This article accompanies the fable
From Russia with Love



The Phantom of the Opera


The picture below shows the original phantom, the original Angel of Music of the Night, Angel Fernández de Soto, with his white mask-like face. He is the opera ghost and music lover from underground... When it isn't on public view, this painting hangs on the walls of Lloyd-Webber's estate, along with a collection of paintings by Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones. It is scheduled to be auctioned off in June 2010.

ALW bought Picasso's 1903 portrait of his friend Angel, seated at a cafe table shrouded in tobacco smoke, in 1995. But an auction at Christie's in New York recently was dramatically halted amid claims that it was Nazi war loot. A court ruled in ALW's favor but he has opted not to try and sell it since then.

The musical's masquerade ball of course resembles Woland's Midnight Ball in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.