1.
Opera house
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An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building. While some venues are constructed specifically for operas, other houses are part of larger performing arts centers. In contrast, there was no house in London when Henry Purcell was composing. Early United States opera houses served a variety of functions in towns and cities, hosting community dances, fairs, plays, with the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in the 19th century, European culture moved away from its patronage system to a publicly supported system. In the 2000s, most opera and theatre companies raise funds from a combination of government and institutional grants, ticket sales, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples introduces the plant horseshoe, the oldest in the world, a model for the Italian theater. On this model were built following theaters of Italy and Europe, among others, the theater of the Palace of Caserta. Given the popularity of opera in 18th and 19th century Europe, opera houses are large, with generally more than 1,000 seats. Modern opera houses of the century such as New Yorks Metropolitan Opera. Many operas are better suited to being presented in smaller theatres, in a traditional opera house, the auditorium is U-shaped, with the length of the sides determining the audience capacity. Around this are tiers of balconies, and often, nearer to the stage, are boxes and this is especially true of Wagners Bayreuth Festspielhaus where the pit is almost completely covered. The size of an opera orchestra varies, but for some operas, oratorios and other works, it may be large, for some romantic period works. Similarly, an opera may have a large cast of characters, chorus, dancers, therefore, a major opera house will have extensive dressing room facilities. Opera houses often have on-premises set and costume building shops and facilities for storage of costumes, make-up, masks, and stage properties, major opera houses throughout the world often have highly mechanized stages, with large stage elevators permitting heavy sets to be changed rapidly. At the Metropolitan Opera, for instance, sets are changed during the action, as the audience watches. This occurs in the Mets productions of such as Aida. Much the same happened in the remodeling of Milans La Scala opera house between 2002 and 2004, since the 1990s, however, many opera houses have begun using a subtle form of sound reinforcement called acoustic enhancement. Often, operas are presented in their languages, which may be different from the first language of the audience. For example, a Wagnerian opera presented in London may be in German, therefore, since the 1980s modern opera houses have assisted the audience by providing translated supertitles, projections of the words above or near to the stage
2.
Second Empire (architecture)
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Second Empire is an architectural style, most popular in the latter half of the 19th century and early years of the 20th century. It was so named for the elements in vogue during the era of the Second French Empire. The style quickly spread and evolved as Baroque Revival architecture throughout Europe and its suitability for super-scaling allowed it to be widely used in the design of municipal and corporate buildings. In the United States, where one of the architects working in the style was Alfred B. Mullett, buildings in the style were often closer to their 17th-century roots than examples of the found in Europe
3.
Beaux-Arts architecture
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Beaux-Arts architecture expresses the academic neoclassical architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Arts architecture continued without interruption until 1968. The Beaux-Arts style heavily influenced the architecture of the United States in the period from 1880 to 1920, in contrast, many European architects of the period 1860–1914 outside France gravitated away from Beaux-Arts and towards their own national academic centers. American architects of the Beaux-Arts generation often returned to Greek models, for the first time, repertories of photographs supplemented meticulous scale drawings and on-site renderings of details. Beaux-Arts training emphasized the production of quick conceptual sketches, highly finished perspective presentation drawings, close attention to the program, site considerations tended toward social and urbane contexts. In the façade shown to the right, Diana grasps the cornice she sits on in an action typical of Beaux-Arts integration of sculpture with architecture. A sense of appropriate idiom at the craftsman level supported the teams of the first truly modern architectural offices. The prestige of the École gave the style Beaux-Arts a second wind in combining the new manner with the traditional training and they were followed by an entire generation. Henry Hobson Richardson absorbed Beaux-Arts lessons in massing and spatial planning and his Beaux-Arts training taught him to transcend slavish copying and recreate in the essential fully digested and idiomatic manner of his models. Richardson evolved a personal style freed of historicism that was influential in early Modernism. The White City of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was a triumph of the movement, the Beaux-Arts curriculum was subsequently begun at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. From 1916, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City schooled architects, painters, bosworth, Carnegie Mellon University, designed by Henry Hornbostel, and the University of Texas, designed by Paul Philippe Cret. Beaux-Arts architecture also brought a civic face to the railroad, two of the best American examples of the Beaux-Arts tradition stand within a few blocks of each other, Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. Another prominent U. S. example of the style is the largest academic dormitory in the world, in the late 1800s, during the years when Beaux-Arts architecture was at a peak in France, Americans were one of the largest groups of foreigners in Paris. Many of them were architects and students of architecture who brought this back to America. Beaux-Arts was very prominent in public buildings in Canada in the early 20th century, notably all three prairie provinces legislative buildings are in this style. Buenos Aires is a center of Beaux-Arts architecture which continued to be built as late as the 1950s, national Theatre, Melbourne General Post Office building, Forrest Place, Perth Argus Building. Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York, A Photographic Guide United States, sixteenth Street Architecture – profiles of Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington D. C
4.
9th arrondissement of Paris
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The 9th arrondissement, located on the Right Bank, is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, France. Along with the 2nd and 8th arrondissements, it one of the business centers of Paris. The land area of this arrondissement is 2.179 km2, groupe Danone has its head office in the 17 Boulevard Haussmann building in the 9th arrondissement. BNP Paribas has its office in the arrondissement. Kroll Inc. also has an office in this arrondissement, until June 1995, the head office of Société Générale was in this arrondissement. On that month the head office moved to the Société Générale Towers, the former head office remains as the companys registered office. Google Paris has its offices in the arrondissement, the peak population of the 9th arrondissement occurred in 1901, when it had 124,011 inhabitants. Since then, the arrondissement has widely attracted business activity, as a result, the population was in 1999 only 55,838 inhabitants, while it held 111,939 jobs. Media related to Paris 9e arrondissement at Wikimedia Commons 9th arrondissement travel guide from Wikivoyage
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
French franc
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The franc, also commonly distinguished as the French franc, was a currency of France. Between 1450 and 1999, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it was revalued in 1960, with each new franc being worth 100 old francs. The French franc was a commonly held reserve currency of reference in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first franc was a gold coin introduced in 1360 to pay the Ransom of King John II of France and this coin secured the kings freedom and showed him on a richly decorated horse earning it the name franc à cheval. The obverse legend, like other French coins, gives the title as Francorum Rex. Its value was set as one livre tournois, john’s son, Charles V, continued this type. It was copied exactly at Brabant and Cambrai and, with the arms on the horse cloth changed, conquests led by Joan of Arc allowed Charles VII to return to sound coinage and he revived the franc à cheval. John II, however, was not able to strike enough francs to pay his ransom, John II died as a prisoner in England and his son, Charles V was left to pick up the pieces. Charles V pursued a policy of reform, including stable coinage, an edict dated 20 April 1365 established the centerpiece of this policy, a gold coin officially called the denier d’or aux fleurs de lis which had a standing figure of the king on its obverse. Its value in money of account was one livre tournois, just like the franc à cheval, in accordance with the theories of the mathematician, economist and royal advisor Nicolas Oresme, Charles struck fewer coins of better gold than his predecessors. In the accompanying deflation both prices and wages fell, but wages fell faster and debtors had to settle up in better money than they had borrowed, the Mayor of Paris, Etienne Marcel, exploited their discontent to lead a revolt which forced Charles V out of the city. The States General which met at Blois in 1577 added to the pressure to stop currency manipulation. Henry III agreed to do this and he revived the franc and this coin and its fractions circulated until 1641 when Louis XIII of France replaced it with the silver Écu. Nevertheless, the franc continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois. The decimal franc was established as the currency by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit of 4.5 g of fine silver. This was slightly less than the livre of 4.505 g, silver coins now had their denomination clearly marked as “5 FRANCS” and it was made obligatory to quote prices in francs. e. Coinage with explicit denominations in decimal fractions of the franc also began in 1795, decimalization of the franc was mandated by an act of 7 April 1795, which also dealt with of weights and measures. France’s first decimal coinage used allegorical figures symbolizing revolutionary principles, like the designs the United States had adopted in 1793
7.
