Rehearsal rooms, Palais Garnier

For the choreography, there are seven rooms in addition to the foyer of the dance: the Zambelli studio is installed under the dome of the Library. The Chauviré studio is on its side built under the dome of the Glacier Rotunda since 1970.

In 1958, the architect Bailleau had removed the upper part of the fireplace from the chandelier , to install a rehearsal room under the central metal dome thirty meters in diameter, overlooking the entire auditorium. Under the leadership of the director of dance Rudolf Nureyev and the architect Jean-Loup Roubert , the Bailleau rotunda, 17 meters high, was split up: at the lower level are the studio Lifar and the studio Noureev , d a surface of 220 m 2 each, lit by the row of bull’s-eyes distributed in circumference, while the studio Marius Petipa (400 m2 ), where are visible the metal structures of the large dome, is on the upper level.

Two other studios are located in former premises of the School of Dance.

For lyrical art, a vast rehearsal room with columns and six windows, for the artists of the choir, is at the lower level of the Foyer de la Danse in the heart of the rear part of the theater, on the ground floor.

The Foyer du Chant, in wood paneling and soberly decorated with portraits of opera artists, is a large room on the first floor of the stage, and its windows open on Scribe Street and Diaghilev Square .

The Pedro Gailhard studio completes the ensemble.

The dance school
In this prestigious school of international renown, several generations have been introduced to choreography. As soon as the building was inaugurated, the school was installed in the building, under the roofs south of the theater, directly below the large secondary staircases, which are on the right and left of the Grand Staircase. They were set up in large halls where students could access the 100-meter corridor, and in the theater it will be called the level of skating , and under the direction of star dancer Claude Bessy , the School of Dance moved in 1987. in specially built premises in Nanterre. The former local dance classes have been reorganized and modernized for the daily exercises, classes and classes of the ballet artists.

Home of the Dance
It is a workspace for ballet artists; its ornamentation, almost as refined as the spaces reserved for the public, makes it a sanctuary of dance. It is located at the back of the stage from which it is separated by a clearance of six meters in width, as shown on the plans.

Charles Garnier made a severe self-criticism of this decoration which was not completed according to his instructions. Indeed, after a rushed recovery of work and following an irreparable error in the reinforcement of the arching portraits to medallions, the latter was found exaggeratedly enlarged in height and very thick, virtually hiding the rear-ceiling of the ceiling to the birds , then almost invisible. In his book Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris 29Garnier laments over ten pages the lost effect of the expected lightness: a dimension of voussure three meters high instead of one, a thick arch of twenty centimeters thick instead of five, children musicians and portraits Inordinately overwhelming all despite the high central height of the ceiling and well proportioned box.

The side walls are punctuated by twelve columns, spirally fluted, in the center of which are two semicircular windows and vis-à-vis. The front wall is mainly open by a large bay which is the only access. The back wall is entirely covered with a mirror in three parts, the glass maker Saint-Gobain could not, at the time, sink a glass as large in one piece. The floor of 160 m 2 is inclined, identical to the scene, towards the back wall. The dance bars, mounted on elegant tanned cast iron supports, are on all three sides. Four high panels of three meters adorn the two walls, they were painted by Gustave Boulanger and represent, :

War dance : three men dancing warrior pyrrhic ;
The country dance : three graceful women dressed in veils, dancing a round ;
The Bacchic dance : two very enthusiastic bacchantes and a dancing fauna on a Basque drum ;
The amorous dance : two young women dancing with a man playing the panpipes .

Above these panels are the names of four famous former ballet masters: Noverre , Gardel , Mazillier and Saint-Léon . The motif of the lyre is present in several places. Butterflies adorn the face of the stylobates.

The abundant decoration is surmounted by the high projecting vault where are the medallion portraits in memory of twenty famous dancers whose names and dates are inscribed, Marie Taglioni , Carlotta Grisi , Marie Sallé , etc. This voussoir, bordered by twenty golden statues of musical angels, works of Chabaud , is topped with a celestial ceiling, ten meters from the ground, where a multitude of birds frolic. This room is illuminated by a large bronze chandelier and crystals, as well as several girandoles on the columns coupled in the corners. The sides are equipped with velvet banquettes for breaks. A piano is always present to accompany exercises or rehearsals.

