In 1908, Gaston Leroux wrote about a disfigured man who terrorizes the Paris Opera House and falls in love with the young leading lady. This Parisian native was known for his cutting-edge horror stories, but if he were alive today, he would probably be amazed at all of the various adaptations of his “Phantom of the Opera.”  His story has been made into six films, and two musicals: one by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the other by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston.  Leroux was impressed by the first film version, produced by Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Pictures, in 1925, but didn’t live long enough to see any other incarnations.

The 1925 film stars Lon Chaney in the title role, with Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, and Gibson Gowland. Well-known reviewer Roger Ebert stated that “’Phantom’ has “two elements of genius: It creates beneath the opera one of the most grotesque places in the cinema, and Chaney’s performance transforms an absurd character into a haunting one.”

This “Phantom of the Opera,” a silent film, opened two years before “The Jazz Singer,” in which Al Jolson spoke and sang on screen.  But this doesn’t mean that there was absolute silence when “silent” films were shown. They were accompanied by an organ, piano, and sometimes a full orchestra: the beginnings of film scoring as we know it.  From Charlie Chaplin, who scored his own films, to John Williams and Thomas Newman of today, the power of music accompanying a silent or a talking film cannot be undervalued.  Experienced composers know that music enhances the action and emotion, but never overshadows it.

Providing the musical accompaniment for “Phantom” is Wayne Zimmerman, who has played in a variety of venues from coast-to-coast and in Hawaii, regaling audiences with his silent-film accompaniment and concerts.  At varying times he’s served as organist at the Lansdowne Theatre in Lansdowne, PA, the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, PA, the Brookline Theatre in Havertown, PA, and the Merlin Theatre in suburban Philadelphia.