Song

Prologue - The Stage Of Paris Opéra House, 1905

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Lyricist:     Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber



AUCTIONEER
Sold. Your number, sir ? Thank you.
Lot 665, ladies and gentlemen: a papier-mache 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.

PORTER (holding it up)
Showing here. (He sets it in motion)

AUCTIONEER
May I start at twenty francs ? Fifteen, then ? Fifteen I am bid.
Twenty, sir, thank you. Twenty. (Twenty-fine) Twenty-fine, thank you, madame.
Thirty. Selling thirty, then ? Thirty once. Twice.
Sold, for thirty francs to the Vicomte de Chagny. Thank you, sir.

RAOUL
A collector's piece indeed...
every detail exactly as she said...
She often spoke of you, my friend...
your velvet lining, and your figurine of lead...
Will you still play, when all the rest of us are dead... ?

AUCTIONEER
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 are told, ladies and gentlemen, that this is the very chandelier which figures in the famous disaster.
Our workshops have restored it and fitted up parts of it with wiring for the new electric light,
so that we may get a hint of what it may look like when re-assembled.
Perhaps we may frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination, gentlemen ?