The Paris Opera House – A Musical Journey to the Opéra Garnier and Beyond

When they tell you the opera of Paris, you probably immediately think of the Palais Garnier, the beautiful and famous opera house in the heart of Paris.9th DistrictSome of you may also be thinking about the ugly building in the square.Bastille, which cost the French government a huge amount of money. And the truth is, you're all right, these two buildings are certainly an important part of Paris' operatic history, but they're not the only ones.

Today I want to take you on a 400-year journey following the Paris Opera. It is a journey that follows three parallel paths:

• The geographical trail through which we will travel through Paris and discover where its opera buildings stood and what happened to them.
• The historical trail where we will discover how French opera developed and who the people were who created it.
• The musical path through which we will discover some of the most beautiful operas ever composed.

Of course, I haven't forgotten all those who came here because they are planning their next trip to Paris. If you are the one reading this article, you will be happy to know that at the end you will find all the practical details (opening times, buying tickets, etc.), which will help you visit the Opéra Garnier or enjoy a musical performance.

So turn on the speakers (or put on headphones), we're on our way!

The musical history of the Paris Opera

Opera, as we know, was not created in France but on the Italian peninsula (Italy as a country, of course, did not yet exist). It is true that important Italian composers such as Caccini (Giulio Romolo Caccini 1551-1618) visited the court of King Henry IV of France, but the one who really brought Italian music, and with it opera, to France was Cardinal Mazarin (Jules Mazarin 4-1602).

Mazrin, who served as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of France until his death, was very fond of Italian music (he himself came to France from Italy in 1634 as the papal legate). It is therefore not surprising that he used the great wealth he had accumulated to produce a number of important Italian operas, including Orfeo by the composer Luigi Rossi (1598-1653), the cost of which was so high that some claim it was what caused the Fronde revolt.

Matzran liked to present operas at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, which could be found between theLouvre and the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This palace belonged to the royal family since the 16th century and its large gallery hosted theater and dance performances. Hence, this place, which no longer exists (it was demolished in 1661), can definitely be called the first opera house of Paris.

Act One – Jean-Baptiste Lully brings French opera from…Florence

After the death of Matzeren in 1661, becomes Louis XIV For the absolute control of France. The Sun King, who was an excellent dancer, met the musician and dancer Giovanni Battista Lulli, during the “Ballet Nocturne”, in which they both participated. From this acquaintance was born a friendship that lasted about two decades and which was to create the French opera.

Jean Baptiste Lully (he “joined” his name after he received French citizenship in 1662), is considered the father of French opera. However, this is not true. He was preceded by a French poet named Pierre Perrin (1620-1675), who received a license from the king’s finance minister, Jean Baptiste Colbert, to create Italian operas with French texts.

The result was Pomone, the first French opera to be set to a libretto by Feren and music by Robert Cambert (1625-1677). Pomone was first performed in 1671 and you are invited to enjoy its most famous aria, as it appeared in the film Le Roi Danse.

The opera Pommon was a great success, but the unlucky Fern did not enjoy the success. It turns out that his two partners absconded with the ticket money and he was thrown into prison for non-payment of debts. Lully, who had not previously thought the French language was suitable for opera, decided to seize the opportunity and bought Fern the royal monopoly on writing French operas. A new era began in French music.

From 1672 until his death in 1687, Lully wrote a long series of operas, all sung in French. In truth, these works were not called operas (the Italian name for them) but “musical tragedy” (Tragédie en musique), but they had exactly everything you would expect from an opera: a plot, singers, an orchestra, and of course recitatives (plot segments sung by the singers rather than spoken, as in plays).

Lully's first opera is Cadmus et Hermione and you can enjoy one of her arias in the following video:

Over the next 14 years, Lully perfected French opera, essentially creating a musical genre that was completely different from Italian opera. Beyond the language differences, it was also a completely different musical technique. The best example of this is the musical overture, that short piece of music that functioned as a kind of “announcement” that the opera was about to begin and that people should settle down.