Charles Garnier (architect)
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Jean-Louis Charles Garnier was a French architect, perhaps best known as the architect of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Charles Garnier was born Jean-Louis Charles Garnier on 6 November 1825 in Paris, on the Rue Mouffetard and his father was originally from Sarthe, and had worked as a blacksmith, wheelwright, and coachbuilder before settling down in Paris to work in a horse-drawn carriage rental business. He married Felicia Colle, daughter of a captain in the French Army, later in life, Garnier would all but ignore the fact that he was born of humble origins, preferring to claim Sarthe as his birthplace. Garnier became an apprentice of Louis-Hippolyte Lebas, and after that a student of the École royale des Beaux-Arts de Paris. He obtained the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1848, at age twenty-three, the subject of his final examination was entitled, Un conservatoire des arts et métiers, avec galerie dexpositions pour les produits de lindustrie. He became a pensioner of the Académie de France à Rome from 17 January to 31 December 1849 and he traveled through Greece which provided him the subject of his fourth year submission, presented at the Paris Salon in 1853. He visited Greece with Edmond About and Constantinople with Théophile Gautier and he worked on the Temple of Aphaea in Aegina where he insisted on polychromy. He was named, in 1874, member of the Institut de France, on 30 December 1860 the Second Empire of Emperor Napoleon III announced a competition for the design of a new, state-funded opera house. The old opera house, located on the rue Le Peletier, applicants were given a month to submit entries. There were two phases to the competition, and Garnier was one of about 170 entrants in the first phase and he was awarded the fifth-place prize and was one of seven finalists selected for the second phase. You have greatly improved your project since the first competition, whereas Ginain has ruined his, soon the thirty-five-year-old and relatively unknown Garnier began work on the building, which eventually would be named for him, the Palais Garnier. Many people had difficulty in deciding exactly what style he was trying to portray, when asked by Empress Eugénie in what style the building was to be done, he is said to have replied, Why Maam, in Napoleon Trois, and you complain. Construction began in the summer of 1861, though setbacks would delay it for fourteen years. During the first week of excavation, a stream was discovered. It required eight months for the water to be pumped out, Garniers double-walled and bitumen-sealed cement and concrete foundation proved strong enough to withstand any possible leakages, and construction continued. The defeat of the French army by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan in 1870 resulted in the end of the Second Empire. During the Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune in 1871, the opera house was finally inaugurated on 5 January 1875. The people who entered the building, spanning nearly 119,000 square feet, were generally awed by its immense size
8.
Paris Opera
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The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of France. Classical ballet as we know it today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral, small scale and contemporary works are also staged in the 500-seat Amphitheatre under the Opéra Bastille. The companys annual budget is in the order of 200 million euros, with this money, the company runs the two houses and supports a large permanent staff, which includes the orchestra of 170, a chorus of 110 and the corps de ballet of 150. Each year, the Opéra presents about 380 performances of opera, ballet and other concerts, to an audience of about 800,000 people. In the 2012/13 season, the Opéra presented 18 opera titles,13 ballets,5 symphonic concerts, the companys training bodies are also active, with 7 concerts from the Atelier Lyrique and 4 programmes from the École de Danse. The poet Pierre Perrin began thinking and writing about the possibility of French opera in 1655 and he believed that the prevailing opinion of the time that the French language was fundamentally unmusical was completely incorrect. Seventeenth-century France offered Perrin essentially two types of organization for realizing his vision, an academy or a public theater. On 28 June 1669, Louis XIV signed the Privilège accordé au Sieur Perrin pour létablissement dune Académie dOpéra en musique and he was free to select business partners of his choice and to set the price of tickets. No one was to have the right of free entry including members of the royal court, although it was to be a public theatre, it retained its status as royal academy in which the authority of the king as the primary stakeholder was decisive. The monopoly, originally intended to protect the enterprise from competition during its phase, was renewed for subsequent recipients of the privilege up to the early French Revolution. As Victoria Johnson points out, the Opera was an organization by nature so luxurious and expensive in its productions that its survival depended on financial protection. His first opera Pomone with music by Robert Cambert opened on 3 March 1671, a second work, Les peines et les plaisirs de lamour, with a libretto by Gabriel Gilbert and music by Cambert, was performed in 1672. The institution was renamed the Académie Royale de Musique and came to be known in France simply as the Opéra. Because of legal difficulties Lully could not use the Salle de la Bouteille, during Lullys tenure, the only works performed were his own. The first productions were the pastorale Les fêtes de lAmour et de Bacchus, Lully greatly desired a better theatre and persuaded the king to let him use the one at the Palais-Royal free of charge. The Théâtre du Palais-Royal had been altered in 1660 and 1671, the first production in the new theatre was Alceste on 19 January 1674. The opera was bitterly attacked by those enraged at the restrictions that Lully had caused to be placed on the French, to mitigate the damage, Louis XIV arranged for new works to be premiered at the court, usually at the Chateau Vieux of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This had the advantage of subsidizing the cost of rehearsals, as well as most of the machinery, sets, and costumes
9.
Boulevard des Capucines
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The name comes from a beautiful convent of Capuchin nuns whose garden was on the south side of the boulevard prior to the French Revolution. The former name, Rue Basse-du-Rempart, suggests that, in the beginning, then, when the wall was destroyed, the street was widened and became a boulevard. Piet Mondrians little known story De groote boulevards, written in 1920 in Paris at the instance of Theo van Doesburg, was inspired by the Boulevard des Capucines. At No.1 stood the Neapolitan Café, famous for the writers, journalists, and actors who were its patrons, such as Catulle Mendès, Jean Moréas, Armand Silvestre, the main hall was the grand salon of the Hotel in the 18th century. The rotunda on the facade has been kept, No.5 was the location of the photographic studio of Pierre-Louis Pierson, who was the photographic collaborator of Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione. 7, the Georama was erected in 1825, it was possible to see the earth inside a sphere 14 meters in diameter. 8, Jacques Offenbach lived from 1876 and died in 1880,12, the Grand Hotel was built on a former swamp-garden. Here, too, X-ray light experiments were carried out by Dr. Wilhelm Röntgen, from No.16 to No.22 stood the buildings of the former newspaper LÉvènement, founded by Victor Hugo. 24, Mistinguett lived from 1905 to 1956, No.25 was the former location of the Musée Cognacq-Jay set up in 1931. At No.27 stood the former store, the Samaritaine de Luxe, built by Frantz Jourdain, No.28 was the location of a roller coaster called montagnes russes in 1889. It was replaced in 1893 by the Olympia theater, a music hall founded in 1888 by Joseph Oller. No.35 was a house where Nadar lived, in April 1874, a group of young painters, including Renoir, Édouard Manet, Pissarro, and Claude Monet, opened the first exhibition of their paintings. The painting by Claude Monet, Impressions, gave the exhibitors the name of Impressionists, another of Claude Monets paintings, entitled Boulevard des Capucines, is now visible in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow or the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. From No.37 to No.43 was the location of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1820 to 1853. On 23 February 1848, a battalion of the 14th regiment blocked the boulevard to protect François Guizot, in the evening, a crowd of demonstrators tried to break down the barricade. The soldiers fired, killing 35 people and wounding 50, the demonstrators put the corpses in a dumper and called the people of Paris to arms. It was the beginning of the revolution ended the reign of Louis-Philippe the next day
10.
