Paris Opera Garnier Theatre
At the top of Avenue De L’Opera, you will find one of Paris’ most spectacular buildings: the Paris Opera House.
Sometimes called the “Palais Garnier” after its architect, the extravagance of the building is a lasting symbol of the vision of Napoleon III and his planner, Baron Georges Haussmann.
Architecture
In 1861, unknown architect Charles Garnier won a competition to design the Opera House, but it took 14 years to build and it wasn’t opened until 1875.
The outside of the building is a combination of stone, marble and bronze which has led to jibes that it looks like a “giant wedding cake”, but despite this, it is very popular with both locals and tourists.
When it opened in 1875, its huge five-tiered auditorium meant that Paris had the world’s largest opera house.
There are many interesting features on the facade, including busts of Mozart and Beethoven.
If you’d like to see the inside of the theatre, it’s open to visitors and there are guided tours. Make sure you don’t miss the beautiful grand staircase and the Grand Foyer with it’s ceiling mosaics.
And, if you’re an art lover, you can see a cut-out scale model of the building in the Musee D'Orsay.
Opera and Ballet
Over the years, Paris has been the home to many great sopranos (such as the legendary Maria Callas) and they’ve all graced the boards of the Garnier.
And, of course, it’s not just the women, the top tenors (e.g. Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo) have also performed here.
Although this beautiful building is no longer the official home of the Paris Opera (that honour goes to Paris other opera house, the Bastille Opera), it still puts on many operatic performances and is still the official residence of the city’s ballet company.
Paris Garnier Trivia
The Paris Opera House has many legends and strange stories that have built up around it.
For example, one of the theatre’s strangest features is a subterranean lake. This lake appears in the story “The Phantom of the Opera” by Gaston Leroux (set in the Opera Garnier).
Whether or not you’re a lover of ballet and opera, the Garnier is one of Paris’ “must-see” buildings, giving (on both the inside and the outside) a sense of luxury that’s only really exceeded by the most opulent rooms in the Louvre.