Christine sings badly when she sees Raoul

[igenlode]

During the doomed performance of "Faust", immediately before the toad episode, there's a moment when Christine, singing the role of Marguerite's young suitor Siebel, looks up and notices Raoul sitting in the Chagny box. Her voice immediately loses its assurance and crystalline clarity and becomes nervous and dull (and Raoul tries to hide his tears by burying his face in his hands).

Why does seeing Raoul have this effect? The previous time they had seen each other was when Christine was nursing Raoul out of his fit of hypothermia at Perros-Guirec, after which she vanishes without saying goodbye and sends him a letter to say that they can never meet again.

Is it the sight of Raoul's distress that affects Christine's singing, or is it the spectacle of Christine's botched performance that causes Raoul's distress? I think I've seen this scene cited in the past as evidence that Erik inspires Christine to perform to greater heights, while Raoul actually sabotages her by his mere presence :-p

Comments

[betweensunandmoon]

Perhaps the sight of Raoul reminds Christine that she really is beginning to love him after all, and makes her worry about what her mysterious teacher might do if he finds out...

[igenlode]

Christine already knows perfectly well that she loves Raoul, and she knows that the Voice knows that she loves him (since it was Erik who made her aware of it in the first place!) The only person who is unaware of it at this point in the story is poor Raoul himself... but fan-fiction tends to overlook this point, since we don't get Christine's perspective on the chronology of the story until long after the events in question, and it's all mixed up with her story about the kidnapping, which interest tends to focus on.

She falls in love with him before he even attempts to speak to her: Sur ces entrefaites, Raoul, je vous aperçus, un soir, dans la salle. Ma joie fut telle que je ne pensai même point à la cacher en rentrant dans ma loge. Pour notre malheur, la Voix y était déjà et elle vit bien, à mon air, qu’il y avait quelque chose de nouveau. Elle me demanda “ce que j’avais” et je ne vis aucun inconvénient à lui raconter notre douce histoire, ni à lui dissimuler la place que vous teniez dans mon cœur. Alors, la Voix se tut : je l’appelai, elle ne me répondit point ; je la suppliai, ce fut en vain. J’eus une terreur folle qu’elle fût partie pour toujours !

"I saw you one evening in the audience and was unable to conceal the joy I felt. The Voice was present when I returned to my dressing-room and could tell that something had happened. It demanded to know what was wrong(?) and I saw no reason not to recount our history together and the place you held in my heart. In response the Voice vanished and would not answer, however much I begged, and I was terrified that it had gone for ever."

But when she tells all this to Mme Valerius, her foster-mother remarks that of course the Voice is jealous... and it is this revelation that there might be something to be jealous of in her feelings for Raoul that causes Christine to realise for the first time that she loves him. She explicitly says that this was before she even knew whether or not he remembered her too, i.e. it is before he has made the slightest approach to her.

Erik knows it before Christine, and Christine knows it before Raoul. It's only the poor reader and protagonist who are kept deliberately in the dark :-p

[igenlode]

In fact, a sentence or so later, we are told that Christine's reaction suggests she is frightened: Quelque chose qu’on ne savait pas, assourdissait, alourdissait son chant… Il y avait, là-dessous, du tremblement et de la crainte.

I would assume she is afraid for Raoul, though it's conceivable that she is afraid of consequences for herself if the Voice notices him there. (This seems unlikely: the Voice has done nothing more at this point than go on annoying rants about her supposed feelings for Raoul, and she has demonstrated her lack of the latter sufficiently to merit the promised performance of "Lazarus", from which we can assume that Erik is happy with her treatment of Raoul at Perros-Guirec.)

In her letter of dismissal to Raoul she had begged him not to speak to her or visit her dressing-room again because both their lives may depend upon it: Surtout, ne pénétrez plus jamais dans ma loge. Il y va de ma vie. Il y va de la vôtre. (I suspect this may be an error of chronology by Leroux, since at this point Christine has yet to unmask Erik and she has no cause for physical fear of the Voice!) But in any case Raoul is not in her dressing-room. He is attending an opera performance as his brother's guest, which he has every right to do and which Christine can hardly be expected to prevent.

But it seems to me that the most likely cause of Christine's dismay and fear at seeing Raoul is that, as has been mentioned earlier in the scene, he looks much too ill to be in the theatre; she hasn't seen him since he came round in the inn at Perros, and both the managers and the Comte comment on his state of health ("Il a l'air malade", dans un état de santé alarmant). So the simplest answer is that she got Philippe's letter telling her that Raoul was ill and asking her what on earth was going on, didn't believe that Raoul could really be in any danger as a result of events at Perros-Guirec, and then realised to her horror when she caught sight of him that he really had been seriously unwell as a consequence of their little excursion.

At any rate that's the version I've used for my current chapter ;-)