Paris Opera Ballet
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The Paris Opera Ballet is an integral part of the Paris Opera and the oldest national ballet company. Together with the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet and the London Royal Ballet it is regarded as one of the three most preeminent ballet companies in the world, since August 2016 the company has been under the direction of Aurélie Dupont, the Directrice de la Danse. The ballet company consists of 154 dancers, among them 17 Danseurs Étoiles, the principal dancer give 180 dance performances each year, primarily at the Palais Garnier. Just as prestigious as the Paris Opera Ballet is its dance school and its former pupils have won a record of 20 Benois de la Danse awards. The school celebrated its tercentennial in 2013, the competition for admission to both institutions is extremely fierce. To be admitted there, to pass the competitive examinations in May. As its Ballet School is excellent and graduates many young dancers who are or the most part French, the Paris Opera has had many different official names during its long history but since 1994 has been called the Opéra National de Paris. The Paris Opera Ballet had its origins in the earlier dance institutions, traditions, of particular importance were the series of comédies-ballets created by Molière with, among others, the choreographers and composers Pierre Beauchamps and Jean-Baptiste Lully. The first was Les Fâcheux in 1661 and the most important, many of these were also performed by Molières company at the public Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris, which was later to become the first permanent home of the opera company and the opera ballet. Also in 1661, Louis XIV had founded the Académie Royale de Danse in an effort to improve the quality of instruction for court entertainments. Members of the academy, as well as the teachers who were certified by it, and their students, participated in the creation of the ballets for the court, Molière. In 1680, Beauchamps became the chancellor of the Académie Royale de Danse, although the Académie Royale de Danse and the Opera were closely connected, the two institutions remained separate, and the former disappeared with the fall of the monarchy in 1789. On 28 June 1669, Louis XIV granted a privilege to the poet Pierre Perrin giving him a monopoly to form an academy for the performance of opera in French. In 1672, Lully purchased Perrins privilege and also obtained new letters patent limiting the use of musicians and this work consisted primarily of excerpts from Lullys prior court ballets connected with new entrées choreographed by des Brosses. A crucial difference, however, from the court ballets was that the members of the court no longer participated. Lullys next production, Cadmus et Hermione, the first tragédie lyrique, the ballets for these works were created by Beauchamps, des Brosses, and dOlivet. It was he, and not des Brosses or Beauchamps, whom Lully engaged for the ballets ordinaires and it was also dOlivet who composed the ballet of the old men in Thesée, of the baneful dreams in Atys, and of the tremblers in Isis. This last was composed solely of pantomimic gestures by men seized with cold, initially the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet were all male
11.
Place de la Bastille
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No vestige of the prison remains. The square straddles 3 arrondissements of Paris, namely the 4th, 11th and 12th, the square and its surrounding areas are normally called simply Bastille. The July Column which commemorates the events of the July Revolution stands at the center of the square, other notable features include the Bastille Opera, the Bastille subway station and a section of the Canal Saint Martin. Prior to 1984, the former Bastille railway station stood where the house now stands. The square is home to concerts and similar events, the north-eastern area of Bastille is busy at night with its many cafés, bars, night clubs, and concert halls. As a consequence of its significance, the square is often the site or point of departure of political demonstrations. At that time it housed political prisoners, but also religious prisoners, seditious writers. The prisoners were held within the 5-7 story towers, each having a room around 4.6 m across and containing various articles of furniture. The governor of the prison was given an allowance per prisoner. In terms of standards, there were many worse prisons in France, including the dreaded Bicêtre, however, in terms of popular literary accounts, the Bastille was a place of horror and oppression, a symbol of autocratic cruelty. The confrontation between the commoners and the Ancien Régime ultimately led to the people of Paris storming the Bastille on July 14,1789, following several days of disturbances. At this point, the prison was empty, with only seven inmates, four counterfeiters. The regular garrison consisted of about 80 invalides under Governor Bernard-René de Launay and they had however been reinforced by a detachment of 32 grenadiers from one of the Swiss mercenary regiments summoned to Paris by the Monarchy shortly before 14 July. A crowd of around 600 people gathered outside around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the guns, two people chosen to represent those gathered were invited into the fortress and slow negotiations began. In the early afternoon, the broke into the undefended outer courtyard. A spasmodic exchange of gunfire began, in mid-afternoon the crowd was reinforced by mutinous Gardes Françaises of the Royal Army, de Launay ordered a ceasefire, despite his surrender demands being refused, he capitulated and the victors swept in to liberate the fortress at around 5,30. On 16 June 1792, the occupied by the Bastille was turned into a square celebrating liberty. The first stone was laid by Palloy, however, construction never took place, in 1808, as part of several urban improvement projects for Paris, Napoléon planned to have a monument in the shape of an elephant built here, the Elephant of the Bastille
12.
Notre-Dame de Paris
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Notre-Dame de Paris, also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. The cathedral is considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. The naturalism of its sculptures and stained glass are in contrast with earlier Romanesque architecture, as the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Paris, Notre-Dame contains the cathedra of the Archbishop of Paris, currently Cardinal André Vingt-Trois. The cathedral treasury contains a reliquary, which some of Catholicisms most important relics, including the purported Crown of Thorns, a fragment of the True Cross. In the 1790s, Notre-Dame suffered desecration in the phase of the French Revolution when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. An extensive restoration supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc began in 1845, a project of further restoration and maintenance began in 1991. The Notre-Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress, in response, the cathedrals architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued the pattern. The total surface area is 5,500 m², many small individually crafted statues were placed around the outside to serve as column supports and water spouts. Among these are the famous gargoyles, designed for water run-off, the statues were originally colored as was most of the exterior. The cathedral was complete by 1345. It is possible therefore that the faults with the structure were exaggerated by the Bishop to help justify the rebuilding in a newer style. According to legend, Sully had a vision of a new cathedral for Paris. To begin the construction, the bishop had several houses demolished and had a new road built to transport materials for the rest of the cathedral. Construction began in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII, however, both were at the ceremony. Bishop de Sully went on to devote most of his life, construction of the choir took from 1163 until around 1177 and the new High Altar was consecrated in 1182. By this stage, the facade had also been laid out. Numerous architects worked on the site over the period of construction, between 1210 and 1220, the fourth architect oversaw the construction of the level with the rose window and the great halls beneath the towers. Shortly afterwards Pierre de Montreuil executed a similar scheme on the southern transept,1160 Maurice de Sully orders the original cathedral demolished
13.
