The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantome de L"Opera) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux.A novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century and an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil"s skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber"s 1841 production of Der Freischutz. It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations.