The Phantom of the Opera (1925) with LIVE Organ Score

Step into the shadows of Paris’s legendary opera house for a very special screening of the 1925 silent horror masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera, accompanied by a live improvised score on the magnificent pipe organ of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow.

For one unforgettable evening, the soaring Gothic atmosphere of Phantom will fill one of Glasgow’s most beautiful spaces, with every moment of romance, mystery and terror brought to life by the sound of a real pipe organ.

This is much more than a trip to the cinema.

It’s film and live music becoming one performance, and a chance to experience a 100-year-old masterpiece in spectacular style.

Even better, the evening is in aid of An Organ for Glasgow, helping St Mary’s ambitious project to bring a magnificent historic Willis pipe organ back to life for the Cathedral and the city.

“Feast your eyes - glut your soul - on my accursed ugliness!”

Beneath the Paris Opera House lurks a mysterious masked figure.

Known only as the Phantom, he inhabits a secret subterranean world of tunnels and chambers beneath the theatre. When he becomes obsessed with the young opera singer Christine Daaé, that hidden world begins to intrude terrifyingly upon the glittering stage above.

Starring the legendary Lon Chaney in one of silent cinema’s most famous performances, The Phantom of the Opera remains an astonishing spectacle a century after its original release.

Chaney’s Phantom became one of the defining images of early horror cinema, and the film’s famous unmasking remains one of the great moments of the silent screen.

Romantic, macabre and gloriously theatrical, this is a film made for the sound of a great organ.

And there can be few more atmospheric places to experience it than inside a cathedral after dark.

There is no pre-recorded soundtrack.

Instead, the music is created live, in the moment, on the Cathedral’s pipe organ, accompanying every glance, chase, revelation and descent into the Phantom’s underground world.

Bringing The Phantom of the Opera to life at the organ will be award-winning Scottish organist Aaron Hawthorne, one of the UK’s leading specialists in live accompaniment to silent film.

A graduate of the University of Glasgow, Aaron performs across the UK, Europe and the United States, and since 2017 has been one of the house organists at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. In 2019, he won the international Young Theatre Organist Competition in New York.

Silent cinema is a particular passion. Aaron has toured extensively with his improvised organ scores for classics including Nosferatu, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari , but The Phantom of the Opera has a special place in his repertoire, having formed the basis of his first major silent-film tour in 2021.

There is no pre-written soundtrack to follow. Aaron improvises the music live, responding to the film moment by moment and using the colours and power of the pipe organ to become, in effect, a one-man orchestra.

For Phantom, expect music that can whisper beneath a moment of suspense, sweep through the romance and then unleash the full power of the organ when the drama demands it.

With Aaron at the console, you're not simply watching a century-old film, you're experiencing a unique live performance created in the room, for that audience, on that night.

Part of the magic of this evening is where it takes place.

St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral on Great Western Road has music at the heart of its life, and the building provides an extraordinary setting in which to encounter one of cinema’s great Gothic stories.

Rather than watching Phantom in an ordinary cinema, you'll experience it surrounded by the architecture and acoustic of a great church, with the sound of a real pipe organ filling the space around you.

For a film filled with candlelight, shadows, grand architecture, secret passages and an organ-playing Phantom lurking beneath an opera house, it is difficult to imagine a more fitting setting.

This special performance also has a purpose.

Proceeds support An Organ for Glasgow, St Mary’s ambitious project to restore and install an exceptional Willis II pipe organ for the Cathedral.

The instrument is itself an important piece of Glasgow’s musical history. Originally associated with Elgin Place Church and later gifted to St Mary’s by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow, it was built by Henry Willis II to the design traditions of his father, the legendary Victorian organ builder “Father” Henry Willis.

The restored instrument will give St Mary’s an organ capable of supporting its worship, acclaimed choral tradition, music education and concerts — while creating an important musical resource to be shared with the wider city.

So by coming to The Phantom of the Opera, you won't only hear the power of a pipe organ accompanying silent film.

You'll be helping secure the future of organ music in Glasgow.

Find out more about the project at An Organ for Glasgow.

If you love film, live music, Gothic atmosphere, Glasgow's historic buildings, unusual nights out, or simply want to experience something you've never done before, this is for you.

The Phantom awaits.