Antoinette Giry (Réyer) (JUH-EER-REE)
Titles: Ballet Mistress of the Opéra, Formerly Lady Giry of Summeredge House
Nicknames: Annie, ‘Nette
Born: 2nd September 1830 in Versailles, Paris.
Mother: Béatrice Bellanger
Father: Jean- Antoine Déféyer
Siblings: Four elder brothers: Justin, Arsène, Jean, Louis- Claude.
Height: 1.57 metres/ 5ft 2inches
Weight: 140lbs/ 10 stone
Eyes: Blue- Grey
Hair: Dirty Blonde
Spouse: Henri Giry (1st husband, deceased)/ Jerome Réyer (2nd husband)
Children: 2 daughters: Marguerite and Ember
Prized Possessions: Her ballet shoes, pictures and letters from her first husband, and a collections of daguerreotypes taken by Jerome.
Brief History
Antoinette Giry [née Deféyer] was born in 1830 to wealthy landowners, Jean-Antoine and Béatrice Deféyer. Indulged from birth as the eldest daughter of four, Antoinette lived a life of idyllic bliss, as any girl of her class might. She attended the royal school of ballet in Paris, and received the best training on the road to following her dream of becoming a prima ballerina in the city’s most prestigious of social locations : L’Opéra de Paris.
When Antoinette was not at school, she spent most of her time with her oldest and dearest friend Jerome Réyer, a young middle class daguerreotype enthusiast, who was working as an apprentice conductor to his father at the Paris Opera, much to protest of her bourgeois parents.
One night while Antoinette was out at a visiting travelling fair, she came across a tent in the farthest corner, in which she entered. In there she witnessed a most horrific sight. There was a small cage, containing a solitaire emaciated boy, with a grain sack on his head. She continued to watch aghast as the boy’s master beat him viscously while displaying what was beneath the “mask” to a jeering audience. What she saw, moved her to her very core, and that night she returned to camp and set that boy free. This was the beginning of the friendship she had with future Phantom, Erik Destler.
For three years Antoinette, Erik and Jerome were best friends despite their vast age and class differences, until one night of Erik’s thirteenth year… he disappeared. Annie was distraught and to ease her grief she married her fiancé Henri. Nine months later she gave birth to her first daughter, Meg.
It was seven years later before they are reunited again when she finds a fallen rider in the woods near her home. The rider turns out to be Erik, whom she takes many pains to nurse back to health and find him residence in the bowels of the Opéra Populaire. Tragedy besets the young woman however, when her gendarme husband is shot down on the job, and she is left penniless and forced into the working class. She takes a job as the ballet mistress of the Opéra Populaire, a degrading position which shrivels her natural kind nature and makes her into a cold and rigid woman, whom many would consider to be heartless.
She remains there until the theatre is burnt down in an event known only as the ‘Great Fire of 1869’ and she is forced to take up residence with her eldest daughter, who had currently married into wealth. There she continues to watch the goings on from the sidelines, bottling up any feelings she has for Jerome and cursing her illegitimate daughter Ember, whom she views as a sign of her infidelity.
Character Personality
Being of bourgeois lineage, Antoinette was in her early days something of a snob. Despite this she had a good heart and would go to any length to help a friend, especially those she thought needed her help the most. She has a fiery temper and a will of steel, which is quite uncommon for a women of her time. She is not afraid to voice her opinion and she doesn’t care if the person hearing it disapproves. She is a independent thinker and a free spirit, however during the later years of her life she becomes more bitter and hateful and goes through a period of mental instability – to such an extent she’d mistaken for being evil when in reality she is just a very troubled woman.