In Italians, the orchestral opening always follows a fast-slow-fast rhythm (the third movement is often done in a dance rhythm). Here is an excellent example of this from the opera L'Olympliade by Pergolesi (Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 1710-1736):

In contrast, the French opening always begins slowly and dramatically (often in a minor scale) and moves to a fast and bouncy rhythm. Hence, it can be said that if you hear an orchestral opening that contains two sections (slow, fast) or four sections (slow, fast, slow, fast), you are hearing an opening French.

Here is an example of one of Lully's famous French overtures from the 1676 opera Atys:

The French opening became so famous that composers from other countries adopted it in many works. Of course, this opening has been refined over the years, but the principle of “slow-fast” remains. Here are two wonderful examples of the use of the French opening.

The first is from Handel's oratorio “Messiah”:

The second is from Bach's French Suite, where we see that the French Overture has long since left opera and moved on to other works. Here, for example, it is a suite for keyboard instruments:

But let's get back to Lully. You will probably ask where his operas were performed if the Petit Bourbon Palace was destroyed in 1661? The answer is found in6th DistrictLully initially built his opera house where the Rue Mazarin and Rue Jacques Callot intersect today (a bistro restaurant now stands there). From there, the opera moved to Rue Vugierard, near Luxembourg GardensThis is what the opera building looks like:

If Lolly's music interests you and you are interested in continuing to delve deeper into it, allow me to recommend two additional articles to you, before we continue our musical journey:

• Pierre Beauchamp – the man who saved Louis XIV's wedding celebrationAlthough he is the inventor of French ballet, his collaboration with Lully was profound. In this article, you will learn quite a bit about this collaboration, which influenced French dance in the 17th century.
• French Baroque Music That Will Make You Think Its Creators Have Gotten MadHere you will discover that Lully also knew how to fool around and that his works sometimes have very bizarre aspects.

Act Two – The Italians arrive and a musical war begins

When Lully died in 1687, he left a significant void. This was due not only to his musical talent, but also to the fact that he held a monopoly on the creation of opera (and indeed all stage music) in Paris. As a result, he was able to severely limit the ability of other composers to create opera during his lifetime.

His greatest victims were the playwright Molière and the composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). Molière, who had previously collaborated with Lully, wanted to go his own way and chose Charpentier, a relatively young but promising composer, to compose his play “The Imaginary Patient”. Lully was furious and imposed a long list of restrictions, such as the number of musical instruments that could be used or the number of singers. The result was a completely neutered musical work, and worse, other composers took the hint and did not try to compete with Lully.

As a result, upon his death, France was left with a series of talented composers, such as Charpentier and Marin Marais, who did not dare to step outside the musical boundaries that Lully himself had set. And so for nearly fifty years (1687-1733) French opera stood in complete stagnation.

The only opera from that period that manages to rise above the mediocrity that dominated French music is Charpentier's Médée. Listen to this passage where Medea calls upon the demons to help her create a poisoned robe for Crassus and you will understand the genius of this composer:

Then came Ramu

So what happened in 1733 that changed French music? Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), a 50-year-old organist, published his first opera, and French music suddenly gained a vitality and color that it had been so lacking.

Rameau devoted his first fifty years to working as an organist in several of the most important churches in France and writing music theory (his book Traité de l'harmonie is still considered one of the most important books in the field of musical harmony).

The great change in his life was caused by Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière (1692-1762). Alexandre was a royal tax collector who amassed enormous wealth. He used this wealth to establish the best orchestra in Paris of his time.

This orchestra played in his palace in the Passy neighborhood, which unfortunately no longer exists. Le Poplinière invited Rameau to conduct this orchestra and there, in the tax collector's palace, he met some of the best librettists of his time (and with them the intellectual elite of France). The result was the opera Hippolyte et Aricie, which was performed in 1733, and was followed by many comic and tragic operas.

Rameau’s genius, in my opinion, lies in the “colorfulness” of his music. Let me give you two examples.

