The Ghost of Federici at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne

Spring Street, Melbourne. The Princess Theatre reopened on 18 December 1886, rebuilt to a design by William Pitt, with a sliding roof and ceiling. In J. C. Williamson's company was a bass-baritone billed as Federici. Born Anatole Frederick Demidoff Baker, he had sung with the D'Oyly Carte company and originated the Pirate King in 1879. He was 37.

Saturday 3 March 1888. Opening night of Gounod's Faust, with Nellie Stewart as Marguerite and Alfred Cellier conducting. At the end, Mephistopheles and a fellow performer were lowered through the stage trap. The Argus reported that "just as their shoulders were on a level with the stage, Mr Federici was seen to put out his hands and clutch the boards".

He fell through the trap, taking the other performer with him. He was carried to the green room. Accounts differ on how quickly he died. The Illustrated Australian News saw the crimson hood, the pointed shoes and cap lying near him as "a grim and ghastly mockery".

Then came the story that made him a ghost. The company, it is said, did not know he had died. When they were told, they were shocked. They "had just stood alongside him while taking their bows".

Around 1900, during a false fire alarm, a fireman went to open a section of the sliding roof. He was later found huddled in a corner, shaking. By moonlight, he said, a statue-like figure had stood in the middle of the stage. "I could see through him!" Its eyes were "like a cats eyes".

In 1917, by one account, a fireman on patrol and a wardrobe mistress watched a figure in evening dress in the second row of the dress circle. They went back to work. An hour later she returned. He was still sitting there.

By 1946 The Argus had him "frowning at the weak performances of inferior actors". The standard portrait is "a tall figure of a good-looking man, in full evening dress, hair slightly greying at the temple, and of stylish appearance". He glides through the boxes. He disappears down the stairs behind the Royal Box.

June Bronhill saw a small, pretty pink light at the back of the dress circle. It "wasn't like any other light". In 1985 stage director Blair Edgar told Network Ten's Haunted he had encountered the ghost. In 2004 cleaner Trina Dimovska felt something touch her hair, shoulders and back. She turned, and no one was there.

No official, police, scientific or church investigation of the haunting has been found. The surviving 1888 reports describe a collapse, a doctor and the green room. None of those quoted mention the bows, and the Beside the Yarra blog calls the curtain call story apocryphal. Details drift between tellings: second row or third, a lift or a short drop. In 1967 Keith Dunstan described a book launch with themed cocktails meant to lure the ghost, and "by 1.30 a.m. Federici had failed to appear".

A dress circle seat is still left empty on opening nights. Seeing him is considered a good omen. The foyer bistro and bar carry his name. Sandra Burt's eMelbourne entry calls him "Melbourne's most famous ghost".