This room is sounded live from the stage during the shows but also for the call of the artists before their entry on the stage by the microphone of the directors.

The sanctuary of the dance can appear to the spectators in its golds and its magnificence, at the bottom of the stage, when is opened a curtain of iron broad of ten meters, at the opening of the choreographic season. A parade brings together the students of the dance school, the members of the ballet corps and the stars, all marching majestically towards the audience from a perspective that extends over fifty meters to the forefront. The distant mirror of the dance foyer reflects the theater in an immense perspective. The choreography of this great parade was settled by Serge Lifar , on the music of the March of the Trojans composed by Hector Berlioz .

In this place, just like the Foyer du chant, on the same floor, where lyric artists received their admirers, and as in the old Opera, the mores of the past allowed, during intermissions, meetings between certain subscribers and some dancers. . The clearance to access it was controlled by two ushers and only subscribers “three days a week” or people from the art world were allowed to come and congratulate and talk with the artists. In this very old tradition, it is the home of the actors, in the theater of the Comédie-Française , which was most famous for the exchanges between the authors, the thinkers and the artists.

In 1930, by the will of ballet master Serge Lifar and director Jacques Rouché , subscribers “three days a week” no longer had access to the dance center.

On each side of the Foyer de la Danse are, from the beginning, two large courtyards rising up the entire height of the building. Following the various elevator systems in the east courtyard, some windows were walled on seven floors for security reasons, including one of the Foyer. More anecdotally, the first freight elevator created by Charles Garnier, mechanized with winches and counterweights, and whose movement of ascension was twenty minutes, was nicknamed the “horse-lifter” because of the horses and harnessed cars which entered it so to be hoisted to the third level for the delivery of the sets directly to the floor level of the stage. In 1924, the Edoux- Samain societyinstalled an electrical device that was used until 1981, when it was replaced by a computerized elevator, the same size (twelve meters long by three wide) with a capacity of eleven tons, accessible by the high and wide door decorations, original, on the ground floor, in the open courtyard of the administration. The Sigurd courtyard (west) has been partially refurbished for storage.

Palais Garnier
The Opera Garnier, or Palace Garnier, is a national theater and lyrical choreography vocation and a major element of heritage 9 th arrondissement of Paris and the capital. It is located Place de l’Opera, at the north end of the Avenue de l’Opera and at the crossroads of many roads. It is accessible by metro (Opera station), by the RER (line A, Auber station) and by bus. The building stands out as a monument particularly representative of eclectic architectureand historicist style of the second half of the xix th century. On a conception of the architect Charles Garnier retained following a competition, its construction, decided by Napoleon III as part of the transformations of Paris conducted by the prefect Haussmann and interrupted by the war of 1870, was resumed at the beginning of the Third Republic, after the destruction by fire of the opera Le Peletier in 1873. The building is inaugurated on January 5, 1875by President MacMahon in the third Republic.

Designed by the architect Charles Garnier in 1875, the Palais Garnier houses a prestigious auditorium and public spaces (grand foyer, rotunda of subscribers, salons), a library-museum as well as several rehearsal studios and workshops.

The “Italian style” theater, whose ceiling was painted by Marc Chagall in 1964, can accommodate 2054 spectators. With nearly 480,000 visitors a year, it is one of the most visited monuments in Paris. It is classified as a historical monument since 1923.

This opera was called “Paris Opera” until 1989, when the opening of the Opera Bastille, also opera in Paris, influenced its name. It is now designated by the only name of its architect: “Opera Garnier” or “Palais Garnier”. The two operas are now grouped together in the public industrial and commercial establishment “Opéra national de Paris”, a French public institution whose mission is to implement the performance of lyric or ballet performances, of high quality. artistic. The opera Garnier has been classified as a historical monument since October 16, 1923.