Louvre Palace
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The Louvre Palace is a former royal palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain lAuxerrois. Its present structure has evolved in stages since the 16th century, in 1793 part of the Louvre became a public museum, now the Musée du Louvre, which has expanded to occupy most of the building. The Palace is situated in the right-bank of the River Seine between Rue de Rivoli to the north and the Quai François Mitterrand to the south. To the west is the Jardin des Tuileries and, to the east, the Rue de lAmiral de Coligny, where its most architecturally famous façade, the Louvre Colonnade, the Cour Napoléon and Cour du Carrousel are separated by the street known as the Place du Carrousel. Some 51,615 sq m in the complex are devoted to public exhibition floor space. The Old Louvre occupies the site of the 12th-century fortress of King Philip Augustus and its foundations are viewable in the basement level as the Medieval Louvre department. This structure was razed in 1546 by King Francis I in favour of a royal residence which was added to by almost every subsequent French monarch. King Louis XIV, who resided at the Louvre until his departure for Versailles in 1678, completed the Cour Carrée, the Old Louvre is a quadrilateral approximately 160 m on a side consisting of 8 ailes which are articulated by 8 pavillons. With it, the last external vestiges of the medieval Louvre were demolished, the New Louvre is the name often given to the wings and pavilions extending the Palace for about 500 m westwards on the north and on the south sides of the Cour Napoléon and Cour du Carrousel. This consummation only lasted a few years, however, as the Tuileries was burned in 1871, the northern limb of the new Louvre consists of three great pavilions along the Rue de Rivoli, the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque, Pavillon de Rohan and Pavillon de Marsan. As on the side, three inside pavilions and their wings define three more subsidiary Courts, Cour du Sphinx, Cour Viconti and Cour Lefuel. The Chinese American architect I. M. Pei was selected in 1983 to design François Mitterrands Grand Louvre Project. The ground-level entrance to this complex was situated in the centre of the Cour Napoléon and is crowned by the prominent steel-and-glass pyramid, in a proposal by Kenneth Carbone, the nomenclature of the wings of the Louvre was simplified in 1987 to reflect the Grand Louvres organization. This allows the visitor to avoid becoming totally mystified at the bewildering array of named wings. The origin of the name Louvre is unclear, the French historian Henri Sauval, probably writing in the 1660s, stated that he had seen in an old Latin-Saxon glossary, Leouar is translated castle and thus took Leouar to be the origin of Louvre. According to Keith Briggs, Sauvals theory is often repeated, even in recent books, but this glossary has never seen again. Briggs suggests that H. J. Wolfs proposal in 1969 that Louvre derives instead from Latin Rubras, david Hanser, on the other hand, reports that the word may come from French louveterie, a place where dogs were trained to chase wolves. In 1190 King Philip II Augustus, who was about to leave on the Third Crusade, completed in 1202, the new fortress was situated in what is now the southwest quadrant of the Cour Carrée
14.
Gaston Leroux
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Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. His novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is also one of the most famous locked-room mysteries ever, Leroux was born in Paris in 1868 and died in 1927 in France. He went to school in Normandy and studied law in Paris and he inherited millions of francs and lived wildly until he nearly reached bankruptcy. In 1890, he working as a court reporter and theater critic for LÉcho de Paris. His most important journalism came when he began working as a correspondent for the Paris newspaper Le Matin. He was present at, and covered, the 1905 Russian Revolution, another case at which he was present involved the investigation and in-depth coverage of the former Paris Opera. The basement contained a cell that held prisoners of the Paris Commune and he suddenly left journalism in 1907 and began writing fiction. In 1919, he and Arthur Bernède formed their own company, Société des Cinéromans, to publish novels. He first wrote a novel titled Le mystère de la chambre jaune. Lerouxs contribution to French detective fiction is considered a parallel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyles in the United Kingdom, Leroux published his most famous work, The Phantom of the Opera, as a serial in 1909 and 1910, and as a book in 1910
15.
The Phantom of the Opera
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The Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from September 23,1909 and it was published in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. It has been adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney. In 1890s Paris, the Palais Garnier is believed to be haunted by an entity known as The Phantom or The Opera Ghost. One day, the hand, Joseph Bouquet, is found hanged, presumably by The Phantom. At the same time, Christine Daaé, a young Swedish soprano, has been tutored by what she believes to be the Angel of Music, sent by her deceased father. On the night of the old managers retirement, she understudies at the performance for the Operas leading soprano, Carlotta. The Vicomte, Raoul de Changy, who was present at the performance, recognises her as his childhood playmate and he attempts to visit her backstage, when he hears a man speaking to her from inside her dressing room. He investigates the room once Christine leaves, only to find that no one else in the room. At Perros-Guirec, Christine meets with Raoul, who confronts her about the voice he heard in her room, Christine tells him about The Angel that has been tutoring her, but he is skeptical and suggests that she might be the victim of a prank. Hurt and angry, she storms off, Christine visits her fathers grave one night, where a mysterious figure appears and plays the violin for her. Raoul attempts to catch it but is attacked and knocked out in the process, the managers ignore his demands, resulting in disastrous consequences, Carlotta ends up croaking like a toad, and the chandelier suddenly drops into the audience, killing the new concierge. The Phantom, having abducted Christine from her room, reveals himself as Erik. Fearing that she leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever. On the roof of the house, Christine tells Raoul about her abduction and makes Raoul promise to take her away to a place where Erik can never find her. Raoul tells Christine he shall act on his promise the next day, however, Christine sympathises with Erik and decides to sing for him one last time as a means of saying good-bye. Unbeknownst to them, Erik has been watching them and overheard their whole conversation, the following night, the enraged and jealous Erik abducts Christine during a production of Faust and tries to force her to marry him. To save them and the people above in the Opera, Christine agrees to marry Erik, Erik initially tries to drown Raoul and the Persian, using the water which would have been used to douse the explosives
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The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
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The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart with additions from Richard Stilgoe. Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe also wrote the book together. The musical opened in Londons West End in 1986, and on Broadway in 1988 and it won the 1986 Olivier Award and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Michael Crawford won the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. It is the longest running show in Broadway history by a margin, and celebrated its 10, 000th Broadway performance on 11 February 2012. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after Les Misérables, by 2011, it had been seen by over 130 million people in 145 cities across 27 countries, and continues to play in London and New York. In 1986, Lloyd Webber contacted Cameron Mackintosh, the co-producer of Cats and Song and Dance and he was aiming for a romantic piece, and suggested Gaston Lerouxs book The Phantom of the Opera as a basis. They screened both the 1925 Lon Chaney and the 1943 Claude Rains motion picture versions, but neither saw a way to make the leap from film to stage. Then with the Phantom, it was there, Lloyd Webber first approached Jim Steinman to write the lyrics because of his dark obsessive side, but he declined in order to fulfill his commitments on a Bonnie Tyler album. Alan Jay Lerner was then recruited, but he became ill after joining the project and was forced to withdraw. Richard Stilgoe, the lyricist for Starlight Express, wrote most of the lyrics for the production. Charles Hart, a young and then-relatively unknown lyricist, later many of the lyrics. Some of Stilgoes original contributions are still present in the final version, inspired in part by an earlier musical version of the same story by Ken Hill, Lloyd Webbers score is sometimes operatic in style but maintains the form and structure of a musical throughout. The full-fledged operatic passages are reserved principally for subsidiary characters such as Andre and Firmin, Carlotta, and Piangi. They are also used to provide the content of the operas that are taking place within the show itself, viz. Hannibal, Il Muto. Here, Lloyd Webber pastiched various styles from the operas of Meyerbeer through to Mozart and even Gilbert. These pieces are presented as musical fragments, interrupted by dialogue or action sequences in order to clearly define the musicals show within a show format. Maria Björnson designed the sets and over 200 costumes, including the elaborate gowns in the Masquerade sequence and her set designs, including the chandelier, subterranean gondola, and sweeping staircase, earned her multiple awards. A preview of the first act was staged at Sydmonton in 1985, starring Colm Wilkinson as the Phantom, Sarah Brightman as Kristin, and Clive Carter as Raoul
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Second French Empire
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The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor
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Le Corbusier
