Joseph Buquet is a fictional character in The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera

Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...

.

He is the chief stagehand for the theatre who claims to have seen the Opera Ghost. He is the one to first describe Erik, saying, "He is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame. His eyes are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils. You just see two big black holes, as in a dead man's skull. His skin, which is stretched across his bones like a drumhead, is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little worth talking about that you can't see it side-face; and the absence of that nose is a horrible thing to look at. All the hair he has is three or four long dark locks on his forehead and behind his ears."

In the first chapter he was found to be hanged in the third cellar between a flat and a set piece from Le roi de Lahore

Le roi de Lahore

Le roi de Lahore is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. It was first performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 27 April 1877....

, right next to the entrance to the Phantom's torture chamber.

In Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

's 1986 stage version

The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)

The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...

, Buquet describes the Phantom's appearance to the ballet chorus and demonstrates the way to counter his "magical lasso" (the Punjab lasso

Punjab lasso

The Punjab lasso is a type of weapon referred to in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera. It is described as a noose but employed like a garotte to strangle victims...

, the Phantom's weapon for strangling victims). Cautioned by Madame Giry

Madame Giry

Madame Giry is a character in the Gaston Leroux novel, The Phantom of the Opera. She is a fairly intermediate character in the novel, although her role is much increased in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical...

 against speaking out, he is later found strangled and hanging from the stage rafters during a performance, throwing the audience into chaos.

In Nicholas Meyer

Nicholas Meyer

Nicholas Meyer is an American screenwriter, producer, director and novelist, known best for his best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and for directing the films Time After Time, two of the Star Trek feature film series, and the 1983 television movie The Day After.Meyer graduated from...

's novel The Canary Trainer

The Canary Trainer

The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson is a 1993 Sherlock Holmes pastiche by Nicholas Meyer. Like The Seven Percent Solution and The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer was published as a "lost manuscript" of the late Dr. John H. Watson...

, Erik kills him as punishment for Buquet declaring his love to Christine Daaé

Christine Daaé

Christine Daaé is the main female character in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera , the young singer with whom the main character Erik, the Phantom of the Opera falls in love.- Character history :...

. Irene Adler

Irene Adler

Irene Adler is a fictional character featured in the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published in July 1891...

, currently performing Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

at the Palais Garnier

Palais Garnier

The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...

, hires Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

to investigate his death, beginning the series of events that pits Holmes against Erik.