Opera de Lille

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The Opéra de Lille , south front

The Opéra de Lille is a traditional opera house in the French city of Lille . The building is since 31 December 1999 as inscribed monument historique under monument protection . Caroline Sonrier has been the head of the house since 2003 .

history

As early as 1700, the city council of Lille had a theater and music theater, called Comédie , built opposite the Palais Rihour . On the night of November 19, 1700, it was destroyed by fire caused by fireworks in a play.

Although there was no opera house of its own in Lille after that, a number of opera performances were held there. For the years 1718 to 1728, the theater historian Léon Lefebvre was able to record seventeen productions, including six works by Jean-Baptiste Lully and two each by André Campra and André Cardinal Destouches . In 1785, the city commissioned local architect Michael Joseph Lequeux to build a new building. It was also the victim of a fire in 1903.

The city council then announced a competition for a new building, which was won by the architect Louis Marie Cordonnier . Between 1907 and 1914 he erected a magnificent building in the style of the historicism of the Belle Époque with a series of sculptures and reliefs by the sculptors Hippolyte Lefèbvre , Alphonse Amédée Cordonnier , Hector Lemaire and Edgar Boutry in the neo-baroque style. The opening was prevented by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Alfred Grohs: The theater in Lille ; Postcard from the time of the First World War

When the Germans conquered the city, they confiscated numerous inventory of the new opera house in order to furnish and equip the other opera house in the city, the Théatre Sébastopol . The theater was labeled "Deutsches Theater" and was opened at Christmas 1915 in the presence of Army Leader Rupprecht von Bayern with Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris and orchestral works by Franz Liszt . Operettas were given later, and in 1917 there was also a cyclical performance of Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen with a uniformed orchestra under the direction of Robert Laugs . Before they left in 1918, the occupiers destroyed the stage machinery and decorations.

On February 2, 1919, the first French performance of George Bizet's incidental music L'Arlésienne took place. However, the theater had to be closed after a few performances for reasons of structural safety. It was not until 1923 that it was officially opened as the Grand Théâtre de Lille . In the Second World War it was again a "German Theater" from 1941-1944 due to circumstances.

In 1998 the house had to be closed in the middle of the season due to acute dilapidation. The renovation turned out to be more complex than originally planned, but was completed in time in 2004, when Lille was the European Capital of Culture .

Today, with a number of opera productions, school and family programs and concerts, the opera house is an important center of French music theater alongside the opera houses of Paris, the Opéra National de Lyon , the Opéra de Dijon , the houses of Marseille , Montpellier , Strasbourg and Versailles It is a stepping stone into international careers, especially for young artists, and offers performance of the classical repertoire.

description

Exterior

When designing the new building, Louis Marie Cordonnier borrowed from other French theaters. For example, the Grand Théâtre in Bordeaux, the Paris Comédie-Française and the Paris Opera were the inspiration for the opera construction in Lille. Because it could not cost more than two million francs despite the high demands on fire protection and representation, Cordonnier decided on a core made of reinforced concrete , which was clad with limestone . The 75 m × 40 m building has two and a half floors. A high bel étage rises above a rusticated ground floor , followed by a mezzanine floor . The main facade is located on the southern front side facing the Place du Théâtre ( German theater square ). A wide flight of stairs leads to three double-winged entrance doors with wrought iron decorations. Doors of the same type are also located at the southern ends of the two long sides. Its axis is closed off by a triangular gable, the sculpted decoration of which comes from Gustave Elsinger and shows toddlers making music. Three large arched windows on the upper floor on the south side illuminate the large foyer behind . They are flanked by Ionic columns . To the right and left of the windows there are large allegorical reliefs depicting the music and the tragedy. They were made by the sculptors Alphonse Amédée Cordonnier and Hector Lemaire. The mezzanine is crowned by an allegorical group of sculptures by the French sculptor Hippolyte Jules Lefèbvre. It represents the glorification of the arts.  

