Trivia for
The Phantom of the Opera (1990) (TV) More at IMDb Pro »

• Based on a musical by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston. The idea for this U.S. version came about around the same time Ken Hill's version was playing in England. When Andrew Lloyd Webber produced his own version a couple of years later, the Kopit/Yeston idea was shelved. When Andrew Lloyd Webber's version came to the U.S., they realized that the two shows had different basic elements and direction. The show was revived as a television movie, using real operatic sequences instead of Yeltson's score, and later brought to life as the complete stage play with Yeltson's score, as originally intended. Thus three different versions were made (2 U.K. and 1 U.S) with Webber's being far more successful.
  
  
• The "sets" were in actuality the real Paris Opera House - in France called Academie Nationale de Musique or Palais de Garnier. All the backstage area, Grand Staircase, dressing rooms, even the cellars (with the exception of the auditorium, boxes, and the "lagoon") were all shot on location at the Palais de Garnier. The "lagoon" was the ONLY film set used for the film. The boxes and auditorium were another theatre.
  
  
• Only one of the operas used in the film is actually a French opera - that is the opera "Faust" by Gounod.
  
  

• Though this film is not a musical, many of the scenes portrayed in the film were kept in Arthur Kopit's/Maury Yeston's stage adaptation.
  
  
• Prior to filming, Charles Dance, who plays the Phantom, made it a point not to see the Andrew Lloyd Webber version on stage.
  
  
• In this version, as well as it's stage adaptation, the character of Inspector Ledoux is a homage to the Persian character, also named Ledoux, in the original 1925 silent film version of "The Phantom of the Opera," starring Lon Chaney.
  
  
• The only characters from this version, that are mentioned in the original novel by Gaston Leroux are: Erik, Christine Daae, La Carlotta, & Joseph Buquet. In the novel Phillipe was Raoul's older brother. Also in the novel, instead of Carriere knowing the Phantom's past, it is a mysterious character known simply as The Persian.
  
  
• This film only aired twice. It's original air date was on NBC in 1990. The film was subsequently shown in the mid 90's on A&E.
  
  

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