The first example is his orchestral overture to the 1748 opera-ballet Pygmalion. Ostensibly, his overture still uses the pattern created by Lully (slow-fast-slow-fast), but here Rameau uses music to paint us a picture of Pygmalion sculpting his famous statue. Pay particular attention to the harpsichord in the fast section, which sounds like hammer and chisel blows being applied to the block of marble that is to become the statue.

https://youtu.be/ai2Qhw-7hTE

The second example is also taken from a musical overture, this time to the opera Zaïs, which was first performed in 1748. Here too, the orchestral overture is not just a “bell” telling the audience that the opera is about to begin. The overture tells us the story of the creation of the world and depicts the chaos and anarchy from which the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth) are created.

As you listen to this wonderful piece, pay particular attention to the unconventional use of drums in the first part of the opening and the soprano flutes in the second part. I guarantee you won't hear anything like this in other works of the period:

The Clown Conflict

For about twenty years, since writing his first opera, Rameau was the undisputed king of opera in Paris (and all of France). True, at the beginning there were still people who hated change, who supported Lully's music and called Rameau's supporters Rameaneurs (chimney sweeps), but within a few years Rameau became the undisputed king of French opera.

All of this changed when, in 1752, an Italian opera arrived that changed everything and plunged France into a culture war that lasted about two years. The opera was called La Serva Padrona and was written by a young Italian composer named Pergolesi, who had died about twenty years earlier (yes, the same Pergolesi, whose overture to the opera “Olympide” I brought up earlier).

It was a comic opera (in Italian, Opera Buffa) the likes of which France had never experienced. Until that time, French operas had been based mainly on tragic stories from the ancient world or mythology. They were “heavy” and long operas with very pompous music. In contrast, Italian comic opera was characterized by a funny plot, taking place in the present and accompanied by light music.

You are invited to watch this short excerpt from La Serva Padrona and compare it to the pompous music from the opera “Medea” that you heard earlier, in order to understand why this opera was perceived as such a great innovation:

Hence, it is not surprising that when this opera was performed in Paris in 1753, a huge debate broke out between the king's people, who supported classical French opera, and the queen's people, including many intellectuals such as the famous philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who supported the Italian style.

The company that performed the opera La Serva Padrona was called Les Bouffons (the clowns), and so the intellectual war that broke out in the wake of the opera was called the Querelle des Bouffons. Make no mistake, this was no trivial intellectual conflict. Beyond the pasquales, which each side wrote against the other, the musical conflict escalated into violence, even including a duel between an Italian opera lover and a French opera supporter.

This struggle had two musical peaks. The first is the opera Le Devin Du Village, which was written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and which, for him, was supposed to be an example of how French opera should be (a French-speaking Italian comic opera). In my opinion, this opera is quite boring, but if you still want to experience a few minutes of it, you are welcome to watch the following video.

The second opera is a completely different story. It is a brilliant work called Les Troqueurs (The Changers) by the French composer Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1797). This opera was created by a camp of French opera lovers as a kind of prank.

When the opera was first performed in Paris, it was stated that it was composed by an Italian composer living in Vienna. After the camp of Italian music lovers gave it the “seal of approval,” they announced that this opera was written by a French composer and in a French style, thus setting the second camp ablaze.

But beyond the historical significance of “The Exchangers,” this is a simply wonderful work. The plot of this short opera (only one act) is simple. A pair of friends who are supposed to marry a pair of women decide to “exchange” so that each will marry the wife of their friend. The result? Two unhappy men, who at the end of the opera beg their original wives to take them back.

The beauty of this opera is that it takes the dramatic style of the French operas of Lully and Rameau and uses it to create comic effects. The following aria is a great example of this (note the dramatic effect towards the second minute):

And while we're talking about this opera, we can't help but play you the dramatic ending in which the men beg their wives to agree to each accept their "original" husband.

You will surely ask me, “So who won this musical war?” The truth is that no one really won. As in many cases, “two is enough, the third takes.” Indeed, the 50s and 60s were the swan song of Italian and French composers in Paris.

