Visits to an Urban Palace

24 November 2013

As I recently mentioned, Paris has dozens of emblematic buildings: the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower (le duhhh), and undoubtedly the Opéra Garnier.  Constructed during the Second Empire between 1861 and 1875, it is often called the Palais Garnier, which references its palatial scale and decoration.  Without any question, the term palace is aptly used when describing the opera.  Its details and decoration rank among Versailles in terms of grandiosity and gold leaf.  

Although I’d walked by the building more times than I’d care to count, and had studied it in numerous classes in college, I had never actually been IN the building itself.  I’d seen photos, I’d heard it was great, I’d considered it before… but I’d never actually pulled the trigger and gone in.  Well as I was sitting at home one morning, looking out the window at yet another very grey day (have I mentioned how crappy the weather has been lately?) and considering which cultural institution I would grace with my presence, I noticed where I had written “Opéra Garnier” on my list of things to do.  A quick Google search later and I learned not only that I could go visit the interior of the iconic structure, but that I could also take a tour… in English.  Score and score!  Since the website said that the tours were at 2:30 I decided to make my favorite French sandwich (bread, butter, and cured sausage) and have a nice promenade over toward the Opera.  (It’s important to note that Paris has 2 Opera buildings, the Palais Garnier and the Opera Bastille - a terribly moche - that’s French for hideous - building near the Place de la Bastille.  The Opéra - or Palais - Garnier is in NO way moche.) 

Due to the crappy weather and the damned buses my photos of the exterior didn't come out well.  So here's a photo from Wikipedia to make up for it.

It was a lovely jaunt, visiting the Christmas market, looking at people, doing some lèche vitre (literally translated it means window licking, but it’s the term French people use for window shopping), and finally arriving on the steps of the Opera around 1:30.  Thinking that I still had an hour of waiting, I plopped down on the front steps of the Opera and ate my sandwich but, since the sky was beginning to get a bit dark and since I was starting to get cold, I decided that I would go inside and buy my ticket and sit in the warm building while I waited.  When I got inside I learned that not only was there a 2:30 tour in English, but there was also one at 2, so I jumped at the opportunity, and before long I was standing in a large circular room waiting for my tour to start.

Before we start the tour of the Opéra, let’s go back and talk a bit about the building’s history and its exterior.  Nineteenth century France was a mess, largely due to the mess that closed out the Eighteenth century in France.  In 1789 the French revolted against Louis XVI which led to about 15 years of solid unrest with Robespierre, the Reign of Terror, and all that hoopla.  That was followed by Napoléon I, who appointed himself the Emperor and was crowned by Pope Pius VII at Notre Dame on December 2, 1804.  He was replaced by a king, Louis XVIII in 1814, who ruled until 1824 (except for a very brief stretch when Napoléon popped back up in 1815).  Louis XVIII was succeeded by Charles X, who was in turn succeeded by Louis Phillippe, who reigned until 1848, when the monarchy was abolished (again) upon the abdication of the king.  Naploéon III was elected president in December of 1848, declared himself president for life in 1851, and in 1852 declared himself emperor.  If there’s one thing for which you have to give the Bonapartes credit it would be a healthy sense of self and, particularly, of self entitlement.  Anyway, it is with Napoléon III that we begin our Opéra Story (which is different than the West Side Story).

Napoléon III in the dashing red pants (definitely the precursors to the Breton Reds available at Murphey's Toggery in Nantucket and the Holmes Store in Northeast Harbor) and the Baron Haussmann  leaning in to take the piece of paper.  Painting in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet.

Napoléon III was responsible for creating the Paris we see today with its wide boulevards that terminate at the most important and most impressive buildings in France’s capital city.  Under the powerful hand of the Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the medieval city of Paris was razed and reborn as the beautiful city of today.  Without any exaggeration, entire neighborhoods disappeared and buildings were given new facades to match Haussmann’s idealized visions.  Included in this plan were about 12,000 square meters for a new opera building.  Although Paris had lots of smaller operas, including a “national” opera, they were mostly constructed of wood, were old, and were, not surprisingly, prone to burning down.  In the case of Napoléon III, after an attempted assassination on his way to the opera one night, he suddenly felt he needed to have a more impressive building, and one where he could have his own private entry so he wouldn’t be such a target.  

