Paris Opera - Palais Garnier

On Monday I posted a card of the Hippodrome in New York. Then I saw that this week's Sepia Saturday theme is theaters (or theatres, depending on where you live.) So, I decided to post a couple more, including the Frankfurt Opera house and La Scala. I will have additional theater-related posts over the next few weeks, but I'll intersperse them with others, because I know some of you have already had enough of opera and theaters. But today, we're off to Paris.

The Palais Garnier certainly dominates the focus of the Place de l'Opéra. The building housed the Paris Opera from 1875 until 1989, when the new larger Opéra Bastille was built. The Palais Garnier is now primarily used for ballet performances. I have visited the building and the Paris Opera Library-Museum, but I have never been to a performance there. I did see a performance of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at the Opéra Bastille in 2007, which was roundly booed by the audience, in part because of the modern reinterpretation and the spare set with its glaring gold backdrop.

Here's the Palais Garnier at the turn of the century. The card is embellished with lots of glitter, which unfortunately doesn't show up well on the scan.

And another view from decades later.

Here's the back of the first card, sent in 1906 to Cherry Morgan, staying at the Mount Hotel in Scarborough, England. The message reads:

Dear Cherry

We have put across the Channel. Some of the Channel was on ___of us Rough. Paris is very gay - hope you and your Ma are enjoying yourselves. Send love.

E.M. Costaline (?)

This is a post for Sepia Saturday, which is as entertaining as any theater. Click the box below to be transported.

La Scala - Milan, Italy

The building we see here was inaugurated in 1778 and named after the church (Chiesa di Santa Maria alla Scala, built in 1381) that was demolished to make way for the opera house. Over the years, numerous operas by Verdi, Puccini, and Rossini, among others, premiered at La Scala. The first performance at La Scala was the performance of Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta.

It may not look like much from the outside, particularly on a black-and-white postcard, but it seats 2,800, and the interior looks pretty fabulous. I have never been to La Scala, but if I did I would want to sit in the cheaper nosebleed seats (known as the loggione) above the box seats. If you sit there, I imagine you can watch the opera and all the people in the box seats too.

La Scala was severely damaged by bombing in 1943, but was rebuilt in 1946.  The opera house is currently facing a tough budget year, with a drop in both private and public contributions.

Source: Wikipedia

Here's the back of the card.

Opera House - Frankfurt, Germany

The grand old Frankfurt Opera House still stands, although it is now known as the Old Opera, having been replaced by a newer building. The original Opera House was inaugurated in 1880. Kaiser Wilhelm attended and remarked that he would not be allowed such an extravagance in Berlin.

Carmina Burana premiered here in 1937, but only seven years later, a bomb nearly destroyed the opera house. It lay in ruins for many years amid proposals to demolish it and build an office building. Instead, a citizens' initiative started raising money for a reconstruction fund in the 1950s. The opera house was finally reopened in 1981.

At the time this card was sent (sometime before 1907), senders were not allowed to write a message on the back of the card. Many people scribbled message over or around the picture on the front. Salomon Marx simply imprinted the front of the card with his personalized stamp.  He sent the card to Rachel and Esther Rousseau of Ghent, Belgium.

I couldn't find anything on the Rousseau sisters, but I did find that Salomon Marx was born into a prominent Jewish family in Frankfurt. I can only assume that this is the same Salomon Marx. He was born in 1863 and was able to emigrate (to the United States?) sometime after 1933.