Quotable Quotes!

The Opera House Library

(© Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1992)

    In this section you will find quotes I have found from various sources that remind me of "Phantom", but they do not come from  "Phantom"  movies, books, etc.

     I just love looking out for these! I  hope you find them as "Phantomesque" as I do.

    I will be adding  more quotes when I find them!

Contents:

Paganini was a famous violinist that astounded the musical world and influenced other musicans such as Liszt.

(Was Paganini a genius because of the Angel of Music?)

A quote from the book "Paganini" by Renee De Saussine

Hutchinson, London. Pages. 20 - 23.

    "Nicolo! Ah, Nicolo!  At the thought of him, Teresa crossed herself, so deep was her feeling for this child of hers.  Would  she ever succeed in rearing him? Although he was not yet six, he had often been at death's door.  He was so fragile, so terrible fragile.  His reaction to the least emotion, especially that caused by music, was so violent that he was threatened with convulsions.  His eyes would sparkle feverishly in his pale face, in its frame of dark curls.  The slightest mistake on part of Antonio, who was teaching him the mandolin in the evenings, roused him to fury.  At the sound of bells he would burst into prolonged fit of sobbing.  When he was taken to the Cathedral he would tremble violently all over with rapture at the sound of the organ, while his skin, which was remarkably delicate in texture, would break into profuse perspiration, exposing him to chills, colds, and bronchitis, which he had not the strength to resist."

    "Just a year ago, as he was playing on Carlo's little fiddle to the delight of all the urchins in the street, he was suddenly striken with catalepsy, the after effects, the doctors considered, of an attack of measles.  He remained for nearly fourty-eight hours as rigid as if he were dead.  In fact his parents, dissolved in tears, had gone as far as to prepare his shroud."

    "As Teresa went about her household tasks, she trembled lest that unkown world from which her child had barely escaped with his life, should yet spirit him away.  Doubtless it was a world of mystery, darkness, and fear.  Yet perhaps it had its own peculiar joys.  It might well be that those swelling organ notes to which Nicolo listened, wide-eyed with wonder, were the language of that country.  Yet earthly life, too, was fair, with its sunshine and its spring.  How intoxicating it must be to inspire universal admiration and devotion like the great artists of whom her friends had told her!  Surely it would be worth while, eve, like Tartini, one made a pact. ..."

***

    "There were many different versions of the dream that visited Teresa.  The details, which the neighbors repeated, originated with her, but had been passed from one to the other, distorted and elaborated by many commenatators.  Perhaps Teresa herself had unconsciously varied her story with each new listener, until her recollections became confused.  But it was generally agreed that Nicolo was five years old at the time of the dream."

    "According to some versions a winged creature, a genie, had appeared to la Bocciardi in her sleep, and had hovered above the head of her son.  According to others ( and this was the story that, later, Paganini himself vouvhed for) the Saviour Himself had visited her in a dream and had bidden her ask of Him a boon."

    "The final version was a medly of many rumours and surmises.  Teresa was wafted in a trance to a great gloomy theatre which was filled with mysterious music.  The soloist was Nicolo himself, grown tall and strong, and his music had a triumphant rhythm."

    "But who was that other figure, that venerable maestro who was conducting the orchestra?  At first she had taken him for Tartini, but gradually -- and surely it was not merely the footlights -- he became surrounded by a shining halo, which sent out rays of splendour.  His gestures guided a chorus of voices, so exquisitely tender that it brought tears to the eyes.  But yonder on the stage, a hostile figure with a guitar in his hand stood behind Nicolo, and fought the Master for him, note by note."

    "This personage was slim, dark, and lame.  He was dressed in red from head to foot and there were horns upon his brow."