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Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930 and his career spanned five decades, he constructed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America. Le Corbusier prepared the plan for the city of Chandigarh in India. On July 17,2016, seventeen projects by Le Corbusier in seven countries were inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites as an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement and it was an industrial town, devoted to the manufacture of watches. His father was an artisan who enameled boxes and watches, while his mother gave piano lessons and his elder brother Albert was an amateur violinist. He attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods, like his contemporaries Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier did not have formal academic training as an architect. He was attracted to the arts and at the age of fifteen he entered the municipal art school in La-Chaux-de-Fonds which taught the applied arts connected with watchmaking. Three years later he attended the course of decoration, founded by the painter Charles LEplattenier. Le Corbusier wrote later that LEplattenier had made him a man of the woods and his father took him frequently into the mountains around the town. He wrote later, we were constantly on mountaintops, we grew accustomed to a vast horizon and his architecture teacher in the Art School was the architect René Chapallaz, who had a large influence on Le Corbusiers earliest house designs. However, he reported later that it was the art teacher LEplattenier who made him choose architecture, I had a horror of architecture and architects, he wrote. I was sixteen, I accepted the verdict and I obeyed. Le Corbusier began teaching himself by going to the library to read about architecture and philosophy, by visiting museums, by sketching buildings, located on the forested hillside near Chaux-de-fonds. It was a chalet with a steep roof in the local alpine style. The success of this led to his construction of two similar houses, the Villas Jacquemet and Stotzer, in the same area. In Florence, he visited the Florence Charterhouse in Galluzzo, which made an impression on him. I would have liked to live in one of what they called their cells and it was the solution for a unique kind of workers housing, or rather for a terrestrial paradise. In 1911, he traveled again for five months, this time he journeyed to the Balkans and visited Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, as well as Pompeii and Rome. Filling nearly 80 sketchbooks with renderings of what he saw—including many sketches of the Parthenon and he spoke of what he saw during this trip in many of his books, and it was the subject of his last book, Le Voyage dOrient
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Napoleon III style
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The Napoleon III style is the name commonly given to a 19th-century style of Renaissance Revival architecture in France, especially in Paris. It is a sub-style of Second Empire architecture, which is a also used elsewhere in the world for this style. It is characterized by its eclecticism, because of the mix of elements from the past. It flourished during the Second French Empire, with the patronage of Napoleon III, the term is also not reserved exclusively for architecture. It is used also to describe furniture of the period, especially in the marketplace, the style is characterised by high façades, mansard roofs, and, more rarely, pavilions. The buildings are richly decorated but with clearly defined outlines, the Napoleon III style is associated with the renovation of Paris under Baron Haussmann between 1852 and 1870. The buildings of the show a singularity of purpose and design. Numerous public edifices, railway stations, the tribunal de commerce, châteauesque Second Empire architecture Second Empire style. Retrieved 1 June 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, http, //www. britannica. com/eb/article-9066516
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Baroque
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The style began around 1600 in Rome and Italy, and spread to most of Europe. The aristocracy viewed the dramatic style of Baroque art and architecture as a means of impressing visitors by projecting triumph, power, Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. However, baroque has a resonance and application that extend beyond a reduction to either a style or period. It is also yields the Italian barocco and modern Spanish barroco, German Barock, Dutch Barok, others derive it from the mnemonic term Baroco, a supposedly laboured form of syllogism in logical Scholastica. The Latin root can be found in bis-roca, in informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that something is elaborate, with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. The word Baroque, like most periodic or stylistic designations, was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th, the term Baroque was initially used in a derogatory sense, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, although it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music. Another hypothesis says that the word comes from precursors of the style, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and he did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Long despised, Baroque art and architecture became fashionable between the two World Wars, and has remained in critical favour. In painting the gradual rise in popular esteem of Caravaggio has been the best barometer of modern taste, William Watson describes a late phase of Shang-dynasty Chinese ritual bronzes of the 11th century BC as baroque. The term Baroque may still be used, usually pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, the appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th-century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo. Even more generalised parallels perceived by some experts in philosophy, prose style, see the Neapolitan palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace whose construction began in 1752. In paintings Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures, less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, Baroque poses depend on contrapposto, the tension within the figures that move the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich, heavy detail, Baroque style featured exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism. There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona, the most prominent Spanish painter of the Baroque was Diego Velázquez. The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, while the Baroque nature of Rembrandts art is clear, the label is less often used for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while continuing to produce the traditional categories
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Andrea Palladio
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Andrea Palladio was an Italian architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is considered to be the most influential individual in the history of architecture. All of his buildings are located in what was the Venetian Republic, the city of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Palladio was born on 30 November 1508 in Padua and was given the name and his father, Pietro, called Della Gondola, was a miller. From early on, Andrea Palladio was introduced into the work of building, in Padua he gained his first experiences as a stonecutter in the sculpture workshop of Bartolomeo Cavazza da Sossano, who is said to have imposed particularly hard working conditions. At the age of sixteen he moved to Vicenza where he would reside for most of his life, here he became an assistant in the Pedemuro studio, a leading workshop of stonecutters and masons. He joined a guild of stonemasons and bricklayers and he was employed as a stonemason to make monuments and decorative sculptures. These sculptures reflected the Mannerist style of the architect Michele Sanmicheli, perhaps the key moment that sparked Palladios career was being employed by the Humanist poet and scholar, Gian Giorgio Trissino, from 1538 to 1539. While Trissino was reconstructing the Villa Cricoli, he took interest in Palladios work, Trissino was heavily influenced by the studies of Vitruvius, who later influenced Palladios own ideals and attitudes toward classical architecture. It was also Trissino who gave him the name by which he became known, Palladio, indeed, the word Palladio means Wise one. The powerful Barbaros introduced Palladio to Venice, where he finally became Proto della Serenissima after Jacopo Sansovino, in addition to the Barbaros, the Corner, Foscari, and Pisani families supported Palladios career. Andrea Palladio began to develop his own architectural style around 1541, the Palladian style, named after him, adhered to classical Roman principles he rediscovered, applied, and explained in his works. Andrea Palladio is known to be one of the most influential architects in Western architecture and his architectural works have been valued for centuries as the quintessence of High Renaissance calm and harmony. He designed many palaces, villas, and churches, but Palladios reputation, initially, the palladian villas are located mainly in the province of Vicenza, while the palazzi are concentrated in the city of Vicenza and the churches in Venice. A number of his works are now protected as part of the World Heritage Site City of Vicenza, other buildings by Palladio are to be found within the Venice and its Lagoon World Heritage Site. Palladios first major public project began when his designs for building the loggias for the town hall and he proposed an addition of two-storey stone buttresses reflecting the Gothic style of the existing hall while using classical proportions. The construction was completed in 1617 after Palladios death, aside from Palladios designs, his publications contributed to Palladianism. During the second half of his life, Palladio published many books, above all, Palladio is most known for his designs of villas and palaces as well as his books
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Renaissance architecture
