十九世紀のパリにそびえ立つ豪華なオペラ座は、世界中の音楽家や舞台人が憧れる華やかな殿堂であった。しかし、その煌びやかな表舞台の裏では、ある奇妙な噂が職員たちの間に絶えず流れていた。
In nineteenth-century Paris, the magnificent Opera House rose above the city as a glittering temple to which musicians and stage artists from all over the world dreamed of pilgrimage. Yet behind that brilliant facade, a strange rumor had taken hold and never quite faded among the staff who worked there.
「夜な夜な地下から不気味な音楽が聞こえてくる」「五番のボックス席には誰も座らせてはならぬとの脅迫状が届く」と、関係者たちはひそひそと言い交わしていた。いつしか彼らは、その正体不明の存在を「オペラ座の怪人」と呼ぶようになっていたのである。
"Eerie music can be heard rising from the cellars at night," "a threatening letter has come demanding that no one be allowed to sit in Box Five" — these were the things they whispered to one another. Before long they had come to call this unknown presence simply the Phantom of the Opera.
そんな折、若く美しい歌手のクリスティーヌが、合唱団の一人にすぎなかった地位から、突如として主役の代役に大抜擢された。その夜の彼女の歌声は神々しいほどに澄み渡り、観客はそろって息をのみ、嵐のような喝采を送った。
It was just then that Christine, a young and beautiful singer who had been no more than one face among the chorus, was suddenly thrust into the leading role as an understudy. That night her voice rang out with a clarity so pure it seemed almost divine, and the audience held its breath as one before sending up a storm of applause.
楽屋を訪ねた友人に、クリスティーヌは打ち明けた。「実は私には、見えない『音楽の天使』が毎晩こっそりと歌の指導をしてくれているの」と、彼女ははにかみながらも、その存在を心の底から信じきっていた。
To a friend who came to her dressing room afterward, Christine confided the truth. "An invisible 'Angel of Music' has been secretly giving me singing lessons every night," she said. Bashful as she was, she clearly believed in his existence with all her heart.
しかし、その「天使」の正体は、エリックという名の、生まれつき顔がひどく醜く崩れた一人の天才音楽家であった。世間の蔑みと拒絶に身も心も削られながら生きてきた彼は、ついには地上に居場所を失い、オペラ座の地下深くに身を潜めて暮らすほかなかったのである。
But this "angel" was, in fact, none other than Erik — a brilliant musician born with a face so hideously deformed that the world above could not bear to look upon him. Worn down in body and soul by years of scorn and rejection, he had at last lost every place where he might belong above ground, and had no choice but to hide himself away in the deep cellars beneath the Opera.
暗い湖と燭台に囲まれた地下の隠れ家で、彼は誰にも知られぬ孤独の中、ひそかにオペラの楽譜を書き、歌姫の卵たちにそっと声楽の手ほどきをしていた。
In his hidden lair, ringed by a dark subterranean lake and the soft light of countless candles, he lived in a solitude no one knew of, secretly writing operatic scores and giving discreet vocal lessons to a chosen few young singers.
彼にとってクリスティーヌは、暗闇に降ってきた一筋の光のような存在であった。彼女のひたむきさに触れるにつけ、エリックの愛情は次第に狂気にも似た独占欲へと変わりつつあった。
For Erik, Christine was like a single ray of light come down into his darkness. The more deeply he was drawn to her sincerity, the more his love began to take on the cast of a possessive obsession verging on madness.
ある夜、エリックはとうとう姿を現し、半ば呆然とするクリスティーヌを地下の隠れ家へと誘い込んだ。「君の歌声は私だけのものだ。永遠にここで私と暮らしてくれ」と、彼は彼女の前にひざまずいて願った。
One night, Erik at last revealed himself and drew the half-stunned Christine down into his hidden realm. "Your voice belongs to me alone. Stay here and live with me forever," he begged, kneeling at her feet.
折しもクリスティーヌの傍らには、幼馴染の青年貴族ラウル子爵の姿があった。彼女の才能とけがれのない美しさに改めて心を奪われた彼は、長年の友情を超え、真剣に求婚するに至っていた。
But by that time, at Christine's side stood her childhood friend Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, a young nobleman whose heart had once again been captured by her talent and untainted beauty. Their old friendship had grown into something deeper, and he was now in earnest sworn to make her his bride.