    'Santa Maria!' exclaimed Teresa.  At her cry everyone vanished: the maestro, her son, and the Devil himself -- for the Devil it certainly was.  The theatre filled with dense smoke, which was dispersed now and then by witches in headlong flight, who brushed against la Bocciardi and collided with the clanging chandaliers.  How long had the theatre been burning?  An hour?  An eternity?  Where the guitarist had stood, she saw a monster with sharp-edged scales, who might well have been responsible for the conflagration, for he was belching forth foam and flame.  She could see his fiery breath, and the leaping flames, and the particles of charred wood floating about in the air.  Then the roof burst with the heat, and through the wide cracks she could see the sky, faintly luminous."

    "Siffocated by the smoke, she was losing consciousness when suddenly the reddish mist that had filled the theatre took shape and assumed a face and form, such as she had sometimes seen in the clouds.  And this radiant being lifted her on balmy wings and wafted her upwards.  His face was that of an angel."

    "Per Bacco!  If there were any sceptics who sneeered and went away, there were others who remained to hear the end of Teresa's vision.  She had, they learned, addressed that dazzling countenance.  She had pleaded for the future of her son, while she was still borne upwards in the angel's arms.  And his flight and her own prayer were sustained by the singing of the devine choir.  They reached the great roof, which was supported by four winged genii each with a golden trumpet.  Within the blackened walls, the choir burst into a hymn, in which the words ,"song, glory, love, and gold", were woven into a perfect harmony."

    "Overwhelmed with emotion, she stretched out her handes.  But at that moment the air began to quiver as in an earthquake.  She was snatched from the arms of her rescuer and hurled to the ground like a stone.  She saw cracks in the ceiling widen until it was split right across from the gallery to the upper boxes, and through this gap the angel escaped with his cloud of music.  High in the air, hovering above the tottering theatre, she could see the balconies crashing down into the darkness."

    "The next morning Teresa awake with her head on the flagstones of the floor. She was haunted by confused memories of her dream."

    'An angel,' she said to her yonger son, 'appeared to me last night in all his splendour, and said to me that whatever I prayed for should be granted.  So I prayed that you might become the greatest violinist in the world, and he promised that my prayer should be heard."

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Quotes from Victor Hugo's "

The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

Quasimodo's Song

Oh, look not on the face,

young maid, look on the heart:

The heart of  a fine young man if oft deformed;

There are some hearts will hold no love long.

Young maid, the pine's not fair to see,

Not fair to the eye as the poplar,

Yet it keeps its leaves in winter time.

Alas! it's vain to talk of this:

What is not fair ought not to be -

Beauty will only beauty love-

April looks not on January.

Beauty is perfect,

Beauty wins all,

Beauty alone exisits not by half.

The crow flies by day;

The owl flies by night;

The swan flies night and day.

"Earthenware and crystal"

    She knew not what to make of the friend whom chance had given her. Often she reproached herself for not having a gratitude sufficient to shut her eyes; but, positively, she could not reconcile herself to the sight of the ringer; he was too ugly.

    {....}  She strove hard to restrain herself from turning away  with too strong an appearance of repugnance when he came to bring her the basket of provisions or the pitcher of water; but he always perceived the slightest motion  of the kind, and went away sorrowful.

    One day he came at the moment she was caressing Djali. For a while he stood, full of thought , before the graceful group of the goat and the gypsy, at length he said, shaking his heavy misshapen head: 

'My misfortune is, that I am still too much like a man - would I were wholly a beast, like that goat.'

She raised her eyes towards him with a look of astonishment.

To this look he answered. 'Oh, I well know why!', and went his way.

Another time he came to the door of the cell (which he never entered)  at the moment  when La Esmeralda was singing an old Spanish ballad. {....} At the sight of that ugly face, which made its appearance so  abruptly in the middle of her song, the girl broke off with an involuntary gesture of alarm.  The unhappy bell -ringer  fell upon his knees on the threshold, and with a beseeching look clasped his clumsy and shapeless hands.'Oh!' said he, sorrowfully, 'go on, I pray you, and send me not away.'  She was unwilling to pain him; and so, trembling all over, she resumed her song. By degrees her alarm subsided, and she abandoned herself wholly to the expression of the plaintif air that she was singing. He, the while, remained upon his knees, with his hands joined as in prayer, attentive, hardly breathing, his gaze riveted upon the gypsy's brilliant eyes. It seemed as if he was reading her song from her eyes.

