Was there a guy who lived in the Paris opera basement?

Erik, also known as the Phantom of the Opera, is a fictional character in Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel *The Phantom of the Opera*. He is the main antagonist of the novel and its many adaptations. The Phantom is a mysterious, disfigured musical genius who lives in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House. He terrorizes the opera company and its patrons with his sinister deeds, and falls in love with the young soprano Christine Daaé.