Opéra Garnier - Saturday, May 4.

 L'Opera Garnier

The very opulent Paris Opera Garnier held a free admission day Saturday, and I stood in line perhaps half an hour and had wonderful conversations with folks behind and in front of me.  One a beautiful Moroccan-French chemistry student from Montpellier who was studying in Paris for the first time, and a couple, one French, the other from Toronto, who had spent much time in Paris.  There was a crowd but a very polite crowd inside. The only other time I was in this place was probably 1966 for a performance of Carmen where I was astonished to see a real horse being ridden on stage.

The place is absolutely gob-smackingly extravagantly constructed with amazing details in marble and gilt everywhere, busts of composers, dancers, musicians all throughout the outer lobbies, decorated ceilings of all sorts.  Highly recommend not to miss in Paris for a visit in addition to seeing a show.  However tickets in Paris can be spendy.

Miniature Degas dancers in the gift shop

Costumes & props from the opera Nixon in China.  Fencing happens often in operas, and thus:

Monumental and ornate stairways

Door to seating baignoires -- box seating by orchestram I think... I also learned that it's not a fiction that there is a reservoir of water beneath the building (now covered) created by Garnier, the architect, to counter seepage, and firefighters now use the lake to learn to swim in the dark.

Ceiling in middle of theatre, by Marc Chagall

A wilded pocket park on a walk toward the Right Bank.  Neatly stacked prunings, à la Whitey Lueck. (to know who Eugene, Oregon's beloved Whitey is, see Whitey Lueck's Google Pages)