Erique Claudin is the primary antagonist of Phantom of the Opera (1943), and is loosely based on the character Erik from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1910).
Biography[]
At the time of the story, Erique had been a violinist for the Paris Opera House for 20 years, and had secretly been paying for music lessons for Christine DuBois. One day, Erique met with the owner of the opera house, and during the meeting, explained that a pain in his left fingers was affecting his playing. This resulted in his dismissal from the orchestra, and because he was using his salary to pay for Christine's lessons, Erique desperately went to Signor Ferretti, Christine's music teacher, and begged him to continue to instruct Christine without payment until Erique gained a new secure position. However, Ferretti denied his request. In a desperate attempt to gain money, Erique attempted to get a concerto he had written published. After not hearing a response after submitting it, he became worried, and upon questioning the publishers, Maurice Pleyel and Georgette Desjardins, was told that an employee probably threw it in the wastebasket where it belongs, and is asked to leave.
Giving up, Erique stood there for a moment, hanging his head, before he noticed someone playing piano in the next room. It is his own concerto, being played by Franz Liszt while he talked to an employee, who told Franz that he had been trying to convince Pleyel for years to publish Erique's work. Recognizing the tune as his own, Erique became convinced that Pleyel was trying to steal his concerto. Leaping up, Erique strangled Franz, and as he tossed Franz's body to the floor, Georgette threw etching acid at Erique, burning his face. Screeching and wailing, he dashed out the door clutching his face. Now being hunted down by the police for murder, he fled to the sewers of the Opera, and stole a prop mask from the costume department to cover his now-disfigured face, as well as the master key, which can open all 2500 doors in the Paris Opera House.
This marked a beginning to Erique's reign of terror over whoever stood in the way of Christine's career and his goals. His first victim was Madame Biancarolli. Aware that Christine was Biancarolli's understudy, he drugged Biancarolli so Christine would stand in for the show's remainder. This infuriated Biancarolli, who assumed Anatole Garron did it. The opera house crew, worried that someone could get hurt, convinced Biancorolli to forget the incident, under the conditions that Christine's success was also forgotten. This was met with dismay from Christine, and anger from Anatole and Erique. Erique later showed up in Biancarolli's dressing room and killed her, but was seen by Anatole, who attempted to follow Erique but lost him.
After some time, to catch Erique, Raoul Dubert came up with a plan, in which a different performer replaced Christine during performance of the opera "La Prince Masque du Caucasus" However, Erique strangled one of Raoul's men and brought down the opera house's large chandelier on the audience. While the audience and crew fled, Erique took Christine to his lair underground, where he told her he loved her and that she may sing all she wishes, but only for him, and will stay with him forever. However, Christine didn't recognize Erique and was afraid of him.
Just as Erique and Christine had arrived, they heard Liszt and the whole orchestra playing Erique's concerto. Erique played along with it on his piano as Christine sung. Hearing the noise, Raoul and Anatole followed Erique's music. While Erique was distracted, Christine snuck up and pulled off his mask, revealed his disfigured face. At this moment, Raoul and Anatole broke in, and a fight followed, resulting in a cave-in that crushed Erique, while Raoul, Anatole, and Christine escaped. Anatole then told Christine that she and Erique had come from the same town district, and she responded by saying that while Erique had seemed a bit like a stranger to her, she had somehow "always felt drawn to him". Anatole finished by saying that Erique's suffering will be forgotten and his concerto will live on. One of the film's final scenes shows Erique's mask propped up against his violin.
Trivia[]
- In the original script of the movie, Erique was Christine's father, but that idea was dropped and Erique's interest with Christine remained unexplained.
- There were even scenes filmed from this version of the script, but they were cut before release due to the incest theme they suggested, due to the romantic interest implied from Erique.
- This left Erique's affection for Christine not fully explained, with his feelings for her seeming both romantic and paternal.