This is mainly due to the description of the monkey as wearing ‘Persian robes’, and the fact that it’s apparently a ‘friend’ to the Phantom. Some people think that the music box is meant to symbolize the character of the Persian Daroga, who was extremely important in the original book but deleted from the musical/combined with Madame Giry. But this applies only to the movie, as there is no mention of the Phantom in the stage musical having had any such toy, and he was imprisoned *as an adult*. If we’re talking about the 2004 movie, it’s really straightforward: in the movie, the Phantom had a stuffed toy of a monkey with cymbals while he was imprisoned/exhibited as a child (probably an item that he got by chance after it was discarded by someone else), and seems to have upgraded to a more deluxe model after moving into the Opera house. And then old!Raoul bought it because he remembered Christine talking about it in one of her stories of the Phantom.īut, as for the actual *presence in the Phantom’s lair* of a music box in the shape of a barrel organ with an attached figure of a monkey playing the cymbals–your guess is pretty much as good as mine. If you’re just wondering why it’s in the Prologue, it’s because it belonged to the Phantom and was found in his lair by the mob, to eventually end up in the auction of old stuff from the Opera’s storage rooms.

I mean, assuming that you’re asking why there’s a monkey music box *at all*. That, my dear anon, is one of the great unsolved mysteries of ALW Phantom.

Phantom of the opera music box