In the dark retelling of Gaston Lerouxs famous novel, Phantom of the Opera, Maximilian Schell (Deep Impact) stars as a brilliant orchestra leader, Sandor Korvin, whose operatic wife, Jane Seymour (Dr Quinn Medicine Woman), commits suicide upon receiving a devastatingly bad review, rigged by the sinister and spurned Baron Hunyadi. After confronting Kraus, the writer, Korvin attacks him but is set on fire with a gas heater.

Five years later, he becomes The Phantom of the Opera, a mysterious figure who wears a gray, paper-mache mask and causes murderous havoc amidst the opera world. Korvin then executes his plan to exact revenge on the baron, the critic and the resident diva who thwarts his wifes efforts and now tries to ruin the young opera singer.