PARIS (AFP) -- The curse of the “The Phantom of the Opera” appears to have struck again with a fire at a Paris theater on Sunday, which is threatening to derail the musical’s debut in France next month.

The global sensation composed by Britain’s Andrew Lloyd Webber was due to open at the Mogador theater in Paris on Oct. 13.

But a blaze that started under the stage of the Mogador on Sunday morning has thrown the plan into doubt, the theater’s management said in a statement. A fireman was injured bringing the fire under control.

A superstition has grown up over the years among theater-makers and audiences that performances of “Phantom” are somehow cursed -- in much the same way that actors shy away from uttering the name of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

In 1896 a chandelier counterweight fell from the ceiling killing a patron at the Paris Opera House, inspiring Gaston Leroux to write the novel on which the “Phantom” musical is based.

The fire on Sunday damaged scenery for the upcoming production, along with part of the theater’s floor, the Mogador said.

“(It is) difficult to estimate the time needed for the repairs at the moment,” its statement said.

“We will probably know tomorrow if we will need to delay the performance,” the theater’s director Laurent Bentata told AFP.

The cause of the fire is still unknown.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” which had its world premiere at Her Majesty's Theatre in London in 1986, is the most lucrative theater venture of all time, grossing a reported $5.6 billion worldwide.