Royal Opera (Versailles)
The Royal Opera ( fr .: Opéra royal du château de Versailles ) of the Palace of Versailles in France was under Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1770 in the reign of Louis XV. accomplished. The construction of today's opera house was one of the last major construction projects of the Ancien Régimes in Versailles. It has remained largely unchanged to the present day and is still regularly used today.
History of the Opera House
In the second half of the 17th century, the Versailles Palace was expanded from a small hunting seat to a permanent royal residence by the Sun King Louis XIV . Although Versailles developed into a court of muses for French opera during this period, there was no permanent building for the theater for financial reasons. A project presented by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in 1682 was not carried out and theater and musical plays were played in changing rooms with mobile stands until the 18th century.
Louis XV commissioned the court architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel to build a permanent court opera in the palace in 1748, but the plans remained untouched for almost 20 years. The reason for the construction of the opera house was the marriage of the heir to the throne, Louis XVI. with the Austrian Archduchess Marie Antoinette . The opening as part of the wedding celebrations took place - after only around two years of construction - on May 16, 1770, a new version of Jean-Baptiste Lully's work Persée was performed . Until the end of the Ancien Regime, the court opera was used not only for regular performances but also for balls and similar events, for example in 1777 and 1781 for the reception of Joseph II and in 1784 for the reception of the Swedish King Gustav III. In the 19th century, the opera house served as a meeting room for the French National Assembly for several years.
The opera house is regularly used to this day. From 2007 to 2009 it was renovated for around 12 million euros.
Furnishing
The opera house is - hardly recognizable from the outside - at the end of the north wing of the Versailles Palace. The equipment of the oval room is made entirely of wood for reasons of acoustics, all staircases and galleries leading to the opera hall are made of stone in order to prevent the fire from spreading to the rest of the castle in the event of a fire. The orchestra pit has space for 80 musicians, the auditorium can accommodate more than 700 guests. The parquet could be raised to the level of the stage floor with the help of a lifting mechanism, so that the auditorium of the opera could also be used for balls and banquets.
The auditorium designed by Gabriel dispenses with the layout with individual boxes that was still common in the 18th century ; instead, the audience in the tiers is seated on three terrace-like stands. With its high Corinthian column positions and the suggested shape of an amphitheater, the hall already refers to classicism , but with its ornamentation and strong colors it can still be assigned to the Louis-quinze style. The center of the auditorium is formed by the royal box, whose place of honor is emphasized by a semi-domed vault at the level of the third tier. At the height of the second tier there is also a second box hidden behind bars, which made it possible for the king to appear to the performances unseen.
Web links
literature
- Nicholas d'Archimbaud: Versailles. Stiebner, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-8307-0172-1 .
- Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos, Robert Polidori : Versailles. Könemann, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-89508-424-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Article on www.n24.de from September 20, 2009 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 20, 2010
Coordinates: 48 ° 48 ′ 21.5 " N , 2 ° 7 ′ 21.8" E