Isabella reporting,
Paris is known as the most romantic of cities, and surely the most unabashedly romantic building in the French city is the Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra de Paris. (Many readers will recognize it as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, and the subsequent movies and musical.) Built in 1861-1875, the building is a glorious example the excess of Paris in the Second Empire, and this short video clip beautifully captures that spirit. I especially love the glimpse of the red-lined private box - imagine the intrigues those walls have seen over the years!
The accompanying music is "Thais: Act II: Meditation" by Jules Massenet.
What beautiful tour of the Palais Garnier - the flow of the video and sweet sounds of Massenet...until ceiling painting's inconsistent style broke the spell like the scratching of a record. It really took me off guard. Here's some background on Chagall's work and, despite what the author of the article believes, I think it just looks out of place. What's your opinion?
ReplyDeletehttp://visitepalaisgarnier.fr/en/interior/marc-chagalls-ceiling
Thank you, absolutely beautiful, so calming!
ReplyDeleteand to one of my favourite pieces of music! :-)
ReplyDeleteWhen leaving the Palais Garnier Metro station one climbs the stairs and is rewarded with a breathtaking view of the opera house directly in front. Encountering it that way was one of the highlights of my first trip to Paris.
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