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Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture. Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the style was carried to France, Germany, England, Russia and other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact. Italy of the 15th century, and the city of Florence in particular, was home to the Renaissance, the scholarly approach to the architecture of the ancient coincided with the general revival of learning. A number of factors were influential in bringing this about, Italian architects had always preferred forms that were clearly defined and structural members that expressed their purpose. Many Tuscan Romanesque buildings demonstrate these characteristics, as seen in the Florence Baptistery, Italy had never fully adopted the Gothic style of architecture. In the 15th century, Florence, Venice and Naples extended their power through much of the area that surrounded them and this enabled Florence to have significant artistic influence in Milan, and through Milan, France. Successive Popes, especially Julius II, 1503–13, sought to extend the Pope’s temporal power throughout Italy, in the early Renaissance, Venice controlled sea trade over goods from the East. Trade brought wool from England to Florence, ideally located on the river for the production of fine cloth, by dominating Pisa, Florence gained a seaport, and also maintained dominance of Genoa. In this commercial climate, one family in particular turned their attention from trade to the business of money-lending. The Medici became the chief bankers to the princes of Europe, becoming virtually princes themselves as they did so, along the trade routes, and thus offered some protection by commercial interest, moved not only goods but also artists, scientists and philosophers. This commenced in the mid 15th century and gained momentum in the 16th century, the construction of the Sistine Chapel with its uniquely important decorations and the entire rebuilding of St Peters, one of Christendoms most significant churches, were part of this process. In wealthy republican Florence, the impetus for church-building was more civic than spiritual, the unfinished state of the enormous cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary did no honour to the city under her patronage. The dome inspired further religious works in Florence, through Humanism, civic pride and the promotion of civil peace and order were seen as the marks of citizenship. Some major ecclesiastical building works were commissioned, not by the church. During the Renaissance, architecture became not only a question of practice, printing played a large role in the dissemination of ideas. The first treatise on architecture was De re aedificatoria by Leon Battista Alberti in 1450 and it was to some degree dependent on Vitruviuss De architectura, a manuscript of which was discovered in 1414 in a library in Switzerland. De re aedificatoria in 1485 became the first printed book on architecture, Sebastiano Serlio produced the next important text, the first volume of which appeared in Venice in 1537, it was entitled Regole generali darchitettura. It is known as Serlios Fourth Book since it was the fourth in Serlios original plan of a treatise in seven books, in all, five books were published
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Les Halles
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Les Halles de Paris, usually simply Les Halles, was Pariss central fresh food market. The shopping mall welcomes 150,000 visitors daily, since 2010, a major reconstruction of the mall is under progress. The new version is planned to be inaugurated by 2016, the mall remains open during works. In 2013, the Forum des Halles was still the second most visited shopping mall in France with 39.2 million visitors, Les Halles was the traditional central market of Paris. In 1183, King Philippe II Auguste enlarged the marketplace in Paris and built a shelter for the merchants, the church of Saint-Eustache was constructed in the 16th century. The circular Halle aux Blés, designed by Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières, was built between 1763 and 1769 at the west end of Les Halles and its circular central court was later covered with a dome, and it was converted into the Bourse de Commerce in 1889. In the 1850s, Victor Baltard designed the glass and iron buildings, Les Halles. Les Halles was known as the Belly of Paris, as it was called by Émile Zola in his novel Le Ventre de Paris, which is set in the busy marketplace of the 19th century. Two of the glass and cast iron market pavilions were dismantled and re-erected elsewhere, one in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, the site was to become the point of convergence of the RER, a network of new express underground lines which was completed in the 1960s. Three lines leading out of the city to the south, east and west were to be extended and connected in a new underground station. For several years, the site of the markets was an open pit, nicknamed le trou des Halles. Construction was completed in 1977 on Châtelet-Les-Halles, Pariss new urban railway hub, the Forum des Halles, a partially underground multiple story commercial and shopping center, opened at the east end of the site in 1979 and remains there today. A public garden covering four hectares opened in 1986, many of the surrounding streets were pedestrianized. Gare de Châtelet – Les Halles is Pariss most used rail station, the buildings and their surroundings have been criticized for their design. A design competition for the Forum and gardens was held, with entries from Jean Nouvel, Winy Maas, David Mangin, the plan also includes extending the pedestrianized area further east to include all the streets bordering the gardens. Another competition was held for the redesign of the Forum, ten teams submitted plans, and the proposal by Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti was selected in 2007. Their design includes a large undulating glass canopy which will cover the redesigned Forum, STIF and RATP began plans for the remodeling of the Châtelet-Les-Halles station in 2007, and the following year Berger and Anziutti were awarded a contract for redesign of the station. The station redesign includes new entrances on Rue Berger, Rue Rambuteau, and Place Marguerite de Navarre, an expanded RER concourse, construction began in 2010 on a project which includes the gardens, Forum, and station, and is scheduled to continue through 2016
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Porphyry (geology)
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Porphyry is a textural term for an igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals such as feldspar or quartz dispersed in a fine-grained silicate rich, generally aphanitic matrix or groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts, in its non-geologic, traditional use, the term porphyry refers to the purple-red form of this stone, valued for its appearance. The term porphyry is from Ancient Greek and means purple, purple was the color of royalty, and the imperial porphyry was a deep purple igneous rock with large crystals of plagioclase. Some authors claimed the rock was the hardest known in antiquity, Imperial grade porphyry was thus prized for monuments and building projects in Imperial Rome and later. Subsequently, the name was given to any igneous rocks with large crystals, the adjective porphyritic now refers to a certain texture of igneous rock regardless of its chemical and mineralogical composition. Its chief characteristic is a difference in size between the tiny matrix crystals and the much larger phenocrysts. Porphyries may be aphanites or phanerites, that is, the groundmass may have invisibly small crystals as in basalt, or crystals easily distinguishable with the eye, most types of igneous rocks display some degree of porphyritic texture. Porphyry deposits are formed when a column of rising magma is cooled in two stages, in the first, the magma is cooled slowly deep in the crust, creating the large crystal grains with a diameter of 2 mm or more. In the second and final stage, the magma is cooled rapidly at relatively shallow depth or as it erupts from a volcano, the term porphyry is also used for a mineral deposit called a copper porphyry. The different stages of cooling that create porphyritic textures in intrusive and this enrichment occurs in the porphyry itself, or in other related igneous rocks or surrounding country rocks, especially carbonate rock. Collectively, these type of deposits are known as porphyry copper deposits, rhomb porphyry is a volcanic rock with gray-white large porphyritic rhomb- shaped phenocrysts embedded in a very fine-grained red-brown matrix. The composition of rhomb porphyry places it in the classification of the QAPF diagram. Rhomb porphyry lavas are known from three rift areas, the East African Rift, Mount Erebus near the Ross Sea in Antarctica. Plinys Natural History affirmed that the Imperial Porphyry had been discovered at a site in Egypt in AD18. This particular Imperial grade of porphyry came from a quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. After the fourth century the quarry was lost to sight for many centuries, as early as 1850 BC on Crete in Minoan Knossos there were large column bases made of porphyry. Porphyry was also used for the blocks of the Column of Constantine in Istanbul, list of rock textures Quartz-porphyry Sarcophagi of Helena and Constantina Tyrian purple Pictures of the Mons Porphyrites, Red Sea, Egypt. Rhomb porphyry lavas at the Wayback Machine Flash showing rhomb porphyry formation at the Wayback Machine
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Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
26.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
