May the 20th, The Paris Opera House

The Paris Opera was the home of the primary opera company in Paris, formerly known as the Académie d’Opéra. Originally founded in 1669 by Louis XIV, the company itself is a unique combination of Royal splendor versus public access to the arts. While it may have had public access, it retained its royal status, and the authority of the king was decisive as the primary stakeholder. The Palais Garnier, where we had our tour, was originally designed as part of the Second Empire reconstruction initiated by the Emperor Napolean III that was happening throughout Paris. Construction began in 1862, and after many setbacks, including attempting to build on a swamp and the Franco-Prussian War, the Palais was completed in 1874 with its inaugural gala performance in 1875. In recent times, the theatre received a mass restoration effort to restore and preserve the décor throughout the building, the work only being recently completed in 2007. The theatre space itself has its own legendary status, since in 1896 the grand chandelier fell and killed a patron. This coupled with the building’s underground lakes and cellars aided in inspiring Gaston Leroux to write The Phantom of The Opera in 1910.

The famed chandelier.

The Grand Staircase from behind.

Looking up.

Pierre Vidal, the current director of the Paris Opera, took us on our private tour of the magnificent building. There will be quite a lot of pictures in this post as a result, if nothing else it will do justice to my sore neck from staring at the ceiling constantly. He walked us through the main theatre space, which was prepping for the upcoming performances of Rain, a new ballet. We then stared in awe at the great hall and the surrounding architecture before moving to Napolean’s wings and private box. Opulent doesn't even begin to cover it.

Yep. Pretty fancy.

Getting fancy with the point and shoot.

The Palais does have a museum that showcases many artifacts from the Opera’s history. However, sadly it has been closed for renovations recently with virtually all of the exhibits moved to another location in the building to keep them away from the ensuing dust. Vidal showed us some of the many thousands of dioramas that have been made to represent the sets that have been on displayed, each made by hand. They have been stored away for the renovation, but a few were in the archive and library space where we finished our visit. Vidal went on to pull out some of the many compiled albums within the Opera's collection, and the building's reputation for opulence was continued in the photographs. The pages were filled with images of the players in full costume, posing as their characters. Many of the photographs were cabinet cards that featured the roles and actor's name on the rear. Magnificent, Roman-themed costumes were on parade in front of us; they were stunning. The collection also features some of Garnier's personal archive, including original drawings and designs for the Opera.

Some of the dioramas is storage.

One of the many albums in the Opera's collection.

Some more recent additions.

The archive has had its issues over the years; currently, the oppressive heat in the Parisian summers is an archivists nightmare. The entire collection is still on site despite this, but the renovation should aid in keeping it safe. Also, around 25 years ago, a mass-remounting project occurred to restore the photographic collection. While the intentions were good, the project went ahead without recording the information on the rear of the photographs. A secondary project was undertaken later on to use an infrared camera to read the backs of the photographs. This secondary project got all of that recto information back and onto new pages.

A remounted page.

And another one.

This collection for us was very much a visual one. I mean that in as much as the other collections we have viewed have been very historically based. This collection, while historical as well, is more about the content and the tradition of the Opera. I will now honour the building and the collection with a bit of a photo dump.