In the Footsteps of Charles Garnier | EUROtoday

Marian Jones seems on the profession of the visionary architect and the creation of his life-defining masterpiece…

2025 is most undoubtedly Charles Garnier’s yr, marking each 200 years since his beginning and the a hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the opening of his most well-known architectural venture, the Opéra Garnier in Paris. His legacy lives on within the constructing which attracts 350,000 spectators a yr, plus 1,000,000 different guests from all around the world who need to see its magnificent inside and maybe pose for a photograph on the grand staircase in opposition to the backdrop of gold, many-colored marbles and glistening chandeliers.

Although he was born to a comparatively humble Parisian household in Rue Mouffetard within the fifth arrondissement, Garnier’s creative expertise quickly grew to become evident, and by the age of 17 he had gained a spot on the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. At 23, he gained the Grand Prix de Rome, a scholarship which allowed him to review in Rome for a number of years, leaving him with a style for classical structure and a love of marble and mosaics. Further impressed by travels in Greece and Turkey, he realized his vocation was structure and at 36, he returned to Paris the place he got here to public consideration in a spectacular approach.

On December 30, 1860, Emperor Napoleon III introduced a contest to decide on the designer of a brand new state-funded opera home for Paris Garnier was one among solely seven finalists chosen from 170 entrants and the judges had been unanimous in selecting his design for its ‘uncommon and superior qualities’ and the ‘monumental side of its facades’.

Garnier’s imposing design for an opera home with 2,000 seats grew to become the epitome of Second Empire type, flamboyant and extremely embellished, but additionally incorporating new strategies corresponding to the usage of iron constructions to help the constructing. He was to spend the subsequent 14 years on the venture, and after the opera home opened, he remained the official architect in residence for an additional 23 years till his dying in 1898. It actually was his life’s work.

A SINGLE VISION

When the muse stone was laid in 1862, France was dominated by an emperor, Napoleon III, who noticed the brand new Opera as a technique to venture his energy and wealth. However, by the point the constructing opened in 1875, France had grow to be a republic and the brand new authorities noticed the Opera House as a proud image of their metropolis, someplace to point out off when entertaining visiting heads of state.

Garnier led the venture by way of all this turbulence, commissioning many dozens of architects, sculptors and painters to appreciate his imaginative and prescient and overseeing the constructing’s facades and its lavish inside with equal consideration to element. He was identified all through as le grand chef, admired equally for his imaginative and prescient and his management expertise.

The opening night time was spectacular. France’s President MacMahon led the festivities and the two,000 distinguished friends from throughout Europe included King Alfonso of Spain and the Lord Mayor of London. After a lavish program of leisure, together with Rossini’s William Tell Overture and extracts from opera and ballet, the viewers lined the grand staircase to present Garnier a standing ovation as he descended the sweeping marble steps. Records present he had the truth is been requested to pay for his seat within the Upper Circle.

He had not too long ago been made a Member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and would later be named a Grand Officier of the Légion d’Honneur, however nonetheless, on this event, nobody thought to present him delight of place within the auditorium. The Opera constructing, which nonetheless bears Garnier’s title, was distinctive in type. It combined the pillars and classical traces of the structure he had admired in Greece and Rome with an exuberant Baroque type of ornament, the place statues and carvings abounded, silver and gold gleamed, the paneling was manufactured from unique woods and 24 totally different types of marble had been used.

The Empress Eugénie is claimed to have requested what type it was purported to be, remarking that it was neither ‘Greek, nor Louis XVI, nor even Louis XV’. Garnier replied that they had been all old-fashioned and this was ‘Napoleon III type’ and she or he mustn’t complain! One critic’s description of Garnier’s daring method was that it combined ‘a structured world which reassures’ with ‘a shimmering, ethereal world that charms’.

Garnier was technically adept, utilizing the most recent concepts to design a framework of steel girders to help the construction, even regardless of the tons of marble and different heavy supplies used within the ornament. He consulted a variety of engineers, together with Gustave Eiffel, and in addition made a particular research lasting many months of the science of acoustics. He researched this important side in depth and wrote that, “I read works in all languages ​​that I knew, I had translated those published in languages ​​that I did not know, I conversed with one person, discussed with another”.

ESCAPE FROM REALITY

Garnier needed the brand new opera home to be ‘an enchanted world’ which might take the viewers away from the mundanity of on a regular basis life. It ought to be a dramatic setting, a spot to see and be seen, and he designed the grand staircase as a setting for the finely dressed to parade up and down. He imagined them then taking their seats and searching over the auditorium from field to field with the intention to catch glimpses of one another in all their finery.
He selected purple velvet for the auditorium, commenting that the colour would improve the pores and skin tones of the women. Every element he designed was rigorously thought-about to contribute to the glamor and opulence of a night spent on the opera home.

Garnier did design different buildings, such because the Monte Carlo Casino Concert Hall and the Mont-Gros Observatory in Nice, together with the Théâtre Marigny in Paris and a lot of Italian villas. But it’s the Opéra Garnier for which he’s most remembered and it’s right here that the a hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its opening in 1875 has been celebrated with a year-long program of occasions. They have included gala performances, exhibitions and a residency program which noticed an artist invited each month all through 2025 to work with the solid and musicians to create a brand new piece referencing the particular environment of the Garnier. The exhibition ‘Palais Garnier: 150 Years of a Legendary Theatre’ will be visited on the Garnier’s Library Museum till February 15, 2026. Entry is included in the price of a ticket to go to the Opera House.

A FITTING MEMORIAL

A bust of Charles Garnier sits exterior the primary entrance of the Opéra Garnier and there may be one other inside, in delight of place midway down the Grand Foyer. Portraits of him embody one by his buddy, the artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, which was painted in 1877. You can even go to Garnier’s grave in Montparnasse Cemetery. Beside it there’s a succinct biography, written in gold lettering on a bronze plaque, which ends by recording the large crowd which gathered on the Saint-Séverin church in Paris for his funeral in August 1898.

But greater than any of those, the true memorial to Garnier, his spectacular legacy, is, in fact, the Opera House itself. Think of him subsequent time you stroll in direction of it up the Avenue de l’Opéra or take your seat for a efficiency in his globally famend auditorium.

From France Today Magazine

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