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Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was a French sculptor and painter during the Second Empire under Napoleon III. Born in Valenciennes, Nord, son of a mason, his studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and won the Prix de Rome in 1854, staying in Rome from 1854 to 1861, he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of baroque art. Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with the classical tradition, Carpeaux debuted at the Salon in 1853 exhibiting La Soumission dAbd-el-Kader alEmperuer, a bas-relief in plaster that did not attract much attention. Carpeaux was an admirer of Napoléon III and followed him from city to city during Napoléons official trip through the north of France, Carpeaux soon grew tired of academicism and became a wanderer on the streets of Rome. He spent free time admiring the frescoes of Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel, Carpeaux said, When an artist feels pale and cold, he runs to Michelangelo in order to warm himself, as with the rays of the sun. While a student in Rome, Carpeaux submitted a version of Pêcheur napolitain à la coquille. He carved the marble version several years later, showing it in the Salon exhibition of 1863 and it was purchased for Napoleon IIIs empress, Eugénie. The statue of the smiling boy was very popular, and Carpeaux created a number of reproductions and variations in marble. There is a copy, for instance, in the Samuel H. Kress Collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, some years later, he carved the Girl with a Shell, a very similar study. In 1861, he made a bust of Princess Mathilde, then in 1866, he established his own atelier in order to reproduce and make work on a grander scale. In 1866, he was awarded the chevalier of the Legion of Honour and he employed his brother as the sales manager and made a calculated effort to produce work that would appeal to a larger audience. On 12 October 1875, he died at the Chateau de Bécon, among his students were Jules Dalou, Jean-Louis Forain and the American sculptor Olin Levi Warner. Carpeaux died at age 48 in Courbevoie, ugolin et ses fils with versions in other museums including the Musée dOrsay, Paris. Partly complete at his death, Carpeaux finished the terrestrial globe with the points represented by the four figures of Asia, Europe. LAmour à la folie, part of a group La danse for the facade of the Opera Garnier A page from insecula
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Electrotyping
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Electrotyping is a chemical method for forming metal parts that exactly reproduce a model. The method was invented by Moritz von Jacobi in Russia in 1838, in art, several important bronze sculptures created in the 19th century are actually electrotyped copper, and not bronze at all, sculptures were executed using electrotyping at least into the 1930s. In printing, electrotyping had become a method for producing plates for letterpress printing by the late 1800s. It complemented the older technology of stereotyping, which involved metal casting, by 1901, stereotypers and electrotypers in several countries had formed labor unions around these crafts. As with metal casting and stereotyping, a mold is first formed from the model, since electrotyping involves wet chemical processes and is done near room temperature, the molding material can be soft. Materials such as wax, gutta-percha, and ultimately ozokerite were used, the molds surface is made electrically conducting by coating it very thinly with fine graphite powder or paint. A wire is attached to the surface, and the mold is suspended in an electrolyte solution. Electrotyping is activated by electric currents flow between anode wires that are also immersed in the solution and the wire connected to the coated mold. For copper electrotyping, an aqueous electrolyte contains copper sulfate and sulfuric acid, and the anode is also copper. The electric current causes copper atoms to dissolve from the anodes surface, copper ions are taken up by the molds conducting surface at the same rate at which copper dissolves from the anode, thus completing the electrical circuit. When the copper layer on the mold grows to the desired thickness, the mold and its attached electrotype are removed from the solution, and the electrotype and the mold are separated. An animation of the process was produced in 2011 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other metals besides copper can be electrotyped, similar procedures apply, there is a second type of electrotyping that has been used in which the copper film is deposited onto the outside of a form, and is not separated from it. In this use the form is typically waterproofed plaster, which remains as a core after electrotyping, in German this method is known as Kerngalvanoplastik, the more usual technique described in the previous paragraph is known as Hohlgalvanoplastik. Electrotyping is related to electroplating, which adds a thin metallic overlayer to a metallic object instead of creating a freestanding metal part. Electrotyping and electroforming both produce metal parts, but differ in technical details, electroforming involves the production of a metallic part around a metallic mandrel, although the term is sometimes used more broadly to encompass all electrodeposition processes. As noted above, electrotyping forms the part using a mold or form whose surface has been made conducting by applying a thin coating of graphite or metal powder. At present, most sources credit Moritz Hermann Jacobi with the invention of galvanoplasty or electrotyping in 1838, Jacobi was a Prussian scientist who was working in St. Petersburg, 19th-century accounts often credited Thomas Spencer or C. J
28.
Gioachino Rossini
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Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote operas, as well as some sacred music, songs, chamber music and piano pieces. A precocious composer of operas, he made his debut at the age of eighteen. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia, Litaliana in Algeri and he also wrote a string of serious operas in Italian, including works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. The semi-serious opera La Gazza Ladra has one of Rossinis most celebrated overtures, after moving to Paris in 1824, he eventually started to write in French. His last opera, the epic Guillaume Tell, replete with its iconic overture, after composing thirty-nine significant operas in nineteen years Rossini retired from the theatre in 1829. Later, he was affected by physical and mental illnesses and for decades wrote relatively little apart from a setting of the Stabat Mater. A return to Paris from Italy in 1855 was followed by better health, during these, he presented salon music in the form of songs, piano pieces and small chamber ensembles that he called Sins of Old Age. He considered the last of these Sins to be the unusually scored Petite messe solennelle that he wrote in 1863, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history, and he was one of the most renowned public figures of his time. A rapid and prolific composer, he was quoted as joking, Give me the laundress bill, a tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, earning him the nickname The Italian Mozart. Use of a build up of orchestral sound over a repeated phrase—commonly known as a Rossini crescendo—also prompted the nickname Signor Crescendo. Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro and his father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a bakers daughter, Rossinis father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleons troops when they arrived in northern Italy. When Austria restored the old regime, Rossinis father was sent to prison in 1799, Rossinis mother took him to Bologna, making a living as leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region. Her husband would ultimately join her in Bologna, during this time, Rossini was frequently left in the care of his aging grandmother, who had difficulty supervising the boy. He remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher while his father played the horn in the orchestras of the theatres at which his wife sang and these qualities made him a subject for ridicule in the eyes of the young Rossini. He was eventually taken from Prinetti and apprenticed to a blacksmith, in Angelo Tesei, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important products of this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, the original scores, dating from 1804 when the composer was twelve, were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D. C. In 1805, he appeared at the theatre of the Commune in Ferdinando Paers Camilla and he was also a capable horn player, treading in the footsteps of his father
29.
Daniel Auber
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Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer. The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy, though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments. His first teacher was the Tirolean composer, Josef Alois Ladurner, at the age of 20 Auber was sent to London for business training, but he was obliged to leave England in 1804 when the Treaty of Amiens was breached. Auber had already attempted musical composition, and at this period produced several concertos pour basse, modelled after the violoncellist Lamare, in whose name they were published. The praise given to his concerto for the violin, which was played at the Paris Conservatoire by Mazas, encouraged him to undertake a resetting of an old comic opera and he also began to study with the renowned Luigi Cherubini. In 1813 the unfavourable reception of his one-act debut opera Le Séjour militaire put an end for some years to his attempts as composer, but his failure in business, and the death of his father in 1819, compelled him once more to turn to music. He produced another opera, Le Testament et les billets-doux, which was no better received than the former, but he persevered, and the next year was rewarded by the complete success of La Bergère châtelaine, an opera in three acts. This was the first in a series of brilliant successes. In 1822 began his association with librettist Eugène Scribe. Their first opera, Leicester, shows evidence of the influence of Gioachino Rossini in its musical style, Auber soon developed his own voice, however, light, vivacious, graceful, and melodious—characteristically French. Le maçon was his first major triumph, staying in the repertory until the 20th century, an ensemble from the latter found its way into Herolds ballet La Somnambule as an air parlante. Auber achieved another triumph in La muette de Portici, also known as Masaniello after its hero. Produced in Paris in 1828, it became a European favourite, and the foundation work of a new genre, grand opera. La Muette broke ground also in its use of a ballerina in a leading role, official and other dignities testified to the public appreciation of Aubers works. In 1829 he was elected a member of the Institut de France, Fra Diavolo, which premiered on 28 January 1830, was his most successful opera. That same year,1830, he was named director of the court concerts, next year, on 20 June 1831, he had another big success, with Le Philtre, starring Adolphe Nourrit. The libretto was translated into Italian and set by Donizetti as Lelisir damore, two years later, on 27 February 1833, Gustave III, his second grand opera, also triumphed and stayed in the repertory for years. The libretto was to be used more, first by Saverio Mercadante for Il reggente, with the action transferred to Scotland
30.