Already on the horizon was the Bohemian-born German named Gluck (Christoph Willibald Gluck 1714-1787), who during the 18s created a complete revolution in opera by eliminating the dry recitative, the one accompanied only by the harpsichord, and conquered Paris with his operas (sung in French). After him came Mozart with “The Marriage of Figaro”, based on the play by Beaumarchais, and both the French and Italian composers of his time remained in the shadows. At least until the 19th century…

Before we end this chapter and continue on our musical journey, let me recommend to you my favorite passage from Gluck's most famous opera, Orfeo va Ordica. This time I don't want to bring you a passage of poetry, but rather an instrumental passage, which will show you the genius of this composer.

It is about the dance of demons in the world of the dead, to which Orpheus arrives in order to save his beloved, and it constitutes one of the most dramatic and beautiful melodies composed during the 18th century:

Act Three – The opera building is destroyed, built, burned, and rebuilt

The dramatic passage we heard at the end of the previous episode is an excellent transition into the history of the Paris opera houses, which was no less dramatic than the operas that were performed within them.

Let's go back in time a little to the late 17th century. During this period, the opera returns to the Right Bank and takes up residence in the Palais Royal (not far from the Comédie Française, which, after quite a few wanderings, also arrives there).

However, during French Revolution The opera moves to a new location slightly north of the Palais Royal, where Richelieu Street now runs (then the street was called Rue de la Loi or in Hebrew, Law Street).

The Paris Opera House survived the Revolution, the Napoleon And the return of the monarchy in 1814, but then a murder took place there, which changed the history of France and also that of opera.

The dramatic murder of the Duke de Berry

On February 13, 1820, Charles, Duke of Berry and heir to the throne of France, left the opera house after listening to a Rossini opera. Outside in the darkness, Pierre Louvel, a Bonapartist who wanted to eliminate the Bourbon dynasty, was waiting for him. When the Duke was not paying attention, Louvel ran up to him and stabbed him in the chest with a sharp knife. The Duke was seriously injured and died some time later at his home.

As a result, Louis XVIII, the uncle of the Duc de Berry, decided to demolish the opera house next to which the murder had taken place. Where the opera house once stood, today stands one of the most charming and least known gardens in Paris, called Square Louvois, which I mentioned in the article. The secrets of Paris.

As mentioned, nothing remains of the building itself. However, there is still a hint that an opera house once stood here due to the fact that some of the streets in the area are named after composers. I am referring, of course, to the streets of Rameau, which we have already discussed, and Cherubini (an Italian composer who was very fond of Napoleon).

Paris, of course, could not live without an opera, and while one opera house was destroyed, another was built.

The opera burned down! Luckily we have another one…

After the destruction of the opera building, following the murder of the Duc de Brie, the opera moved north again to 12 Rue Le Peletier, which in9th District.

This opera house, designed by François Debret (1777-1850), was intended to be a temporary building until a more magnificent opera house could be built. Nevertheless, the Paris Opera was located there for no less than 50 years. Some of the most famous operas of the 19th century were first performed here, here are just a few of the most important:

• “William Tell” by Rossini (Gioachino Rossini 1792-1868).
• “The Jewess” by the Jewish composer Halévy (Fromental Halévy 1799-1862).
• “The Huguenots” by another important Jewish composer, namely Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864).
• “Tenhauser” by the anti-Semitic German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883).

Beyond that, this opera building became not only a center of music but also of ballet, and it was here that Edgar Degas (1834-1917) painted his first paintings of dancers. Here is an example:

All this came to a swift and brutal end on October 28-29, 1873, when a fire broke out there, which lasted 24 hours before the Paris firefighters were able to extinguish it. As a result, the municipality was forced to demolish the remains of the building and used this opportunity to widen the Boulevard Haussmann and its intersection with Rue Drouot.

