The Angel of the Opera Review

This is the second Sherlock Holmes review, this one for Sam Siciliano’s “Sherlock Holmes and the Angel of the Opera.” I had a lot of fun with Siciliano’s “The White Worm” already and definitely also enjoyed Angel of the Opera a lot. So much, in fact, that I stayed up late to finish the novel. The end may be foreshadowed a little too much in the beginning, but that doesn’t hurt the story at all.

Crossover stories are a lot of fun to write or read and so it’s only logical to combine Sherlock Holmes with whatever other characters of renown have been written or placed around the same time as him. While ‘Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper’ suffers from Holmes being too good a detective not to find the Ripper before the fifth death, Dracula is not that good a topic, because Sherlock Holmes doesn’t work too well with the occult (although “A Betrayal in Blood” does a very good job, but only by making the count human). Angel of the Opera doesn’t use Dracula - it uses the Phantom of the Opera instead. A good choice, since Erik, no matter his moniker of ‘opera ghost,’ is purely human.

There are other reasons why the Phantom makes for a good crossover character: Leroux, the author of Phantom, composed the story as a mystery for the first half; Erik is a genius second to none, which puts him on an equal tier with Sherlock Holmes; both have a thing for disguises (although Erik has little choice, what with his disfigured face); and both have a musical inclination, Erik as a composer, Holmes as a violinist and overall music lover. There has been one other novel on that topic I remember, but Angel of the Opera does a much better job in my opinion. Siciliano keeps Erik’s origin intact, which is great, because it hurts the story to change it - Erik is disfigured from birth and has been shunned because of his face all his life, which makes a great difference to the regular ‘he’s disfigured as an adult, often within the story in question’ versions.

Instead of Watson, Henry Vernier, Holmes’ cousin from his mother’s side and Watson’s successor with the practice, takes over the job of chronicler (as with all of Siciliano’s Sherlock Holmes novels, although Vernier as Holmes’ cousin is canon). Vernier has a deeper understanding of his cousin and knows him on a more personal level than Watson does - and there seems to be a certain enmity between him and Watson as well. He also has a different approach to many things, which changes the dynamics between chronicler and hero in this case. Being part French, Vernier speaks the language fluently and, as Holmes says, without British accent. This is one reason why he makes a much better companion for Holmes in this case - both speak French and are at home in Paris where, of course, the story takes place. Watson would be very much out of his element.

The foreshadowing in the first chapter is a little heavy-handed for me, but nevertheless only served to make me wonder how things would come together in the end (who’d make a better companion for a disfigured musician than a blind one?).

Once things get really going and the story moves from Wales to Paris, it tightens a lot and includes not only mystery (of course, most readers will be aware of the opera ghost’s identity from the beginning), but also a lot of action.

Like other crossovers, the story recasts some characters, making them a little less positive in many cases (Carlotta, the prima donna, might actually get off best, but then, she was unlikeable in the original already). This serves not only to cast Erik in a better light (without denying he did horrible things in his life), but also to pull the story out of its pulp origins and give it a little more depth. Raul is no unblemished hero (not that he is in the original novel, the movies mostly cast him as a such), Christine a little less of the innocent ingénue, the Persian more sinister. Oh, and bloodhound Toby turns out to be a she, but that’s just an aside.

The novel does a great job merging a Sherlock Holmes story with The Phantom of the Opera as Leroux wrote it. Holmes works around the known characters and meets with them, but he doesn’t drive the story of the love triangle Erik-Christine-Raul. He has been hired to find the opera ghost who is blackmailing the managers (who is also Erik), Raul’s older brother tries to hire him to make sure there’s no wedding bells for Raul and Christine (a nobleman and a singer? inconceivable!), Raul himself wants Holmes to find out why Christine doesn’t want to see him. Like this, Holmes and, as an extension, Vernier are pulled into the thick of it, they’re at the opera when the chandelier falls (killing only one person), they’re around when the Red Death walks through the masquerade, they’re there when Christine vanishes from the stage during the last scene of Faust.

Yet, the story of the Phantom as we know it plays out without Sherlock Holmes and Henry Vernier. They are not among those who hunt Erik after Christine’s disappearance, even though they are there when Christine must make her choice. Holmes, of course, has seen the choice coming far ahead, he just knows how such things play out (as if flittering, little Christine would choose a man of talent and experience over a pretty nobleman). Yet, the very end is changed without being changed for the public. For the public, Erik dies under the opera. In reality? That would be a spoiler, but see the heavy foreshadowing.

Within Siciliano’s canon, The Angel of the Opera marks a turning point for Vernier - as a result of the things happening in Paris, he finally decides do ask his love Michelle for her hand, brushing aside that she is, in fact, not an innocent maiden. Since they’re a very happy couple in latter novels, his choice surely wasn’t wrong.

My little grief with the novel is that it can’t abstain from throwing in a few French sentences (despite the fact that my remains of French learned in school enabled me to understand them perfectly). Since it’s established early on that both Holmes and Vernier speak French well and since the story takes place mostly in France, it’s easy to assume that they will be speaking French with the people they meet in Paris and Brittany. There’s no need to drop several French sentences in. However, this is one of my pet peeves - authors using different languages in the same book or writing out accents and dialects - and doesn’t really hurt the novel as a such.

“Sherlock Holmes and the Angel of the Opera” is a great crossover between Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom of the Opera, doing justice to both characters and offering a large amount of action for the reader (but then, it’s hardly a mystery who the opera ghost is). The story is well-written and entertaining and Siciliano keeps close to Leroux’s novel, which is great for a reader like me, who would wish for more versions which keep Erik’s origin intact. Curl up with the book and enjoy the story, it’s a great way to spend a few hours.