Ludwig van Beethoven
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
31.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
32.
Gaspare Spontini
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Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini was an Italian opera composer and conductor. Born in Maiolati, Papal State, he spent most of his career in Paris and Berlin, during the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in French opera. As a youth, Spontini studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà de Turchini, working his way from Italian city to city, he got his first break in Rome, with his successful comedy Li puntigli delle donne. In 1803, he went to Paris, where, on February 11,1804, debuted his comic opera La finta filosofa and its premiere at the Opéra in Paris established Spontini as one of the greatest Italian composers of his age. His contemporaries Cherubini and Meyerbeer considered it a masterpiece, and later such as Berlioz. During the Peninsular War, Napoleon promoted works such as Gasparo Spontinis Fernand Cortez, in 1811 he married Celeste Erard, the niece of the Parisian maker of pianos and harps Sebastien Erard, it was a happy marriage, though childless. He was made a chevalier of Napoleons Legion of Honor, its Maltese cross hangs round his neck in the portrait by Nicolas-Eustache Maurin, there he became Kapellmeister and chief conductor at the Berlin Hofoper, and in this period he composed the Prussian National Anthem Borussia. There he also met the young Mendelssohn, and deprecated the 17 -year olds opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho, in 1842 the disillusioned Spontini, chagrined at the success of Giacomo Meyerbeer and others in Germany, returned to Italy, where he died in 1851. Perhaps the most famous production was the revival of La vestale with Maria Callas at La Scala at the opening of the 1954 season. The stage director was famed cinema director Luchino Visconti and that production was also the La Scala debut of tenor Franco Corelli. Callas recorded the arias Tu che invoco and O Nume tutelar from La vestale in 1955, in 1969, conductor Fernando Previtali revived the opera, with soprano Leyla Gencer and baritone Renato Bruson. In 1993, conductor Riccardo Muti recorded it in the original French language with Karen Huffstodt, Denyce Graves, Anthony Michaels-Moore, Fernand Cortez was revived in 1951, with a young Renata Tebaldi, at the San Carlo in Naples, conducted by Gabriele Santini. The premiere of the version of the work took place at the Erfurt opera house. Li puntigli delle donne was performed at the Putbus Festival 1998, Spontini, Gaspare, in Grove Music Online, accessed 13 September 2014. Silke Leopold, The Idea of National Opera, c.1800 in Unity and Diversity in European Culture c,1800, Tim Blanning and Hagen Schulze New York, Oxford University Press. Todd, R. Larry, Mendelssohn, A Life in Music, fondazione Pergolesi Spontini of Jesi Herbermann, Charles, ed. Gasparo Luigi Pacifico Spontini. Free scores by Gaspare Spontini at the International Music Score Library Project
33.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
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Giacomo Meyerbeer was a German opera composer of Jewish birth who has been described as perhaps the most successful stage composer of the nineteenth century. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera decisive character, Meyerbeers grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra and they set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a very wealthy Berlin family, Meyerbeer began his career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation and he was at his peak with his operas Les Huguenots and Le prophète, his last opera was performed posthumously. His operas made him the most frequently performed composer at the leading opera houses in the nineteenth century. He was a supporter of Richard Wagner, enabling the first production of the latters opera. He was commissioned to write the patriotic opera Ein Feldlager in Schlesien to celebrate the reopening of the Berlin Royal Opera House in 1844, apart from around 50 songs, Meyerbeer wrote little except for the stage. Meyerbeers works are infrequently performed today. Meyerbeers birthname was Jacob Liebmann Beer, he was born in Tasdorf, near Berlin, then the capital of Prussia, to a Jewish family. His father was the wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer and his mother, Amalia Wulff, to whom he was particularly devoted. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer and he was to adopt the surname Meyerbeer on the death of his grandfather Liebmann Meyer Wulff and the first name Giacomo during his period of study in Italy, around 1817. Judah Beer was a leader of the Berlin Jewish community and maintained a synagogue in his house which leaned towards reformist views. Jacob Beer wrote a cantata for performance at this synagogue. The brothers Alexander von Humboldt, the renowned naturalist, geographer and explorer, beers first keyboard instructor was Franz Lauska, a pupil of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and a favoured teacher at the Berlin court. Beer also became one of Muzio Clementis pupils while Clementi was in Berlin, the boy made his public debut in 1801 playing Mozarts D minor Piano Concerto in Berlin. Beer, as he named himself, studied with Antonio Salieri. Louis Spohr organised a concert for Beer at Berlin in 1804 and continued his acquaintance with the lad later in Vienna, beers first stage work, the ballet Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen was produced in March 1810 at the Court Opera in Berlin
34.
Philippe Quinault
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Philippe Quinault, French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris. Quinault was educated by the liberality of François Tristan lHermite, the author of Marianne, quinaults first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen. The piece succeeded, and Quinault followed it up, but he read for the bar, and in 1660. Then he tried tragedies with more success and he received one of the literary pensions then recently established, and was elected to the Académie française in 1670. Up to this time he had written some sixteen or seventeen comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies, of which the tragedies were mostly of small value. But his comedies—especially his first piece Les Rivales, LAmant indiscret, which has some likeness to Molières Étourdi, Le Fantôme amoureux, and La Mère coquette, perhaps the best—are much better. But in 1671 he contributed to the singular miscellany of Psyché, in which Pierre Corneille and Molière also had a hand, and which was set to the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully. Here he showed a remarkable faculty for lyrical drama, and from this time till just before his death he confined himself to composing libretti for Lullys work and his libretti are among the very few which are readable without the music, and which are yet carefully adapted to it. They certainly do not contain very exalted poetry or very perfect drama, but they are quite free from the ludicrous doggerel which has made the name libretto a byword, and they have quite enough dramatic merit to carry the reader, much more the spectator, along with them. It is not an exaggeration to say that Quinault, coming at the time when opera became fashionable out of Italy, had very much to do with establishing it as a permanent European genre. His first piece after Psyché was a kind of classical masque, then came Cadmus et Hermione, Alceste, Thesée, Atys, one of his best pieces, and Isis. All these were classical in subject, and so was Proserpine, the Triumph of Love is a mere ballet, but in Persée and Phaëton Quinault returned to the classical opera. Then he finally deserted it for romantic subjects, in which he was more successful. Amadis de Gaule and Roland are his masterpieces, the very artificiality of the French lyric of the later 17th century, and its resemblance to alexandrines cut into lengths, were aids to Quinault in arranging lyrical dialogue. Lully died in 1687, and Quinault, his occupation gone, became devout and he died on 26 November 1688, in Paris. Works by or about Philippe Quinault at Internet Archive
(help·info)) is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was called the Salle des Capucines, because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier, in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre is also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier (French 
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Garnier's Paris Opéra, Smarthistory at Khan Academy
(in French)
