Palais Garnier’s grand staircase and richly decorated public rooms make the opera house a spectacle before performance begins. Designed by Charles Garnier and inaugurated in 1875, it joined stage machinery with the ceremonial social life of nineteenth-century Paris.
Quick facts
Charles Garnier won the competition for the new Paris Opera in 1861, after 171 architects submitted designs.
Palais Garnier was inaugurated on 5 January 1875, after construction was interrupted by the 1870 war and the Paris Commune.
Marc Chagall’s auditorium ceiling was installed in 1964, adding a modern work to Garnier’s nineteenth-century theatre.
Get directions to Palais Garnier. Confirm the visitor entrance and current access with the venue before travelling.
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At Palais Garnier, the staircase is almost a second stage. Its flights divide and reunite, while balconies let one arriving audience watch another. Charles Garnier designed more than a room for opera: he shaped the public ritual around it, from entrance to intermission. The building still performs that role, even when visitors come by day to see its architecture rather than attend a show.
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