And speaking of Drouot, this street is known today for the auction house named after it, and I wouldn't want to end this episode without playing you one of Barbara's most beautiful songs, which deals with what's going on inside.

And what about the opera itself? Don't worry, in a short time Paris was renewed with the most beautiful and magnificent opera building it has ever had.

Charles Garnier builds the famous Paris Opera (and is almost left out on opening day)

As you probably know (and if not, you are welcome to read the article Paris during the Belle Epoque), In 1852, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte seized power, became Emperor Napoleon III, and began rebuilding Paris. One of his major projects was the construction of a new opera house, which was to be ready in 3, just in time for the World's Fair in Paris (which brought us, among other things, theBatu Mosh).

A relatively unknown architect named Charles Garnier (1825-1898) was chosen for the task, and work began in 1861. As a result of financial problems and endless bureaucracy, Charles Garnier was unable to meet the deadlines, and all they could show the public during the 1867 exhibition was the magnificent facade of the building.

It is said that when Empress Eugénie saw the building, she asked Charles Garnier:

This is not the style of ancient Greece, this is not a style Louis XIV And not Louis XVI style. What is that?

Garnier was not confused and immediately answered her:

These styles have already done their thing, this is the style of Napoleon III, ma'am!

So what is Napoleon III's style? Mainly grandeur and grandeur (and lots of it). Not all French people liked the result and the painter Renoir even called the opera building "a lump of overbaked brioche". Personally, I actually really like this building and the immense grandeur that screams from every hall and room does not bother me at all, but I can understand those who liked the result less.

What interests me about this building is that the emphasis here is not on the music and ballet presented here. Garnier understood very well that the best show takes place not on the stage but rather outside it. This is of course referring to all those rich and beautiful people who came here to see and be seen. This is why the most important part of the building is not the hall, where the operas and ballets are presented, but rather the impressive staircase and the magnificent foyer.

In any case, Napoleon III, who initiated the construction of the opera, did not get to attend the opening. He died in 3, three years after losing power. The opera was eventually opened to the general public in a well-attended event in 1873. What is interesting about this event is that they remembered to invite the Lord Mayor of London, who arrived in medieval garb accompanied by bayonets, but they forgot to invite Charles Garnier, the architect of the opera building. He had to pay a hefty sum for a ticket to the opening party…

In 1896, during a performance of Charles Gounod's opera Faust, the magnificent crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling of the hall suddenly fell, killing one of the spectators. This story inspired the famous story "The Phantom of the Opera" written by journalist Gaston Leroux (1818-1893) in 1868-1927. This book was adapted into a play and several films until Andrew Lloyd Webber turned it into a famous musical and brought him (and the Opera Garnier) world fame. Before we leave the Palais Garnier, you are invited to enjoy a small excerpt from this musical:

Before we continue with the final episode of the Paris Opera Retreat, let me recommend the article to you. Carpo's scandalous dance, which deals with one of the most interesting sculptures, which can be found on the facade of the Palais Garnier.

Last Act – Mitterrand Wants a Popular Opera (and Pours Billions of Francs into It)

The Palais Garnier continued to be the official opera house of Paris for about 100 years, until President François Mitterrand decided to build a new opera building, and not just any opera, a folk opera!

The chosen location was an abandoned train station near Bastille SquareThe reason for this was that from the time of French Revolution Until the 80s, the Bastille area was considered one of the most popular places in Paris and historically had always been a center for supporters of the Socialist Party, Mitterrand's party. Another reason was much more prosaic: land there was extremely cheap.

The Canadian architect Carl Ott was chosen for the task and it was decided to go for a megalomaniacal project (as befits Mitterrand) and build an opera house with nearly 2200 seats at a cost of 6 billion francs. The building that was designed was so large that it could accommodate the entire Notre Dame Cathedral!

Just like the Palais Garnier, the new opera house ran into financial difficulties and within a few years managed to burn through its huge budget of 6 billion francs, while under construction. In order to finish it on time, the French government had to pour more and more money into it, until in the end the final budget for the opera house was almost double what was planned.

