O

peras de Paris

 

July 7 & 13, 1999











French flag




r990716-02b.jpg
Inside the Opera Garnier

The Paris Opera house, simply known as "Opera" is beautiful. There is no getting around it. We lived in France and we visited Paris many times. But we had until this trip only been on the outside. The fault was not entirely ours, as during a previous visit the building was closed for refurbishing. That is partly still going on, but what has been done has restored the glory of a  glorious building. We actually didn't attend an opera. Our schedule and the schedule of what was on was such that we felt lucky to see a ballet. It was Les Sylphides, a ballet that Jan read about often as a young girl.

We also attended the other Paris Opera, the one at the Place de la Bastille. We went there first and actually did see an opera, a very good performance of Verdi's "Don Carlo". The theater isn't anywhere near as beautiful as the Opera Garnier, but the tickets were very reasonable, probably subsidized by the poor French taxpayer, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

r990716-00b.jpg
In front of the Opera Garnier (hidden by scaffolding)



February 26, 2003