In 1861 an architectural competition was held to decide the architect of the new building.  The winner: a completely unknown 35 year old man named Jean-Louis Charles Garnier.  He was fifth out of 170 entrants in the first round of the competition and the winner of the final round of seven architects.  According to the tour guide, the Imperial Architect, a very famous man named Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who was finishing up his restoration of Notre Dame (and who oversaw dozens of other projects in France) was furious.  He was apparently a bit sweet on the Empress Eugénie, and tried to sway the final decision.  According to the guide, the jury thought they had chosen the design by Viollet-le-Duc, but imagine their surprise as they decoded the Greek lettering that was used to denote the architect to find Garnier, not Viollet-le-Duc… Oops…  By the end of 1861 the foundations had been dug and construction lasted until 1875, when the building was finally inaugurated.  

Charles Garnier, 1879 engraving from an 1865 painting.  Wikipedia.

Model of the opera constructed by Louis Villeminot between 1862 and 1863 for the Emperor at a cost of over 8000 francs.  Wikipedia.

The Emperor's private entrance with carriage ramps.  Wikipedia.

By the time the opera was inaugurated, however, France was no longer an Empire.  It was a Republic.  Napoléon III was dead.  But the show went on, and the Palais Garnier was a huge success.  

Building the opera, November 1866

Now, let’s look at the inside.  We started our tour in a round room in one of the basements of the Opéra.  In fact, it’s the arched room at the lowest point in the diagram below.  Even though we were in the basement, it was impressive!  

Section view of the Palais Garnier  Studybible.com

Our tour guide started the tour by whisking us off to the auditorium, which would only be available to view for a few minutes because a rehearsal for the next show was about to start.  Most visitors don’t get to go into the auditorium itself, but we did.  And wow.  It was HUGE!  So tall, SO much gold, SO much wow-factor.  The seats were covered with a rich red velvet and the entire room was enough to make any idiot drool.  Even if I wasn’t an architecture wonk I would have been very impressed.  

The Emperor's box at the far right

The curtain, which is actually a painted screen that can be lifted up into the fly spaces above the stage.

Despite all of the gold and the very rich nature of the room, the ceiling stood out in stark contrast.  In 1963, André Malraux, France’s Minister of Cultural Affairs, wanted to modernize the nearly century-old building by having Marc Chagall, a Russian Jew, paint a new ceiling canvas - some of you may remember him as the artist who executed some of the windows at the Cathedral of Reims, which I visited and about which I blogged a few weeks ago.  (Interestingly, Malraux was a fairly large character in the book I just finished, And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi Occupied Paris, by Alan Riding, so it was neat to see something in which he was involved.)  I can’t say that I loved the ceiling, but I will say that I really did enjoy the juxtaposition against the traditional nature of the room.  I will also say that, having seen the model for the original ceiling on display in the Opera, I wasn’t a huge fan of that either…

The Chagall ceiling

The proposal for the original ceiling.

We were only in the auditorium for a brief while before the curtains opened up and we were forbidden from taking any more photos due to the set of Mozart’s The Clemency of Titus being on stage and because the show hasn’t yet opened.  Being whisked out of the room at the request of the director, we began our tour of the building, which was every bit as impressive as the auditorium room.  