Interior

Like the decor of the exterior, the interior design and decoration also indicate the purpose and use of the house as a location for musical and theatrical performances. The visitor enters the building through one of the five large entrance doors at the south end of the opera house and enters the spacious vestibule . There are two statues by Jules Déchin and Charles Caby : The Idyll and The Poetry . A two- flight staircase of honor leads up to the large foyer ( French Grand Foyer ) of the house. The columns of Cipollino - Marble carried coffered ceiling has a rich stucco decorations and models of the Italian Renaissance inspired. Monumental vases made of painted and gilded plaster stand on the upper landing of the stairs . They were made by Louis Allard and were originally intended for the large foyer.

The 35 m × 9 m foyer on the upper floor is lavishly decorated with marble, stucco and gilding. The ceiling painting and two oval wall paintings are works by the painter Georges Picard . They show the music and the dance. Two allegorical sculptures by Edgar Boutry and Gustave Adolphe Crauk represent peace and the three graces . With its extraordinary dimensions, the foyer is large enough to serve as a concert hall. Accordingly, it is also used for music performances nowadays.

The opera hall ( French Grande Salle ) offers 1138 seats (originally there were 1568 seats) and has a traditional horseshoe-shaped floor plan. It specifies the arrangement of the rank and box seats on four floors along the walls around the seats in the parquet . The Opéra de Lille is one of the last examples of this type of seating arrangement in France; other construction methods and thus arrangements have been preferred for more recent buildings. An orchestra pit separates the parquet from the 28 x 18.40 m stage. The decor of the hall is in the colors red, gold and white. The great room is vaulted by a stucco dome supported by four pillars . The spandrels of the pillars have reliefs with allegorical depictions of dance, music, tragedy and comedy. Like the rest of the sculptural decoration on the ceiling of the hall, they come from the sculptor Edgar Boutry. The four caryatids , which represent the four seasons and flank the proscenium boxes on the lowest level, also come from him. Eight medallions in the dome show paintings by the artists Georges Dilly and Victor Lhomme from 1914. They are based on virtues.

  • Grand staircase

  • Decor of the staircase

  • Grand foyer

  • Ranks in the opera hall

  • stage

literature

  • Jeanne Bossuyt (Ed.): L'Opéra de Lille ( Itinéraires du Patrimoine. No. 148). Center de Documentation du Patrimoine, Lille 1997, ISBN 2-908271-20-6 .
  • Jean-Marie Duhamel: Lille, un opéra dans la ville. 1702-2004 . La Voix du Nord, Lille 2003, ISBN 2-84393-073-1 .
  • Jean-Marie Duhamel: L'Opéra de Lille. La mémoire retrouvée. La Voix du Nord, Lille 2004, ISBN 2-84393-075-8 .
  • Chantal Zamolo, Diana Palazova-Lebleu (eds.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. Ville de Lille, Lille September 2010 ( PDF ; 9.9 MB).

Web links

Commons : Opéra de Lille  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry of the opera house in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  2. ^ Marie-Aude Roux: Caroline Sonrier veut dépoussiérer l'opéra , Le Monde (Paris), June 18, 2014, accessed on June 6, 2016.
  3. ^ Carl B. Schmidt: The geographical spread of Lully's operas. In: John Hajdu Heyer (Ed.): Jean-Baptiste Lully and the Music of the French Baroque: Essays in Honor of James R. Anthony. Cambridge University Press 1989, ISBN 0-521-35263-0 , p. 197.
  4. ^ New magazine for music . Vol. 84, 1917, No. 45/46, November 15, p. 351.
  5. ↑ Claudine Wallart: Lille à l'heure allemande. In: Chemins de mémoire , accessed on June 9, 2016
  6. ↑ C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, pp. 31–33.
  7. ↑ C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, p. 25.
  8. ↑ C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, p. 18.
  9. ↑ a b C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, p. 24.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f Information on the Opéra de Lille on nordmag.com , accessed on June 12, 2016.
  11. ↑ C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, p. 27.
  12. ↑ a b C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, p. 22.
  13. ↑ C. Zamolo, D. Palazova-Lebleu (ed.): Laissez-vous conter l'Opéra de Lille. Renaissances et transformations 1700-2010. 2010, p. 28.

Coordinates: 50 ° 38 '15.1 "  N , 3 ° 3' 54.7"  E