Opéra Garnier

Fakten

• The auditorium was painted by Marc Chagall in 1964.
• The central chandelier in the auditorium is over six tons in weight.
• The interior is richly decorated with marble and mosaics.
• The construction of the opera was part of the massive reconstruction of Paris by Baron Haussmann under the orders of Emperor Napoleon III.
• During the excavation of the site, an underground water table was found and developed into an underground reservoir that exists under the opera house to this day; it was made popular in the book "The Phantom of the Opera".
• This oppulent structure is designed in the Baroque take on Neo-Classicism and includes huge columns, an oversized lobby area with large staircases, and a facade that is heavily decorated.
• Despite the large size of the theatre, the actual auditorium is quite small, taking up only about half the space of the entire structure, and seating 2,156.