Théâtre Montparnasse
There has been a theater on this site on the Rue de la Gaîté since 1817, and the present Théâtre Montparnasse dates from 1886. Note that the ornate nineteenth century Read More …
Category: France
Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482
The original title of Victor Hugo’s blockbuster novel included the year, 1482. He chose that year because it was still in the Middle Ages but was a year without any Read More …
Sacré-Coeur
Looming above Paris from its position on a hilltop near the northern edge of the city, the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur can be seen from most places in the eastern half of Read More …
Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière
Looming above Lyon from its position on a hilltop on the right bank of the Saône River, the Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière can be seen from numerous places in the Read More …
Lully and Strauss in Nancy
The opera house in Nancy is on an elegant public square called Place Stanislas, which was designed and built in the 1750s on orders of the Duke of Lorraine, Stanislas Read More …
The Royal Opera in Versailles
In the Royal Opera in the north wing of Versailles Palace I saw an elaborate performance of the musical comedy Le Bourgeois gentilhomme by the playwright Molière (1622-1673) and the Read More …
Lyon’s unmistakable opera house
One thing I’ll say for the Lyon opera house: you can’t mistake it for any other building in Lyon, or for any other opera house in the world that I Read More …
Standing room at the Opéra Bastille
In September 2011 I paid all of five Euros and got the next-to-last standing room ticket for the premiere of the opera Salomé by Richard Strauss (1864-1949). This was the Read More …
Molière at the Théâtre des Célestins
When I saw the beautiful old Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon from the year 1881 I knew I had to go and see something there, no matter what they were Read More …
Mozart in the Madeleine
When he died in December 1791 at age 35, the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was still working on his last composition, his Requiem Mass in D Minor (K. 626). The Read More …