{....} Among the grotesque figures carved upon the wall, there was one for which he had a particular affection, and with which he often seemed to exchange fraternal glances. Once the gypsy heard him say to it; 'Oh!' why Am I not of stone like thee!'

At last one morning, La Esmerelda had advanced to the verge of the roof, and was looking into the Place over the pointed roof of Saint -Jean-le -Rond. Quasimodo was there behind her. He used to so place himself of his own accord, in order to spare the young girl as much as possible the unpleasantness of seeing him. Suddenly the gypsy started; a tear and a flash of joy sparkled simultaneously in her eyes; she knelt down on the edge of the roof , and stretched her arms in anguish toward the place, crying out 'Pheobus! oh come! come hither! One word! but one word, in heaven's name! Pheobus! Pheobus!' Her voice, her face, her gesture, her whole person had the heart-wrending aspect of a shipwrecked mariner marking the signal distress to some gay vessel passing a distant horizon in a gleam of sunshine.

Qusimodo leaned over and saw that the object of this tender and agonizing prayer was a young man, a captain, a handsome cavalier, glistening with arms and accoutrements, prancing across the end of the square, and saluting with his plume a beautiful young lady smiling from her balcony. The officer did not hear the unhappy girl calling him as he was too far off.

But the poor deaf man heard it. A deep sigh heaved in his breast. He turned round. His heart was swollen with the tears which he repressed; his convulsively clenched fists struck againsy his head, and when he wwithdrew them there was in each of them a handful of red hair.

The gypsy was paying no attention to him. He said in an undertone, grinding his teeth;

"Damnation! That is how one ought to look then! One need but have a handsome outside!" 

{...} The deaf man was watching her. He understood this pantomime. The poor ringer's eye filled with tears, but he let none fall. All at once he pulled her gently by the border of her sleeve. She turned round. He had an assumed look of composure, and said to her; 'Shall I go and fetch him?' 

She uttered a cry of joy.

'Oh! go! go! Run! Be quick! - that captain, that captain! bring him to me! I will love thee!'

She clasped his knees. He could not help shaking his head sorrowfully. 'I will bring him to you,' he said in a faint voice. Then he turned his head, and plunged down hastily down the staircase, his heart bursting with sobs.

{....}

On waking one morning, she saw in her window two jars full of flowers; one of them wasa glass vessel, very beautiful and brilliant, but cracked; it had let all  the water escape, and the flowers it contained were faded. The other vessel was of earthenware, rude and common, but it had kept the water so that its flowers were fresh and blooming. I don't know whether she did it intentionally, but La Esmeralda took the faded nosegay and wore it all day on her bosom. 

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A quote about Heidegger, Manager of the Haymarket Theatre during Handel's time.

from "Handel: His Personality and His Times"

Newman Flower, 1972.

(Pages 102-103)

       "People like Heidegger ultimately seldom fail. He got out of the Guards. He connived his way into the highest social circles by 'his elegant manners and amiable personality'. They called him the 'Swiss Count', simply because he looked like one. He gathered together some money from loiterers round Society's dinner-tables and began to produce operas.  Out of one he cleared five hundred guineas. So he went on, a delightful opportunist, so revoltingly ugly that women feared to look upon him."

       "Heidegger had a hypnotic personality.  His hideous appearance began to be out-balanced by his sheer cleverness.  When Handel came to England he was undoubtedly the most brilliant  adept at stagecraft in London.  His sense of drama was astonishing.  He made money, drank it, tossed it away.  He stalked through the drawing-rooms as Poe's plague -figure did at a later age in the Masque of the Red Death. And then the very ugliness of him seemed to create a sense of fascination. He had a wonderful, mellow voice that made it difficult to break away he was speaking. Women - Society women - from sheer revulsion, changed interest in the man.  The way he commanded, the way he talked, the way  he drew a whole room towards him, wrapped him about with a subtle mystery.  Then he began to receive offers of marriage, and was soon accepted as a hero who had been forgotten by God somehow - a man, handicapped by his hideous appearance, who fought and conquered adversity, through open courage and direct personality."

