Monday, October 27

On Monday, October 27th, Matt and Mandy headed out early to the Louvre and I slept in before meeting them at 1 p.m. for a late lunch.

While I was waiting for them, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the Louvre and surrounding areas.

As you can probably tell, it was a nice/midly stormy day. The clouds were pretty dark off to the one side.

After lunch we walked over to the Opera Garnier to enjoy a tour.

While this is the first bit that you see, most people would actually arrive via the ramp in the back. Not the poor people, of course, they would use the door.

For those of you who don't know the history of the Opera Garnier (Also known as the Palais Garnier), here's some background for you:

"The Palais Garnier was designed as part of the great Parisian reconstruction of the Second French Empire instigated by Emperor Napoleon III. The project was put out to open competition in 1861, and was won by the architect Charles Garnier (1825–1898). The foundation stone was laid in 1861, followed by the start of construction in 1862."

We paid for the full tour, which cost more than just going in, but it was totally worth it. Our tour guide gave us a lot of information, and we got to see some of the areas that the other's didn't get to go (like the floor of the theatre).

"Legend has it that the Emperor's wife, the Empress Eugénie, asked Garnier during the construction as to whether or not the building would be built in the Greek or Roman style, to which he replied: "It is in the Napoleon III style Madame!"
"The Palais is opulently decorated with elaborate multicolored marble friezes, columns, and lavish statuary, many of which portray the deities from Greek mythology. It incorporates work by well-known sculptors such as Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Jean-Joseph Perraud. Between the columns of the theatre's front façade, there are bronze busts of many of the great composers, such as Mozart and Beethoven.
The interior consists of interweaving corridors, stairwells, alcoves and landings allowing the movement of large numbers of people and space for socializing during intermission. Rich with velvet, gold leaf, and cherubim and nymphs, the interior is characteristic of Baroque sumptuousness."

Here's an interesting thing. This roof circle-thing looks like it was just a fancy design, but if you look really, really closely, in the beige pattern the architect has scribed his name into it. It's very difficult to read, so don't worry if you can't see it.
Our guide explained to us that the higher you got in the opera house, the less decorated it would be. This was because the higher you were in the opera house, the cheaper the tickets were. This was meant for the 'lower-class' people, and, as our guide also explained, that even if a lower-class person had enough money to afford a proper, 'first-class' ticket, they wouldn't dare because it was out of their class.

They also wouldn't use this main staircase, they had their own dark, narrow staircases to use.
"Although slightly smaller in scale than its predecessor, the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique, the Palais Garnier consists of 11,000 square metres (118,404 square feet), seats an audience of roughly 2,200 under a central chandelier which weighs over six tons, and has a huge stage with room to accommodate up to 450 artists."
"The ceiling area, which surrounds the chandelier, was given a new painting in 1964 by Marc Chagall. This painting proved controversial, with many people feeling Chagall's work clashed with the style of the rest of the theatre. (It was also installed directly onto the old mural, destroying it. The combined weight of both canvases has caused the 19th C. adhesives to fail over time.)"
Here are little tags on the backs of the chairs that say either 'abonne' or 'loue'. 'Loue' means 'taken', so I can only imagine the other one means 'empty'. There didn't appear to be any way to turn this from the chairs themselves, but there was a covered box at the end of the rows that I imagine was where you could control this. Who knows.

And now, of course, we move onto the supposed of the Phantom of the Opera.

"The construction of the opera house was plagued by numerous setbacks. One major problem which postponed the laying of the concrete foundation was the extremely swampy ground under which flowed a subterranean lake, requiring the water to be removed by eight months of continual pumping. More setbacks came as a result of the disastrous Franco-Prussian War, the subsequent fall of the Second French Empire, and the Paris Commune. During this time construction continued sporadically, and it was even rumoured that construction of the opera house might be abandoned."

Many of these 'disasters' were blamed on the supposed Phantom of the Opera.

"In 1896, one of the counter-weights for the chandelier fell, killing one. This, as well as the underground lake and other elements of the Opera House, inspired Gaston Leroux in 1910 to write his classic Gothic novel, The Phantom of the Opera."

It is interesting, too. In the novel, the Phantom of the Opera insisted that 'Box 5' was kept open for him. Even though it is mainly accepted that there is no Phantom of the Opera house, Box 5 is always kept open. Funny how that works.
The door the farthest to the left leads to Box 5. We couldn't go in, but you could peek through the window if you wanted too.

This is behind the scenes. This would'be been the emperor's entrance. This is also what the stone would've looked like had it not been finished.

I guess that after some revolution (not sure which one it was, I really should've taken notes) there was no longer an emperor, and when the money started running out, there was no need for a fully decorated 'emperor's entrance'. So, it was left unfinished. It is interesting that all of the statues and decorations would've been carved directly out of the stone - one mistake, and it's over. Sucks.
Here's another elaborate ceiling.
And here's another place where our architect put his name in, again. I think our guide said it was in greek? or something else. But either way, he did sneek his name in again.

They also had a pretty impressive library.

All in all this was one of the highlights of the trip. Of course it would'be been nice to see behind the scenes, too, but because it is an operating theatre there was stuff going on - they were in the process of changing over a set while we were there.