OK.  So it was mid-day, but getting me to the opera is a feat unto itself, so you have to give my tour guide some points regardless of the time of day.

We took a guided tour of Palais Garnier late one Saturday morning.  Much to my surprise, I found myself craving a return to see the theater come to life; to see it in its glory; hosting a performance.  That’s how fascinating the building itself is.

Built in the late 19th century, this ornate stone building is still host to modern dance and ballet performances.  Though we didn’t see a live performance, its wonderful architecture is also art.  Entering the tour below the orchestra seating we climbed into the spectacular lobby including both the petit foyer and the grand foyer; Garnier’s “outer theater”‘; the space where Paris society came to see and be seen themselves.  In this, he created high ornate ceilings, a grand, balcony-lined staircase and a lovely mirrored hall.

Although they are now electrified, the lamps you see were once gaslamps.  It was the state of the art at the time the building was built.  Even then, each gas port had to be hand lit.  Imagine this grand staircase lit with a thousand flickering gas-fed flames and you can begin, then, to imagine how this became the setting for Gaston Leroux’s fictional Phantom of the Opera.

Our guide led us into the theater itself; into a hushed chamber, with velvet seats and a horseshoe of gilt-outlined boxes.  The box to the far right was designed to be for Napoleon the Third, although he never used it.  The stairwell that was to be the private access for the emperor is, in fact, unfinished.  The stairs remain, but they are ungilded, untiled, undecorated.  The theater was commissioned by the emperor, but completed in 1875, after the empire fell. 

Recently repainted, the Chagall ceiling depicts scenes from a number of operas.  Vastly different from the style of the rest of the building, it is much loved by some; reviled by others.

Either way, as you sit in the orchestra seats, if you close your eyes you can begin to hear the sounds of the orchestra warming up and a hundred years of voices chattering as they take their seats.