Opéra Garnier

The sumptuous and prestigious Paris Opera building, designed by Charles Garnier in 1861 and completed in 1875, is one of the largest theatre venues in the world. A lavish epitaph to the manic architectural activities of the Second Empire under Napoleon III, and aptly described as a "triumph of molded pastry," it lent a suitable image to the frivolity and materialism of the so-called naughty Eighties and Nineties.

The sheer mass of its stage — 11,000 square meters (or 118,404 square feet), with room for 450 players — seems to dwarf the respectable 2156-seat capacity auditorium, whose ceiling was painted in 1964 by Marc Chagall. At the Musée d'Orsay, one may view a complete slice-away maquette (model) of this amazingly ornate edifice, but anyone with an architectural gilt complex should make the pilgrimage to the glimmering marble-and-onyx Grand Staircase.

When the emperor and empress were presented with the model, the latter is reputed to have questioned, "What is this style? It's not a style. It's not Greek, it's not Louis XVI." Garnier allegedly replied, "No, those styles have had their day. This style is Napoleon III, and you complain?"

In fact, the Opéra was constructed by the grand bourgeois more as a stage for self-display: its vestibules, galleries, stairs, anterooms, and other areas are much vaster than the mere auditorium for the select high society in attendance. Here one could stroll, step, sip, chat, ogle, and parade oneself in lengthy intermissions. That was the point, after all: the operatic performance itself was an intermission between obligatory social strutting. The personalities on view in the foyer and on the Grand Staircase were considered as important as the artists on stage singing Faust or La Traviata.