#Paris opera house facade archive#

Its Italian-style horseshoe auditorium, with some 2,200 seats, was no larger than, say, La Scala or Covent Garden. Indeed, the entire building was designed for people who went principally to the opera to be seen.

Were supposedly to drive up in their carriages. Yet when Garnier resumed work in 1873, he changed nothing of his plans: the grandiose western entrance, now closed, remained the imperial entrance, while the eastern entrance, also now closed, still shows where the wealthy The following year, even greater chaosĮrupted during the popular uprising known as the Commune of Paris. Construction was halted in 1870 when Prussian troops occupied Paris and Napoleon III fled into exile. Indeed, he and his wife, Louise, spent months traveling around Italy studying gilding techniques and searchingįor the 10 different types and colors of marble eventually used on the facade.īut the facade was also the only part of the building that the Emperor would ever see. 'I consider the facade to be the most typical and most personal part of the entire project,' Garnier wrote. The building's facade, which still carries the letters E and N for the Emperor Napoleon, was completed in 1867 to coincide with France's first Universal Exhibition. And finally $7.7 million was assigned forĬleaning its exterior. Once its auditorium was restored and its backstage modernized in 1995, it again - like the Bastille Opera - combined opera and ballet. Indeed, for five years after the new house opened in 1990, it presented all opera productions, while the Palaisīut then the Palais Garnier was remembered.

More recently, the Palais Garnier has had to compete for attention with the ultramodern and larger Bastille Opera. From there he went to the Trocadéro, where photographs show him looking at the Eiffel Tower, but the opera house was apparently the Visited Paris just weeks after the city was occupied by German troops in June 1940. Certainly, he made a point of touring it before dawn on the only occasion that he On the other hand, Hitler, that infamous former Viennese art student, is said to have considered it the world's most beautiful building. Debussy, for one, said it resembled a Turkish bathhouse. It was this mixture of styles that brought criticism from some late-19th-century purists. Garnier, an unknown 35-year-old architect when he began work on the theater, diplomatically described it as 'Napoleon III style,' although it is unlikeĪny other building of the era, with its polychromatic facade showing a strong Italian influence. In truth, the building has not always been universally loved. It looks as good - or as strange - as the day it was inaugurated Of culture, Catherine Tasca, exposing a dozen gilded busts and statues, multicolored marble pillars, delicate mosaics and almost shockingly white stone. After a 12-month cleaning and restoration, its facade was formally reopened today by the minister Now, long after most Paris museums and monuments have been given face-lifts, the Palais Garnier's turn has finally come. Yet in recent decades, the Palais Garnier, as it is known, has impressed mainly

#Paris opera house facade archive#

Opera Review Archive and Opera Plot Summaries From New York TodayĪRIS, June 20 - When Charles Garnier was commissioned to build a new Paris opera house in 1861, his job was to impress, not only his patron Napoleon IIIĪnd elitist operagoers but also ordinary Parisians who could sense the power of France through the giant building's extravagant facade.Multicolored marble pillars, delicate mosaics and white stone obscured for decades by grime Palais Garnier, dedicated to Napoleon III on the Place de l'Opéa in Paris.

Like new: Statues on the roof of the Palais Garnier bask in their gilding. Opera House Is Cleansed, and 1875 Paris Comes to LifeĪRTS ABROAD Opera House Is Cleansed, and 1875 Paris Comes to Life By ALAN RIDING