The triumphal gate Porte Saint Denis is in a wide place on the Boulevard Saint-Denis, on the border between the 2nd and 10th districts (arrondissements) of Paris. In the 14th century this was the site of a gate in the wall of Charles V. The current gate was built in Read More …
In 1875 Bizet’s Carmen had its world premiere here at the Opéra-Comique. Also Debussy’s Pelleas et Mélisande and Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann had their world premieres here, so this is a hall that is full of great opera history. The performance I saw here in 2006 was of The Barber Read More …
If you look at a political map of the Paris districts, after the 2014 elections, you will see that the western side of the city is colored blue, meaning that the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 15th, 16th and 17th districts (arrondissements) all have conservative mayors. And the eastern Read More …
Each of the twenty districts (arrondissements) of Paris has not only a number, but also a name. The name of the 1st district, for example, is “Louvre”. The 5th is “Panthéon”, the 9th is “Opéra”, etc. The name of the 2nd district is “Bourse” (= stock exchange), after this large Read More …
The Richelieu-Louvois Library is one of four Paris locations of the National Library of France, which in French is called the Bibliothèque nationale de France, abbreviated BnF. The other three Paris sites of the BnF are: The François Mitterrand Library (13th arrondissement) The Arsenal Library (4th arrondissement) The Library-Museum of the Read More …
In addition to the permanent exhibition of coins, medallions and antiques, the French National Library (Site Richelieu-Louvois) often hosts prestigious temporary exhibitions. When I was there in the summer of 2014 they had an impressive display of ancient Greek vases from the personal collection of the Duke of Luynes (1802-1867), Read More …
In May 2013 I took a guided walking tour of the Palais Royal area in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements of Paris. The guide turned out to be a man named Eric Bourde, who is described as an art historian and an actor. He gave us an interesting and entertaining Read More …
The high density of historic buildings in the 2nd district (2ème arrondissement) of Paris leaves little scope for traditional horizontal green spaces, so the botanist and researcher Patrick Blanc (born 1953) has created a vertical garden on a formerly raw concrete wall at the corner of Rue des Petits Carreaux and Read More …
The Salle Favart, home of the Opéra-Comique in Paris, re-opened in April 2017 after twenty months of renovation. At first glance the hall looks much the same as it did before — which was the intention — except that everything has been cleaned up, repainted and refurbished. But the main Read More …
The French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893) is best known today for two of his operas, Roméo et Juliette (based on the Shakespeare play) and Faust (based on Goethe’s monumental drama). I have been both of these, several times each, in excellent productions at the Frankfurt Opera: Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s production Read More …