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Quotes on Handel

These quotes concerning Handel  are very "Phantom" appropriate I think!

(Wherever Handel's name is mentioned...I just inserted Erik's name!)

From the "Gazetter", 17 April, 1759.

On {Erik O.G.} , Esq.

' To melt the soul, to captivate the ear,

(Angels his melody might deign to hear)

T'anticipate on Earth the joys of Heaven,

Was {Erik's} task; to him the pow'r was given!'

From "An Ode to Mr. {Erik O.G.} On His Playing on the Organ" (1722)

By Daniel Part

I.

How shall the MUSE attempt to teach,

Artist Divine! in fitting Lays,

What voice with equal Thought can reach

Thine and the sacred ORGAN's Praise?

        Oh! might the Numbers flow with Ease,

As Thou our Spirits do'st command,

Which rise and fall by just Degrees,

Each Soul obsequious to thy Hand.

II.

        With Joy and Wonder fill'd, we seem

Born on the swelling Sounds on high,

Like JACOB in his blissful Dream,

All Heav'n approaching to descry!

            Now in more lengthen'd Notes and slow

We hear, inspiring sacred Dread,

The deep majestic Organ blow,

Symbol of Sounds that rowse the dead!

III.

        A pleasing Horror fills the Dome!

The Statues o'er each antique Tomb

Attentive look! While we like them become!

See! All, resembling Statues stand,

Enchanted by the Magic Hand!

            A solemn Pause ensues------

            All Things are hush'd, and ev'ry Breath

            Seems stop'd as in the Arms of Death!

Each restless Passion's softly lulled to Peace,

And silent Thought seems only not to cease!

How dreadful is this place! What holy Fear

Thrills round th'ETERNAL sing!  for surely here

JEHOVAH is!  far ye Profane retire.

Again we hear! And Silence now is drown'd

In rapt'rous Notes, and Ecstasie of Sound!

{...}

III.

{...}

Th' attending Graces with thy Fingers move,

And they interweave the various Notes,

CONCORD and EASE, DELIGHT and purest LOVE

Flow where the undulating Music floats!

Base Spirits fly; and All is Holy Ground!

Within the Circle of the Sacred Sound!

From "An Epistel to Mr.{ O.G}, Upon His Operas of Flavius and Julius Caesar"

(7th March 1724)

Crown'd by the gen'ral Voice, at last you shew

The utmost Length that Musick's Force can go:...

From the 'British Journal', 25th of March, 1727

"To Mr. {O.G}, on his Ademtus"

Hail unexhausted Source of Harmony!

Thou Chief of all Apollo's tuneful Sons,

In whom the Knowledge of all Magick Numbers,

Or Sound melodious, is concentrated!

The Envy, or the Wonder, of Mankind

May terminate, but never can thy Lays:

For, when absorb'd in Elemental Flame,

This World shall vanish, Music will exist:

Then Thine, first of the Rest, shall mount the Skies,

Where, with its Heav'n born Parent soon commixing,

It breaks through Trumps of Seraphims and Angels:

And fills the Heav'n with endless Harmony.

From the "Craftsman", 13th April, 1728

"Polly Peachum" (A new Ballad)

(This one reminds me of Carlotta, whom I do not like! Sorry Carlotta fans...EAAB)

I.

Of all the Belles That tread the Stage

There's none like pretty Polly,

And all the Musick of the Age,

Except her Voice, is Folly...

{...}

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  From the play "Mozart and Salieri"  by Alexander Pushkin.  (19th century)

Trans. G. M. Lee

© Music and Letters, Oxford University Press, vol. 39, No. 4, October 1957

Scene II

The private room of an inn, with a piano.

