The new Penguin translation by Mireille Ribière

Huzzah! I was just thinking the other day about whether I should just go ahead and buy the un-annotated edition. So glad to hear that the annotated one will be available soon.

Thank you for keeping us on top of news about this publication, Scorp.

~Madame~

Madame Giry wrote:Huzzah! I was just thinking the other day about whether I should just go ahead and buy the un-annotated edition. So glad to hear that the annotated one will be available soon.

Thank you for keeping us on top of news about this publication, Scorp.

~Madame~

Agreed! Thanks so much Scorp for the update. I've been wanting to read her version but wanted to wait for the new version. Looking forward to this release so much.

Nice. Looking forward to picking up my copy

R.

Amazon lists the new release date as April/May. It sounds like it's been one big headache for Penguin. The OUP one will definitely come out first.

Can't wait to buy my copy. If this is the best translation, I'm going to get rid of all my other translations and settle for this one.

Omg this cover is so funny! Unfortunatly we won't ever have a new version of the text in French haha They should bring the show in Paris for the 100th anniversary! (I won't stop dreaming of this! It will happen someday T___T)

Melly wrote:Omg this cover is so funny! Unfortunatly we won't ever have a new version of the text in French haha They should bring the show in Paris for the 100th anniversary! (I won't stop dreaming of this! It will happen someday T___T)

I'm very surprised the show has never visited France in one way or another. But I guess by now a French production would be a big deal, and they would want to make a lot out of it. Either that, or they'll send the new UK tour over.

The 100th anniversary has been, though.

Yes, this is sad. I don't know why but it seems that French people are not fond of musical? Or maybe they only love bad musical (Romeo and Juliet - okay I was a great fan as a teen XD , les 10 commandements, Le Roi Soleil... ). But they don't even remember that Les Misérable was written by Claude Michel Schoenberg and that it ws a french musical! I don't understand why I have to crosse the sea if I now want to see it T_T

Phantom should belong to french people a little bit too Haha!
By the way I wish that someday there will be a new version of the french edition of PotO... Here's what we have here:



Lucky me I have another/older version

Melly wrote:
Phantom should belong to french people a little bit too Haha!
By the way I wish that someday there will be a new version of the french edition of PotO... Here's what we have here:



Lucky me I have another/older version

Urgh, the current Livre de Poche edition is horrible. I have 3 older ones:







But you can buy MUCH better editions than the Livre de Poche one, even at the moment. The best by far is the annotated one by Robert Laffont, edited by the late Francis Lacassin:



http://www.amazon.fr/Le-Fantôme-lOpéra-Gaston-Leroux/dp/222108831X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333574971&sr=1-3

And there's also this new deluxe pocked edition from Éditions Archipel:



http://www.amazon.fr/Le-fantôme-lOpéra-Gaston-Leroux/dp/2352872545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333574767&sr=8-1

So go buy those!

Mireille Ribiere has added a nice, little piece on Gaston Leroux's novel in her site:

http://www.mireilleribiere.com/the-phantom-of-the-opera/an-unsettling-unsettled-novel/

I like her take on the importance of the opera house in the novel, and her understanding on how the operas within the novel is foreshadowing the coming event (something Maria Bjørnson also played around with):

For instance, it is remarkable that the works performed during the gala evening when Christine gives the full measure of her talent, should foreshadow some of the key events in the fiction: thus Saint Saëns’ Danse macabre (‘Dance of Death’) heralds the churchyard episode in Chapter VI and Delibes’ Sylvia the abduction scene at the end of Chapter XIV, the pivotal middle chapter of the book, while Guiraud’s Carnaval and Delibes’ Coppelia prefigure the masked ball in Chapter X and the whole make-believe world of the Opera House. More generally, much of the complexity in the characterization is derived from the operatic situations in which the protagonists are placed either as performers or spectators.

In fact, music is such an integral part of the novel that it provides a particularly useful angle to explore some of the fiction’s intricacies and Leroux’s ironical play with conventions and stereotypes. The plot does not follow the pattern of thwarted love so often represented in opera. Far from the usual love triangle, we have here the encounter between two impossible love stories : the socially unacceptable romance between two childhood sweethearts – a young aristocrat and a peasant girl who has made it to the stage – and the fatal attraction between a spectral, deeply flawed genius and an opera singer.

operafantomet wrote:Mireille Ribiere has added a nice, little piece on Gaston Leroux's novel in her site:

http://www.mireilleribiere.com/the-phantom-of-the-opera/an-unsettling-unsettled-novel/

I like her take on the importance of the opera house in the novel, and her understanding on how the operas within the novel is foreshadowing the coming event (something Maria Bjørnson also played around with):

For instance, it is remarkable that the works performed during the gala evening when Christine gives the full measure of her talent, should foreshadow some of the key events in the fiction: thus Saint Saëns’ Danse macabre (‘Dance of Death’) heralds the churchyard episode in Chapter VI and Delibes’ Sylvia the abduction scene at the end of Chapter XIV, the pivotal middle chapter of the book, while Guiraud’s Carnaval and Delibes’ Coppelia prefigure the masked ball in Chapter X and the whole make-believe world of the Opera House. More generally, much of the complexity in the characterization is derived from the operatic situations in which the protagonists are placed either as performers or spectators.

In fact, music is such an integral part of the novel that it provides a particularly useful angle to explore some of the fiction’s intricacies and Leroux’s ironical play with conventions and stereotypes. The plot does not follow the pattern of thwarted love so often represented in opera. Far from the usual love triangle, we have here the encounter between two impossible love stories : the socially unacceptable romance between two childhood sweethearts – a young aristocrat and a peasant girl who has made it to the stage – and the fatal attraction between a spectral, deeply flawed genius and an opera singer.

It's what would have been Ribière's introduction in the new edition, but a different one has gone in instead. Release date for the US is 29 May. Pre-order on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Phantom-Opera-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141191503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336359066&sr=8-1

I've got it on my Amazon wishlist. Looking forward to reading it

R.

Yeah, I'm going to get a copy of this latest edition of Leroux for myself too.