Opéra Garnier

In my previous posts about « Around Place de la Bastille » you could see the new Paris opera house, Opéra Bastille, which was opened in 1989. The “real” opera house, the one we know since some 130 years, is now called “Opéra Garnier” and today mostly used for ballets. Both belong to Opéra National de Paris.

Most Parisians and tourists have never seen the inside of this building. I thought I should “offer” you some pictures from both outside and inside.

Already from outside I had a problem; there is some reconstruction work ongoing and it’s today impossible to get a total “clean” front view. I had to “steal” this one from Wikipedia. My second amateur problem was to get some reasonably good quality pictures from inside (obscurity, bright lamps…), but I did my best.

The construction took place between 1862 and 1875. It took a long time, because of unexpected ground problems, lack of money, the Franco-Prussian war, again a revolution (the Paris Commune), the fall of the Second French Empire… The opera was ordered by an emperor, Napoleon III, and inaugurated by a President of the Republic, Mac-Mahon.

A major reason to build this opera house was that the Emperor and his wife had been attacked on their way to the previous opera house (burnt down since) and wanted a more secure access with wide streets (the large Avenue d’Opéra had also to be built). For the first time in France, there was an official architect competition and a then young and unknown Charles Garnier was chosen.

Not everybody was happy with the result, the new Republic found it somehow to be too rich in decoration, but with the time I believe that most people would admit that the building is beautiful and Charles Garnier has now got the recognition of having his name linked to the house. (Please note that he later e.g. designed also the Casino and the Grand Hotel de Paris in Monaco.)

I show you some details from the outside, from the very golden Grand Foyer, from the entrance and the different corridors and salons and of course from the Grande Salle, built more for to be seen (extremely important those days) than to see; the most exclusive and expensive places were in the front of the sides. Further about the Grande Salle: There is an enormous six ton heavy lamp, originally with gas light. After a few years, the original ceiling painting was completely black. It was replaced by a painting by Marc Chagall in 1964, of course controversial (I like it).

You can find original photos concerning this post on my other blog "Peter - photos".