On January 5, 1875, 150 years ago and after 14 years of work carried out by the architect Charles Garnier, the monument commissioned by Napoleon III, which cost 36 million gold francs (329 million euros today), is inaugurated with great fanfare by Mac Mahon, President of the Republic, in the presence of 2,000 guests who came to France from all over Europe, including crowned heads.
“When it opened, it was the largest opéra in the world, hands down: 173 meters long, 125 meters wide”explains guide-lecturer Jean-Jacques Serres to AFP, during a visit to the building. With 27 meters depth, 48 meters wide (backstage included), 60 meters high, its “Then the stage is the biggest. It’s three times the size of a Broadway stage!”
Currently hidden by a tarpaulin installed due to renovation, its facade with polychrome materials, golden masks, medallions and allegories, is striking for its opulence and contrasts with the rigorous architecture of Baron Haussmann.
“The two men did not get along. Haussmann had built buildings around him that were a little taller than planned. Garnier, angry, added a few meters to his facade”says the guide.
The ghost’s lodge
The interior is also majestic, between its monumental staircase and its different marbles.
If the building, classified “historical monument” in 1923, is so visited each year – a million people in 2023 – it is also for the brightly colored canvases and aerial figures sewn to the ceiling of the performance hall, signed Marc Chagall.
This order, a tribute to 14 opera and ballet composers, came from the Minister of Culture André Malraux in 1964, who had little appreciation for the original, damaged ceiling by Jules-Eugène Lenepveu.
Among the boxes, number 5 is special: “It’s the one that Eric the ghost had requisitioned, in Gaston Leroux’s novel”explains Mr. Serres. The author of “Phantom of the Opera“ (1910) had imagined this character who, hiding a face damaged by an accident under a mask, came to listen to a soprano with whom he was in love.
And what about the stage, which saw the greatest dancers, from the Russian Tamara Toumanova to the Frenchman Patrick Dupond, and the voices of Maria Callas and Fyodor Chaliapin heard.
It is precisely in the “cage” of stage, namely the space which surrounds it above and below, that will take place, from the summer of 2027, work to modernize the equipment and renovation preventing any show from being held there during two years.
A shelter for the people of the neighborhood
On the fifth floor, there is a huge reservoir used by Garnier as a counterweight to stabilize the foundations of the building, precious water since “fire was the main enemy of performance halls”recalls Mr. Serres. “Today, the reservoir serves to the firefighters“ so that they can practice diving in a closed environment.
We also enter the old engine room, with rows of capstans and ropes. Manipulated by “trimmers” with the help of counterweights, they were used to raise or lower curtains and trompe-l’oeil canvases stored much higher, above the stage. They have since been replaced by electric motors.
Looking up, we see the first underside and its trapdoor, which allows Giselle, the ballet heroine, to disappear, while, on a wall, there is the inscription “open A” – the Opera served as a refuge “to the people of the neighborhood during the World War II“ – and a line “H” as height, marking the water level during the flood of January 31, 1910.
Another remarkable element: the staircase said “of the elephant”who saw a pachyderm loaned by a circus pass by for a performance of “Gallant Indies” by Rameau.
On the upper floors are the personal or collective dressing rooms of the 154 dancers of the Ballet and, at the very top, five rehearsal studios… On the other hand, since their move in 1987 to Nanterre (west of Paris) no longer look for them: there are no has more little rats.
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