二人がひそかに愛を誓い合っていることを察したエリックの胸の内には、抑えがたい嫉妬の炎が燃え上がった。「お前のものになるくらいなら、彼女を世間から消してしまったほうがましだ」と、彼は恐ろしい決意を固めたのである。
When Erik sensed that the two of them had secretly vowed their love, a flame of jealousy rose up in his breast that he could not contain. "Better that she be lost to the world than that she become yours," he resolved with terrible finality.
そして公演当日、舞台の幕が上がり、クリスティーヌが歌い始めた、まさにその瞬間であった。舞台上の彼女の足元から照明が落ち、煙のような闇が一面に立ちこめたかと思うと、次の瞬間、彼女の姿は跡形もなく消えていた。
And on the day of the next performance, just as the curtain rose and Christine had begun to sing, it happened. The lights at her feet snapped out, a smoke-like darkness rose across the stage, and in the next moment she was gone without a trace.
救出のために地下へと駆け降りたラウルは、エリックの仕掛けた巧妙な罠に落ち、たちまち命の危機にさらされた。鎖につながれ、刻一刻と迫る死の影に、彼はもはやなすすべもなかった。
Raoul, who plunged down into the cellars to save her, fell at once into a cunning trap Erik had laid, and in an instant his very life was in peril. Bound in chains, with the shadow of death drawing closer minute by minute, he was utterly helpless to act.
エリックはクリスティーヌをラウルの目の前に立たせ、冷たい声で迫った。「さあ、選ぶがいい。私の妻になるか、それともラウルがここで命を落とすか」と、二者択一の残酷な選択を突きつけたのである。
Erik made Christine stand before Raoul's eyes and pressed her in a voice as cold as iron. "Now choose. Will you become my wife, or shall Raoul die here, at your feet?" — a cruel choice between two, with no third way out.
愛する者を救うため、クリスティーヌは深い恐れと悲しみを抱えつつも、おそるおそるエリックに近づいた。そして、ためらいながらも、その醜く歪んだ顔にそっと口づけをした。
To save the man she loved, Christine, with deep dread and sorrow in her heart, drew herself slowly closer to Erik. And though trembling, she pressed a soft kiss to that ugly, twisted face.
それは同情と慈愛に満ちた、エリックが生まれてこのかた、誰からも一度として受け取ったことのない人間の温もりであった。これまで愛というものに飢え続けてきた彼にとって、その一度の口づけは何ものにも替えがたいものにほかならなかった。
It was a kiss filled with pity and love — the first human warmth that Erik, in all his life since the day he was born, had ever received from another. To a man who had hungered after love itself for so long, that single kiss was worth more than anything else in the world.
エリックは堰を切ったように激しく涙を流し、長年凍りついていた心が音を立てて崩れていくのを感じた。彼はラウルを縛っていた鎖をほどき、二人を解き放った。
As though a dam had burst, Erik wept violently, and felt the heart that had been frozen within him for so many years break apart with a sound. He undid the chains that bound Raoul and set them both free.
「さあ、彼と一緒にここから去るがいい。二度と振り返らず、二度と戻ってきてはならぬ」エリックは震える声でそう告げ、ゆっくりと暗い地下の奥へと姿を消した。
"Now — go from here with him. Do not look back, and never return," Erik told them in a shaking voice, and then he turned and walked slowly into the deeper darkness of the cellars and was gone.
その後、オペラ座の地下を捜索した警察が見つけたのは、ただ一つ、静かに転がっていた白い仮面のみであった。エリック自身の行方は、ついに知れずじまいに終わったのである。
Later, when the police searched the cellars beneath the Opera House, all that they found was a single white mask, lying quietly on the floor. Of Erik himself there was no further trace — in the end his whereabouts were never known.
類まれな才能を抱えながら、一人の人間としては誰にも愛されることのなかった男は、初めて真の愛に触れたその一瞬と引き換えに、自らの存在を永遠に歴史の闇へと葬り去ったに相違ない。
A man of rare genius who, as a fellow human being, had never been loved by anyone — in exchange for the one moment in which he touched true love at last, he must surely have erased his own existence into the darkness of history forever.