This week we joined another Paris Walks tour and visited the Opéra Garnier. Before heading in, we stopped at another Parisian institution just across the street, the elegant Café de la Paix, the famous cafe and restaurant of Le Grand Hotel, where you can get one of the most expensive espressos in Paris.
The Opéra Garnier was part of the great reconstruction of Paris started by Emperor Napoleon III during the Second Empire and carried out by baron Haussmann.
Although we had been there before, we'd never spent so much time inside or noticed so many details. Three words best describe this building: opulence, opulence, opulence—which is probably why it's also known as the Garnier Palace.
An architectural design competition was held in 1861, which was won by the relatively unknown architect Charles Garnier. The Empress Eugenie, who was upset that her favorite candidate, Viollet-le-Duc, had not been selected, asked Garnier about the building style in an indignant tone: "What style is this? It is neither Louis XIV, nor Louis XV, nor Louis XVI," to which Garnier quipped, "Why Madame, it's Napoleon III."
The Palais was built between 1861 and 1875, although work stopped in 1870–1871 due to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. The project also gave birth to the Avenue of the Opera, ordered by Napoleon III to link the now extint Palace of Tuileries, where he lived, to the opera house. The Rotonde de l’Empereur, the pavilion on the west side of the building, was originally designed to be the private entrance for Napoleon III, but was never fully completed—like his uncle Bonaparte, who did not live to see the Arc de Triomphe done, Napolean III did not see the Opera Garnier finished, since he spent the last few years of his life in exile in England, where he died in 1873.
When digging began for the building's foundation they discovered that the level of the groundwater was unexpectedly high, which even after pumping out kept coming back, forcing Garnier to design a double foundation system to protect the superstructure from moisture. This was the start of the legend that the opera house was built over a subterranean lake, inspiring Gaston Leroux to incorporate the idea into his novel The Phantom of the Opera.
The great façade faces the Avenue of the Opera and is adorned at the top by two gilded figural groups, Harmony and Poetry and at the bottom by four groups of sculptures representing Poetry, Music, Dance, and Drama, of which La Dance is probably the most striking (it's actually a copy; the original lives in the Orsay museum). Gilded bronze busts of many of the great composers are located between the columns.
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Paris, but I'm glad this was an indoors tour because it was freezing outside. We entered through the back and arrived at La Rotonde des Abonnés, an area reserved to subscribers. It lies directly beneath the Auditorium and leads toward the Grand Staircase. The tiles on the floor are stunning, and on the ceiling is Garnier's signature, in arabesques. It's hard to read the name of the architect but the dates 1861-1875 are fairly easy to find.
The monumental Grand Staircase is majestic, imposing; definitely a place to see and be seen as you worked your way towards the auditorium.
Similar to other European opera houses, it has a five-level, horseshoe-shaped auditorium.
On the southern end of the building, the Grand Foyer, a room that's available for smaller venues, reminds you a bit of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, except it has no mirrors.
On one side of the Grand Foyer is L'avant-foyer, or the Foyer of Mosaics, with even more amazing tile work, and on the other is the balcony, facing the Avenue of the Opera.
At the end of the tour we visited the Opera library, which is located in the Emperor's Pavilion, and the museum, where a portrait of Célestine Galli-Marié, the original Carmen, welcomes you. They also have a tiny replica of the original ceiling painting as well as miniature stages and real costumes from various operas.
The last picture was taken during a separate trip to Galeries Lafayette, from whose terrace you get a great view of the back side of the Opera Garnier. You can barely see the Apollo, Poetry, and Music sculpture on the top of the central roof.
