Palais Garnier - Opera National de Paris - Paris, France
Posted by: wildwoodke
N 48° 52.275 E 002° 19.921
31U E 451016 N 5413358
The Opera National de Paris, or the Palais Garnier, Opera House was was built on the orders of Napoleon III as part of the great Parisian reconstruction project and was inaugurated on 5 January 1875 in Paris, France.
Waymark Code: WMD0NA
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 11/02/2011
Views: 39
"is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1860 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre was also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier, Opéra de Paris or simply the Opéra. It was the primary home of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when a new 2,700-seat house, the Opéra Bastille, with elaborate facilities for set and production changes, opened at the Place de la Bastille. The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet.
The Palais Garnier is "probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur basilica." This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1911 novel The Phantom of the Opera and the novel's subsequent adaptations in films and Andrew Lloyd Weber's popular 1986 musical. Another contributing factor is the perception that among the buildings constructed in Paris during the Second Empire, it is the only one that is "unquestionably a masterpiece of the first rank."
The Palais Garnier also houses the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra de Paris (Paris Opera Library-Museum). Although the Library-Museum is no longer managed by the Opera and is part of the Bibliothèque nationale de France,[7] the museum is included in unaccompanied tours of the Palais Garnier.
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