This ‘Grand Staircase…, a monument within the monument’ is the opera’s crown jewel. …and wonder at ‘ le Grand Escalier de Charles Garnier, un monument dans le monument‘. ~ Charles Garnier, ‘Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris’, 1878 Beginning at ground level, in the Rotonde des Abonnés (named for opera patrons with yearly subscriptions), continue on to the Bassin de la Pythie, in the alcove below the stairs, to see a bronze statue of Pythia, Oracle of Delphi (1870) by Swiss sculptor, Duchesse Adèle d’Affry.įrom here head upstairs to the mezzanine… ‘First allow me to observe that the grand staircase met with almost unanimous approval, even though it detracts somewhat from the monument as a whole, which seems condensed into this one point: the Opera is the staircase…’ The interior of the ‘Opera Garnier’ is stunning and each level of your tour seems more opulent than the last. Though open to the public for tours, Palais Garnier still hosts performances staged by the Opera National de Paris. Chosen as the setting for Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera first published in 1909, this palace to music which sits above an underground lake, was considered to be one of the ‘most grandiose Italian-style theatres’ in the world.
Commissioned by Napoleon III and designed by architect Charles Garnier, the magnificent opera house was inaugurated in 1875. It is rarely seen, as most of the tours don’t go very deep into the building.Palais Garnier is one of the ‘must see’ historical attractions in Paris and it is, as its name suggests, palatial. The “lake” is a series of rooms below the Paris water line that got filled up when an over zealous worker hit a set of water pipes. The bottom layers contain levels beyond levels of cellars, fountains, abandoned prop rooms and tunnels a perfect place for a ghost hunter to go exploring and since it is rumoured that there are secret connections the famous Paris Sewers it is not for the faint of heart.
In fact if you have ever seen the play “The Phantom of The Opera” this is the opera that said phantom haunted. Well this opera house has a secret, it has a underwater lake below the building and its believed that a member of staff breed Trout in the basement. One of the largest Operas of its day, the building seats 2000 people and has seventeen stories, seven of these stories are below the ground, and two contain pieces of the famous lake later depicted in Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. I adore the Paris Opera House and dream of seeing La Traviata performed. Anyone who delves deeper into my life will realise that I’m passionate about opera and one aim in my life is to visit all the major opera houses in world.
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