The Let’s Tour Paris Like We’re On Crack adventure continues- if only because I know that I’m on borrowed time up here.
There’s are many things in this town that are touristworthy, and tonight’s outing involved crossing off a place that I first glimpsed while in the seventh grade. My Dad (now a retired airline pilot) took me on one of his three day trips to Paris, and during that blur I got a front seat tour of Paris by the Northwest Airlines crew shuttle bus as the driver brought us to Charles de Gaulle. He pointed out the big tickets structures that I didn’t have the time to see- including one memorable building: “L’Opéra.” he said, and I nodded obediently. We shared no common language between us, but I knew that this was my kind of tour.
I returned home from this trip and both teachers and students were somewhat dubious that I really went to Europe for three days in the middle of a school week. Heck, even I wouldn’t have believed it myself. But those three days happened, and I suppose that the cultural excursion marked the beginning of my now status quo foray into perpetual cultural adjustment and readjustment.
Here she be: the Palais Garnier- or better known as l’Opéra.
For about 9€, any old tourist can walk into the opera house and wander around on a self-guided tour. Not a bad notion, and I actually considered doing this until I had the genius idea that I should actually try and see a performance- which by default would yield a free tour. So after looking on the web for a listing of performances, I found that both opera and ballet nights were scheduled- but almost all were already sold out or costing 170€ a pop. So much for last minute tickets.
Looks like I’d be headed for the side entrance to take a self-guided tour…
I didn’t get to see a live performance (now another reason to return to Paris!), but I did manage to score tickets for a one night only tribute to a a famous French choreographer who died a few months prior. The price: a very reasonable 12 euros. Suddenly I was looking forward to seeing something that I knew nothing about.
Here we are, my big night in the opera house. This place was built in the 1860s, and served as the primary home of the Paris Opera and Paris Opera Ballet until a bigger (and decidely communist-looking) house opened up near Bastille back in 1989. Both locations now hold performances.
The opera house is also the setting for the 1911 novel The Phantom of the Opera– which people from my generation really know because Andrew Lloyd Weber made it into a famous musical in 1986.
Ahhh The Phantom of the Opera. I have to tell you that I have never read the book, seen the movie, or experienced the musical- but I do have one vivid recollection stemming from Anderw Lloyd Weber’s soundtrack:
At Mashpee Middle School (my K-8 existence), if you stayed after school then you had to take the late bus home. This meant that I wouldn’t get dropped off by my house, and instead god dammit I had to walk home from Andy’s Market out on Route 151. I hated this, because like all kids I was lazy and thought that walking .65 miles was unreasonable (mapmyrun.com just told me how long it actually was). Usually us kids would be SOL in terms of finding someone to give us a ride back to the house, but still we would go into Andy’s and use their phone to call home and see if anyone with a driver’s license would pick up the phone. On one particular day, my Dad happened to be home from a work trip and said that he’d come and pick my sister and I up from Andy’s.
Fast forward to the two of us patiently standing outside, and after about ten minutes we suddenly know that our father is approaching. We can’t see the big green truck, but we can hear a bass thundering in the distance, the likes that you should never hear before 11pm on a Friday night. I don’t need to look at my sister but I can just feel her rolling her eyes.
Visualize a 1979 Ford F250 SuperCab XL rumbling up the road with an engine sound that is typically unsurpassed by any potential competitor- unless of course you’re talking about my Dad and his love for The Phantom of the Opera. I swear that the music coming from the tape deck was so loud that the entire truck shook, and I couldn’t hear myself think as I climbed into the cab with a grin on my face. My sister, well, I imagine she had an internal monologue going on that tried in vain to explain her assignment to this crazy family…
Just to provide a taste of our short commute back to the house that day, I offer you this:
Before you hit play, hook up some Bose speakers to the computer and turn it up to 11. Behold vintage childhood humiliation that I thought was kinda of cool.
Okay, back to the opera. I get there a little early so I can have a look around, yet not look like a tourist who is just here for building.
I get to my….loge (as it is listed on my ticket) and need to be let in by an usher with a set of key.s This world is all so new to me, and to give you an idea of my upper crust beginnings, I typically equate the word ‘loge’ with ‘Boston Garden’- or ‘not obstructed view’.
This is cool! My assigned chair is up in the front.
Back in the 1800s, the construction of this place was held up when builders realized that they were building this thing on top of a swamp. Cue lots of water removal and delays…,and Megan asking herself, “Didn’t they build Saint Petersburg on top of a swamp too?”
Here we have my view. I’m here to see a screening of live performance so I’m really thinking to how I can come back some day to see an actual performance with real live dancers in it.
The ceiling art dates from 1964, and apparently a lot of people thought that it clashed with the overall style of the building. Me, I think that there is so much decadence and giltiness in here already that you have long since gone over the edge of aesthetic indulgence. Besides, shouldn’t you people be looking at the stage?
The place looks to be sold out, and from the whispering of people around me who seem to know something about Roland Petit (the deceased choreographer), there are lots of theatrical and artistic luminaries down there in the audience.
As I said before, this was essentially a film screening that was shown in the opera house. We watched two acts composed of Petit’s work: a ballet based on French poet Jacques Prévert’s writings, and then a longer piece based on Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu.We’re not going to get any more French than this.
Entract (intermission)
Okay this photo was taken by accident. As we were sitting in our red velvet box, I grabbed my iPad to do some reading as we waited for the show to resume. The two French ladies behind me had no clue what an iPad was, and asked me to show them what it could do. “Does it have a camera?” they asked. I proceeded to turn on said camera and realized that it was reflecting back at me, so I tried to turn it to the front facing one but instead took a photograph. It’s portraiture at its finest.
Since these were film presentations, I wasn’t about to be obnoxious and take photos during the viewing. I will say that the projection was very realistic, and the superior sound quality of the orchestra and the sound of the dancers jumping made you think that you were watching an actual performance. As strange as it sounds, we the audience even applauded during the obvious not real-time curtain calls. It’s been awhile since I had seen a ballet recital, and this next-to-best experience made me want to get out and see more. As soon as I get out of Dakar, that is.
On my way out, headed into the chilly Paris night.
This entry was probably a little heavy on the anecdotal front, but I figured that you could stand two stories from mon enfance if the rest of the reading world has had to put up with Proust’s seven volume melancholic youthful minutiae. I know that I close most of these Paris blog entries with the same thought, but I had a really amazing time tonight, and am so glad that I had the opportunity to finally check this place out.
