Prologue (Film Version)

[AUCTIONEER, spoken]
Sold. Your number, sir? Thank you

Lot 665, ladies and gentlemen: a papier-maché musical box in the shape of a barrel-organ. Attached, the figure of a monkey in Persian robes playing the cymbals. This item, discovered in the vaults of the theatre, still in working order, ladies and gentlemen

[PORTER, spoken]
Showing here

[He holds up the music box, which starts to play]

[AUCTIONEER, spoken]
May I commence at fifteen francs? Fifteen, thank you. Yes, twenty from you sir, thank you very much. Madame Giry, twenty-five? Thank you, Madame. Twenty-five, I'm bid. Do I hear thirty? Thirty! And thirty-five? Selling at thirty francs then. Thirty once, thirty twice?

Sold, for thirty francs to the Vicomte de Chagny. Thank you, sir

[The box is handed across to RAOUL. He studies it.]

[RAOUL (in his mind)]
A collector's piece, indeed
Every detail exactly as she said
Will you still play, when all the rest of us are dead?

[AUCTIONEER, spoken]
Lot 666, then: a chandelier in pieces. Some of you may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera—a mystery never fully explained. We're told, ladies and gentlemen, that this is the very chandelier which figures in the famous disaster. Our workshops have repaired it and wired parts of it for the new electric light. Perhaps we may frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination. Gentlemen?

[The AUCTIONEER switches on the chandelier. There is a flash, and the OVERTURE begins. During the Overture, the opera house is restored to its earlier grandeur. The chandelier, immense and glittering, rises magically from the floor, assuming its place on the theater's ceiling]