At the back end of the ground floor of the Musée d’Orsay, I was surprised to find an exhibit on the construction of the then-new 19th century opera house which was commissioned by the Emperor Napoleon III and designed by the young architect Charles Garnier (1825-1898). The model in my Read More …
The Place de Clichy is a square where four of the Paris arrondissements come together, the 8th, 9th, 17th and 18th. During the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st this was not so much a public square as a motorized disaster area, with more than four thousand Read More …
This old façade of the Bains de Chatêaudun, made mainly of ceramic tiles, has been lovingly preserved and renovated, although the bathhouse itself no longer exists because most people now have indoor plumbing at home, so they can bathe or shower whenever they want to without going out to the Read More …
In terms of the number of seats that they can actually put on sale for any given evening, around 1,750, this is only the third largest opera house in Paris (assuming you still count the Châtelet as an opera house). But when you consider the amount of high-quality space that Read More …
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale is a funny opera that is full of lovely music and also serves as a timely reminder to all us older men that we shouldn’t get any stupid ideas about marrying women who are half a century younger than we are. It’s just not a good idea, Read More …
This historic theater, the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, was built in the 1890s and has been a subsidized public theater since 1982. It has a small orchestra pit for musical productions, and is also used for spoken drama and concerts. La Carmencita, which I saw there in 2006, is an adapted Read More …
With seats for 570 spectators in its main auditorium, the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet is the smallest lyric theater in Paris. The nearby Garnier Opera seats three times as many people, and the Bastille Opera seats well over four times as many. Though the entrance to the Athénée is tucked away Read More …
The two department stores Au Printemps and the Galeries Lafayette are both on the same street, Boulevard Haussmann. They are both in large historic buildings with Art Deco cupolas. And they both sell the same fashionable products with prestigious brand names that everybody except me has heard of. It turns Read More …
Most of you are too young to remember this, but back in the twentieth century it was customary for department stores to consist of — departments. If you were looking for, say, men’s trousers, all you had to do was take a deep breath, enter the store, find your way Read More …
The Théâtre des Nouveautés (Theater of Novelties or News or Innovations) is one of the many theaters along the Grands Boulevards in Paris. Most of these theaters specialize in contemporary French comedies, which are notoriously difficult for us poor foreigners to understand, even those of us who have some acquaintance Read More …