Inside the Opéra National de Paris - Palais Garnier, Paris, France

#paris #opera #concerthall 00:00:00 The Exterior 00:01:05 Rotonde 00:02:06 Cave of Pythia 00:03:09 Grand Staircase 00:05:05 Auditorium 00:07:52 Lodge of the Phantom of the Opera 00:09:35 The Salons of the Sun and Moon 00:10:00 Grand Foyer "After Charles Garnier designed the Paris Opera in the 1870's, he called acoustics a ''bizarre science.'' ''Nowhere did I find a positive rule to guide me,'' he wrote. ''I must explain that I have adopted no principle, that my plan has been based on no theory, and that I leave success or failure to chance alone.'' He compared the acoustician to an acrobat ''who closes his eyes and clings to the ropes of an ascending balloon.''" - ttps://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/arts/if-music-is-the-architect.html "The auditorium has a traditional Italian horseshoe shape and can seat 1,979. The stage is the largest in Europe and can accommodate as many as 450 artists. The canvas house curtain was painted to represent a draped curtain, complete with tassels and braid. In the tradition of Italian theaters, the French-style horseshoe-shaped performance hall, because of the seating arrangement according to category, was designed to see and be seen. Its metal structure, masked by marble, stucco, velvet and gilding, supports the 8 tons weighing bronze and crystal chandelier equipped with 340 lights. The stage curtain was created by the theater painters-decorators Auguste Rubé (1817-1899) and Philippe Chaperon (1823-1906), according to the indications of Charles Garnier. The curtain was replaced in the same way in 1951 then in 1996. The ceiling painted by Marc Chagall and commissioned by the Minister of Culture André Malraux was inaugurated on September 23, 1964. Located exactly above the vault of the former rotunda of subscribers, the large auditorium is the heart of the palace. In a horseshoe shape, with four balconies, lodges and five-storey stalls, the place is designed according to the model of Italian theater where visibility is variable. Its dimensional characteristics are impressive: nearly thirty-one meters wide, thirty-two meters deep and twenty meters high. His gauge is approaching two thousand seats, with a little more than one thousand nine hundred seats. This place is dressed in dominant tones of reds and golds. The ceiling area which surrounds the chandelier was originally painted by Jules Eugène Lenepveu. In 1964 a new ceiling painted by Marc Chagall was installed on a removable frame over the original. It depicts scenes from operas by 14 composers – Mussorgsky, Mozart, Wagner, Berlioz, Rameau, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Adam, Bizet, Verdi, Beethoven, and Gluck. Although praised by some, others feel Chagall’s work creates “a false note in Garnier’s carefully orchestrated interior.” Large clearances provide access to the five levels with mosaic floors. All doors are mahogany and have a porthole. The orchestra (formerly parterre and parquet) The fourteen rows of seats in the orchestra are located on either side of a central aisle, the armchairs are in black wood and dressed in velvet, their padded backs are covered with an elegant bronze easel bearing the number of the armchair. At this level are the baths which are lodges on the ground floor. ... The lodges The boxes and backs, and their seats and benches are dressed in velvet and their partitions, damask and hangings. All the furnishing materials have a subtle play of crimson shades. The most famous and mysterious lodge has a gateway where (since 2011) is a bronze plaque indicating “Lodge of the Phantom of the Opera”; it is located at the level of the first lodges. This famous box bears the no. 5 proscenium lodges overlook the orchestra pit in the arc Doubleau forming the proscenium. For centuries, it was customary to have ten lodges directly on the stage, for the authors, composers and other actors of the show. Garnier had not been able to remove this obligation from his plans. In 1916, director Jacques Rouché announced his intention to suppress and redevelop these sites in order to install the control rooms and command posts, which was done in 1917. Immediately, Marie Garnier, widow of the architect, s’ indignera by writing to the newspaper Le Figaro: “We dare to attack the beautiful work of Charles Garnier, without fear of destroying this admirable acoustics, without worrying about the art with which the room was connected to the scene by these boxes” These locations, d a width of 1.70 meters, are used to reinforce the access to the projectors installed on the bridge and the frames forming the mobile frame." - ttps://www.hisour.com/auditorium-palais-garnier-51031/