Palais Garnier

About

Opéra Garnier, or Palais Garnier, is a national theatre that has the vocation of being an academy of music, choreography and lyrical poetry; It is a major part of the heritage of the 9th arrondissement of Paris and the capital. It is located in Place de l'Opéra, at the northern end of Avenue de l'Opéra and at the crossroads of many routes. The building is an especially representative monument of the eclectic architecture and historicist style of the second half of the 19th century.

On a design by architect Charles Garnier chosen following a competition, his construction, decided by Napoleon III in the context of the Paris transformations led by Prefect Haussmann and interrupted by the 1870 war, was resumed at the beginning of the Third Republic, after the destruction by fire of the opera Le Peletier in 1873. The building was inaugurated on 5 January 1875 by President Mac Mahon under the Third Republic. This opera was called "Opéra de Paris" until 1989, when the opening of Opéra Bastille, also opera of Paris, influenced its name.

He is now referred to by the name of his architect alone: "opéra...