The most famous part of the Palais Garnier (the French name for the building) is, undoubtedly, the grand staircase and vestibule.  This space is one of the most visually intriguing spaces I’ve ever visited.  There is so much movement, so much color, so much going on.  It’s overwhelming but at the same time so doable.  I don’t know how to explain it.  It’s so big, but it’s not.  In fact, it appears much larger in photos than it really is, but that may be due to the fact that there is so much decoration and so much going on that perhaps the room is bit oppressive - but not in a bad way.  Just in a way that lets you know that yes, in fact the ceiling and walls are there and that no, it’s just a giant space that goes on forever.  There are over 25 different types of marble used in this room alone, each of which has a pattern and color scheme that is completely unique.  They are carved into shapes which hardly seem attainable in stone and which really force you to sit back and think about the amount of effort that went into the creation of this space.  The tour guide tried to convince us that the space was designed so that guests entered on the ground floor through simple wooden doors and on a simple stone floor, only to gradually ascend into spaces of increasing luxury and how that was a conscious decision of the architect.  Perhaps it’s a true story, but I wasn’t convinced.  It seemed a bit far-fetched for me and I’m well aware of the fact that tour guides love to stretch reality.  In any event, there are a billion ways of navigating the space, and there are staircases upon staircases upon staircases, with each one destined for people of a certain social rank.  But even those who were not deemed fit for the best staircases were granted the privilege of at least bearing witness to these spaces and staircases.  Luckily I was allowed to ascend and descend every staircase available.  And I think I did.

The Grand Vestibule

The ceiling

The Grand Staircase

I loved this shape, which was found on every balcony.

The fountain underneath the Grand Staircase.

The fountain when seen from the next level up (still beneath the level of the Grand Staircase) and shown using flash to highlight the carving.

Distant cousins... A fountain under the main staircase at the Breakers, the Newport house of Cornelius Vanderbilt II designed by Richard Morris Hunt in 1893.  (A special shout out to my favorite professor in the world for pointing out this detail to us in class one day.  I guess it actually sunk in.)

Although construction on the building lasted for almost 15 years, certain parts were never completed, such as the Imperial entrance and staircase.  Of course, by the time the building was inaugurated, there was no more emperor, but you can still see the giant chunks of stone that were meant to be turned into elaborate and impressive carvings.  Oh well.  Maybe someday…

Despite the scale and decoration scheme of the entrance staircase and vestibule, the most impressive room, in my ever so humble opinion, was the Grand Foyer, which spanned the entire length of the facade and from which one could access the balcony overlooking Paris.  The foyer is accessed from the Grand Vestibule by way of either the Salon du Soleil (the Room of the Sun) or the Salon de la Lune (Room of the Moon).  Both are spectacular spaces which, with the use of mirrors, seem to extend forever.  Of course these mirrors also make it absolutely impossible to get decent photos.  But hey, at least the ceilings are pretty too!

Salon du Soleil

Salon de la Lune

Between these rooms, on the front façade, is the Grand Foyer.  Words can hardly describe its beauty.  Windows look out onto big open square that fronts the building itself, while openings allow views into the grand vestibule and mirrors and gold leaf just cause reflections of the beauty of everything.  Walking into this room I couldn’t help but to be reminded of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles… except this was better.  It was a much more manageable size and it just felt right, while Versailles just feels overdone to me.  The ceiling depicts the Muses and other Ancient Greek motifs abound.  See how many you can find in the photos. 

View from the balcony.  It was pouring at this point.  That's part of the Louvre at the end of the street.

Although the tour lasted 90 minutes, I spent at least an additional hour walking around and imbibing the beauty that surrounded me.  For those of you who just think I’m full of bullshit, I can assure you of one thing: I’m not.  There are actually those of us, few and far between we may be, who actually just like sitting in a corner and quietly soaking up the architecture and the feeling of a space.  I don't know how else to explain it.  It’s just this feeling.  And you just know when a space feels good.  The Le Corbusier spaces felt GREAT, but, without any doubt, the Palais Garnier is a space that took quite a while to even begin to understand, and will probably take numerous visits over the course of my life to fully appreciate in its entirety.  One final thing about the Palais Garnier: when the building was inaugurated, thousands of guests and dignitaries were invited to attend.  Thousands.  Of all of them, 2 people were required to buy their own tickets to the inaugural show: Monsieur et Madame Charles Garnier.  They may not have been invited with the free tickets (don’t forget, Garnier worked for the Empire, not the Republic) but they ended up calling his building the Palais Garnier, so I think he got his revenge.

This may be my favorite photo from the day as it truly captures the complexity and beauty of Garnier's design.