And what is the result?

• An ugly building (at least to my taste).
• Tickets are no less expensive than those at the Palais Garnier (the members of Mitterrand's party who bought the tickets were called, and rightly so, "caviar socialists").
• Bad acoustics. To solve this problem, the designers later added more chairs, which face the wall, so that the stage cannot be seen. And they even dared to charge money for it…

It's no wonder that in a survey in which Parisians were asked which building they would most like to see demolished, the Opera House on Place de la Bastille came in second place (first place, by the way, went to Center Pompidou).

And so, ladies and gentlemen, our musical/historical/architectural journey comes to an end. Now all that remains is for us to move on to practical information that may be of interest to all those who wish to visit the Paris Opera building or even enjoy an opera or ballet performance.

Opera Garnier (Palais Garnier) – useful information

Opera Garnier (or Palais Garnier) is the more interesting of the two opera houses in Paris, although it no longer presents operas (it mainly presents ballet performances).

How do you get to the Opera Garnier?

• The fastest way to get to the Opéra Garnier is by metro (lines 3,7,8). Get off at the Opéra station.
• For those who like to get there by bus, you can get there using the following lines: 20, 21, 22, 27, 29, 42, 52, 66, 68, 81 and 95.

Tickets to visit the Palais Garnier

It is highly recommended to buy your opera tickets in advance to save yourself the hassle of waiting in line at the box office. You can buy your tickets atMonuments page Site.

Concert tickets

Note that the operas are performed at the Opéra Bastille while the ballet is performed at the Opéra Garnier (I say this so that you are not disappointed and buy tickets to the opera and find that you are sitting in an ugly hall with poor acoustics and not in the beautiful Charles Garnier hall).

You can get information about the operas and shows presented at both the Opéra Garnier and the Opéra de la Bastille through the article Classical music in Paris.

visiting hours

You can visit the opera building every day between 10:00 AM and 17:00 PM.

Accommodation in the Opera area

The Opera district has always been one of the most popular areas for accommodation in Paris. There were two reasons for this:

• It is a good location (several metro lines, the Roissy Bus, which can take you from the airport) Charles de Gaulle and return, proximity to large department stores, etc.).
• Quite a few travel agencies had deals with hotels in the area, so they sent quite a few tourists there.

Therefore, if you have decided to live in the area, you are welcome to visit the following articles and find yourself an excellent hotel or apartment:

• Recommended hotels in the 9th arrondissement of Paris
• Recommended apartments in the 9th arrondissement of Paris

Opera Bastille OPÉRA BASTILLE – Useful information

Below you will find all the practical information you need, in case you bought a ticket to the opera, are a fan of modern architecture or are just a masochist :-).

How do you get to the Opera Bastille?

The most convenient way in my opinion is by metro (lines 1,5,8). Get off at Bastille station (note that there are many exits, so get off at the Opera Bastille exit).

Tickets and opening hours

Unlike the Palais Garnier, the Opéra Bastille is not open to visitors (probably because there really is nothing to see there). If you would like to buy a ticket for one of the operas performed there, you can do so through the article Classical music in Paris.

Residences around the Opera Bastille

In my opinion, the Bastille area is a great area to live in. Here are some reasons:

• Hotel and apartment prices are relatively cheap (especially in districts 11-12)
• Several metro and RER lines pass through Bastille station.
• The Bastille area is very lively and full of restaurants and entertainment venues.
• Proximity to the 5th districtMarais ValIsle Saint Louis
• proximity To the markets  ALIGRE and RICHARD LENOIR, two of the best food markets in Paris.

Hence, if you decide to live in the Bastille area, you can find recommended hotels and apartments in the following articles:

Recommended hotels near Bastille

• Recommended hotels in the 11th arrondissement of Paris
• Recommended hotels in the 12th arrondissement of Paris

Holiday apartments near the Bastille

• Recommended apartments in the 11th arrondissement of Paris
• Recommended apartments in the 12th arrondissement of Paris