Salle Ventadour
The Salle Ventadour ( Théâtre Ventadour ) is a building on the axis of Rue Ventadour , part of which is now called Rue Méhul and is located in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. The address is now Rue Dalayrac 1. During its existence as a venue, it was home to various ensembles.
Outer shape
The building was built by the architect Jean-Jacques Huvé , together with the theater maker Louis de Guerchy, on the site of the abandoned Hôtel Ventadour , which housed the Loterie royale de France , in classicism style. It takes up the entire area of the square surrounded by streets.
The front main facade is approximately 40 meters wide and is divided into nine equal arcades on the ground floor. The pillars of the arcades each stand on a large base and are decorated with pilasters in a Doric order . The arched windows on the upper floor are decorated and modeled on the arcades on the ground floor. The Doric pilasters can also be found here. Under the attic there was a mezzanine that was changed by the renovation and no longer exists. A mansard roof was added later
The main side facade, facing Rue Marsolier, measures around 50 meters and is therefore much longer, but less decorated. It is divided into 13 arched windows, corresponding to the arcades of the main facade; only the middle three windows are wider and higher. The upper floors have windows without arches.
The facade facing the Passage Choiseul, which at that time was a small side street, was simple and without any architectural design. There was the stage entrance, which consisted of three archways; FONCIÈRE was written above the middle one . This facade was also redesigned during the renovation and supplemented according to the taste of the times and the new requirements.
Theater interior
The interior was of great splendor. The vestibule was eight meters deep and very spacious and bright. There were white marble stairs to the left and right that were modeled on the stairs of the Louvre. Rows of columns supported the ceilings of the staircases that led to the first floor, from where one could get into the foyer and the hall.
The foyer, which was located above the vestibule and was just as large, had a flooring made of mosaic parquet and was decorated with busts of André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry , Nicolas Dalayrac , Étienne-Nicolas Méhul and Niccolò Mestrino . There were also two open chimneys made of white marble, which shone particularly brightly in the light of the seven crystal chandeliers. The walls themselves were decorated with white and gold painting. At the level of the second row of boxes, the hall was open for ventilation and gave the audience the opportunity to watch the hustle and bustle from above during the breaks.
The hall itself was semicircular and had five rows of boxes one on top of the other, the boxes in the fore stage being furnished with side columns and plenty of decoration. The ceiling of the hall was adorned with a motif in the style of Roman wall painting and in the middle hung a large chandelier with 100 gas flames, which illuminated the hall well.
The balcony parapets, like the foyer, were painted with white and gold ornaments that alternated with figures in red. The interior of the boxes was lined with green fabric, the same shade as the stage curtain.
The stage was 13 or 14 meters wide and about seven meters deep, making it larger than that of the opera that was built later . As requested by the police, the stage had an iron curtain . One shortcoming, however, was the weak acoustics of the main stage, which led to the fore-stage being enlarged in 1832, to the delight of the singers.
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History of the playhouse
The first ensemble to perform in the Salle Ventadour in 1829 was the Opéra-Comique . This had previously found a home in the Théâtre Feydeau , which had to be demolished in 1829 due to dilapidation. Many successful plays were staged, but by the beginning of 1832 a cholera epidemic raged in France and the game was stopped. The foyer was used as an emergency hospital at the time. The Opéra-Comique had meanwhile moved into a new theater and so the Salle Ventedour remained closed until the Théâtre Nautique moved there in 1834 . After just a year, the troupe disbanded and the Salle Ventadour would have almost disappeared from the Parisians' minds if masked balls had not been held during Carnival.
Only in 1838 did new life return to the building, as the Théâtre-Italien moved into the hall for a few months. At the end of the same year, the troupe of the Théâtre de la Renaissance was established , which until its temporary dissolution in 1841 was not only famous for the top-class play, for example by Victor Hugo , and actors such as Frédérick Lemaître , but also the masked balls were legendary.
The Salle Ventadour was once again a fixture in the city's cultural life and so the Théâtre-Italien moved into the well-established house. The importance was also shown when Richard Wagner gave a guest performance in 1860. Wagner himself conducted excerpts from the Flying Dutchman , Tannhäuser , Tristan and Isolde and the wedding march .
As early as the mid-1860s, revenues were declining. The siege of Paris also damaged business and so the management tried to revive business in 1871 by hiring a world star. Adelina Patti was hired to do seven performances and one more performance for which she received all of the proceeds directly.
Overall, the situation remained difficult because Théâtre-Italy, which was considered aristocratic, no longer corresponded to living conditions and customs. At the same time, top-class plays were presented and the theater was able to hold on for the time being under changing leadership. It was also renamed Troisième-Théâtre-Lyrique-Francais in 1878 , but when the financial failure was no longer sustainable, the Théâtre-Italien was dissolved in early 1879 and the hall closed.
The theater was sold to a company that remodeled the theater and furnished offices. The Banque d'escompte de Paris moved into its headquarters on the ground floor . Today there is a branch of the Banque de France there .
literature
- Octave Foque : Histoire du Théâtre Ventadour, 1829–1879: Opéra-comique, Théâtre de la Renaissance, Théâtre-italien , 1881, digitized
- Gustave Chouquet : A Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Volume 4, 1905, pp. 237f. Digitized
Coordinates: 48 ° 52 ′ 3.7 ″ N , 2 ° 20 ′ 5.5 ″ E