Mozart and Salieri at table.

Salieri: - Why are you gloomy to-day?

Mozart: - Gloomy? Never!

S. - Indeed, Mozart, you are upset about something! The dinner's excellent and the wine is first rate; but you sit silent and frowning.

M. - Well, I confess that my Requiem's troubling me.

S. - Ah! So you're composing a Requiem? Since when?

M. - A long time. Three weeks. But it's a strange story. Haven't I told you?

S. - No.

M. - Then listen. Three weeks ago I came home late. I was told someone had called on me. I don't know why - all night I lay wondering who it could be, and what he wanted with me. Next day ha came again, and again I was out. On the third day I was playing on the floor with my little boy. I was wanted: I rose and went. A man dressed in black bowed politely, ordered a Requiem  and was gone.  I sat down at once and began to write. - and from that day my man in black has never returned. I'm glad. I should be sorry to part with my work, although the Requiem's now quite ready. But meanwhile --

S. - Yes?

M. - I blush to admit it.

S. - Admit what?

M. - Day and night my man in black gives me no rest. He pursues me everywhere like a phantom. Why, even now he seems to be sitting here with us.

Notes: Pushkin believed the false rumor that Mozart was killed by Salieri. Also, Mozart's  Requiem was not finished before his death  as implied above ... (EAAB)

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Poetry Quotes

From "The Lady of Shallot" by Lord Tennyson

Part II

{...}

And moving thro' a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near

                Winding down to Camelot:

{...}

From "Maud" by Lord Tennyson

(This reminds me of the churchyard scene at Perros.)

Part I - VIII

She came to the village church,

And sat by a pillar alone:

An angel watching an urn

Wept over her, carved in stone:

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes,

And suddenly, sweet, strangely blush'd

To find they were met by my own;

Lord Tennyson

"Maud" - Part I, XXII - 5

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes

    In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,

    For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,

    "For ever and ever, mine."

{...)

10

There has fallen a splendid tear

    From the passion -flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear:

    She is coming, my life, my fate:

The red rose cries, "She is near;"

    And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"

The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"

    And the lily whispers, "I wait."

From "The End of the Play" by William Makepeace Thackeray

The play is done: the curtain drops,

   Slow falling to the prompter's bell:

A moment yet the actor stops,

   And looks around, to say farewell.

It is an irksome word and task:

   And, when he's laughed and said his say,

He shows, as he removes his mask,

   A face that's anything but gay.

"You'll Love me Yet" by Robert Browning

You'll love me yet! - and I can tarry

    Your love's protracted growing:

June rear'd that bunch of flowers you carry,

    From seeds of April's sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed

    At least is sure to strike,

And yield - what you'll not pluck indeed,

    Not love, but, may be, like.

You'll look at least on love's remains,

        A grave's one violet:

Your look?- that pays a thousand pains.

        What's death? You'll love me yet!

***

"The Conqueror Worm" by Edgar Allen Poe

(This poem is a bit gruesome, but it had some

 phantom like images in it, so here it is...)

Lo! 'tis a gala night

    Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

    In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

    A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes  fitfully

    The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

    Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly -

    Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

    That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

    Invisible woe!

That motley drama - oh, be sure

    It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

    By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

    To the self same spot,

And much more of Madness, and more of Sin,

    And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout

        A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

    The scenic solitude!

It writhes!- it writhes! - with mortal pangs

    The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

  In human gore imbued.

Out-out are the lights

    And, over each quivering form,

The curtain,  a funeral pall,

    Comes down with the rush of a storm.

While angels, all pallid and wan,

    Uprising, unveiling affirm

That the play is the tragedy "Man",

    And its hero is the Conqueror Worm.

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"The Masked Marriage"

from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

(Taken from the Wordsworth's Classics Edition. 1993.)

I thought this seemed a little "Phantomy"! The masks and the masquerade  I mean!

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