronts the Phantom, he claims that he cannot speak without his mask, as his mother forced him to wear it whenever he wished to speak as a child, and he is not Edouard LaFosse. Holmes therefore admits that he is not sure how true any of the theories or claims of the Phantom's identity are. The Phantom never provides a given name in the novel; he only tells Christine that his name is "Nobody" (a reference to the name Odysseus gave Polyphemus in the "Odyssey"). Regardless of his identity, the Phantom in "The Canary Trainer" is much more unhinged