1.
2013 Cannes Film Festival
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The 66th annual Cannes Film Festival took place in Cannes, France, from 15 to 26 May 2013. Steven Spielberg was the head of the jury for the main competition, new Zealand film director Jane Campion was the head of the jury for the Cinéfondation and Short Film sections. French actress Audrey Tautou hosted the opening and closing ceremonies, Actress Kim Novak was named guest of honour and introduced a new restored version of Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo. The festival opened with The Great Gatsby, directed by Baz Luhrmann and closed with Zulu, the film poster for the festival featured Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward. The Bling Ring, directed by Sofia Coppola, opened the Un Certain Regard section, the French film Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme dOr. In an unprecedented move, along with the director, the Jury decided to take the step of awarding the films two main actresses, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, with the Palme dOr. On the occasion of 100 Years of Indian Cinema, India was the Official Guest Country at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, seven Indian feature films were premiered among various sections on the festival. Actress Vidya Balan was one of the official Jury of the festival, the first Incredible India Exhibition, a joint participation of the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Republic of India was inaugurated by Indian delegate Chiranjeevi. The Cinéfondation section focuses on films made by students at film schools, the following 18 entries were selected, out of 1,550 submissions from 277 different schools. One-third of the films selected represented schools competing for the first time and it was also the first time for a Chilean film to be selected in Cinéfondation. The line-up for the Directors Fortnight was announced at a conference on 23 April with the following films being selected. Feature films The line-up for the International Critics’ Week was announced on 22 April at the sections website, in a first for the competition, the jury decided to award the Palme dOr to Kechiche and the actresses who star in the film, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a film that tells the story of a lesbian relationship between a 15-year-old girl and an older woman. It has shocked critics with its graphic and controversial sex scenes. A reporter for the Radio France Internationale stated that Kechiche paid tribute to the Tunisian revolution, the Grand Prix was won by the Coen brotherss Inside Llewyn Davis, while Bruce Dern and Bérénice Bejo were awarded Best Actor and Best Actress respectively
2.
Lausanne
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Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
3.
Vaud
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The Canton of Vaud is the third largest of Swiss cantons by population and fourth by size. The capital and biggest city is Lausanne, officially designated Olympic Capital by the International Olympic Committee, the canton had 725,944 inhabitants as of 2011. Along the lakes, Vaud was inhabited in prehistoric times, later, the Celtic tribe of the Helvetii inhabited the area. The tribe was defeated by Caesars troops in 58 BC and as a consequence the Romans settled the area, the towns of Vevey and Lausanne are two of the many towns established by the Romans. In 27 BC the state of Civitas Helvetiorum was established around the capital of Avenches, there are still many Roman remains around the town today. Between the 2nd and the 4th century the area was invaded by Alemannic tribes. The Merovingian Franks later replaced the Burgundians and their occupancy did not last long either, and in 888 the area of the canton of Vaud was made part of the Carolingian Empire. In 1032 the Zähringens of Germany defeated the Burgundians, the Zähringens themselves were succeeded in 1218 by the counts of Savoy. It was only under the counts of Savoy that the area was given political unity, a part stretching from Attalens to the River Sarine, in the north, was absorbed by the canton of Fribourg. As the power of the Savoys declined at the beginning of the 15th century the land was occupied by troops from Bern, by 1536 the area was completely annexed. The Bernese occupiers were not popular amongst the population, later, inspired by the French Revolution, the Vaudois drove out the Bernese governor in 1798 and declared the Lemanic Republic. Under Napoleon I, it became the canton of Léman, in 1803, Vaud joined the re-installed Swiss confederation. In spite of Bernese attempts to reclaim Vaud, it has remained a sovereign canton ever since, separation was prevented at the cost of very few lives. The current constitution dates from 14 April 2003, replacing the one from 1885, in the Jura mountains in the west, the canton borders the French departments of Ain, Jura, and Doubs. In the east, it borders the cantons of Fribourg and Bern, the total area is 3,212 square kilometres. Along with the canton of Berne, Vaud is one of the two cantons whose territory extends from the Jura to the Alps, through the three geographic regions of Switzerland. The areas in the south east are mountainous, situated on the side of the Bernese Alps. This region is named the Vaud Alps
4.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
5.
Catherine Deneuve
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Catherine Deneuve is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model and producer. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof, mysterious beauties for various directors, including Luis Buñuel, Francois Truffaut, in 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, Frances national symbol of liberty. A 14-time César Award nominee, she won for her performances in Truffauts The Last Metro and she is also noted for her support for a variety of liberal causes. She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress for Belle de Jour, and she also won the 1998 Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for Place Vendôme. Other films include Scene of the Crime, My Favourite Season,8 Women and her English-language films include The April Fools, Hustle, The Hunger and Dancer in the Dark. In 2015, she starred in The Brand New Testament and Standing Tall, Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, France, the daughter of French stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot. Deneuve was her mothers name, which she chose for her stage name. Her work for Buñuel would be her most famous, further prominent films from this early time in her career included Jean-Paul Rappeneaus A Matter of Resistance, and Demys musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Her starring roles at the time were featured in films as A Slightly Pregnant Man with Marcello Mastroianni. She made her film as a producer in 1988, Drôle dendroit pour une rencontre. In 1997, Deneuve was the protagonist in the video for the song NOubliez Jamais sung by Joe Cocker. In 1998 she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in Place Vendôme. In the late 1990s, Deneuve continued to appear in a number of films such as 1999s five films Est-Ouest, Le temps retrouvé, Pola X, Belle maman. In 2000, Deneuves part in Lars von Triers musical drama Dancer in the Dark alongside Icelandic singer Björk was subject to critical scrutiny. The film was selected for the Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival and she made another foray into Hollywood the following year, starring in The Musketeer for Peter Hyams. In 2002, she shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in 8 Women. In 2005, Deneuve published her diary A lombre de moi-meme, in it she writes about her experiences shooting the films Indochine and she also provided the voice role of Marjane Satrapis mother in Satrapis animated autobiographical film Persepolis, based on the graphic novel of the same name. In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël, during an interview at the Cannes Film Festival with Ali Naderzad, Deneuve was asked which was her own favorite film
6.
Cannes Film Festival
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Founded in 1946, the invitation-only festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. On 1 July 2014, co-founder and former head of French pay-TV operator Canal+ Pierre Lescure took over as President of the festival, the Board of Directors also appointed Gilles Jacob as Honorary President of the festival. The 2016 Cannes Film Festival took place between 11 and 22 May 2016, australian film director George Miller was the President of the Jury. I, Daniel Blake, directed by British director Ken Loach, in 2017, The Festival de Cannes will celebrate its 70th anniversary edition from May 17 to 28. In 1947, the festival was held as the Festival du film de Cannes, at that time the principle of equality was introduced, with a jury made up of only one representative per country. The festival is now held at the Palais des Festivals, expressly constructed for the occasion, although for its 1949 inaugural the roof was unfinished, the festival was not held in 1948 and 1950 on account of budgetary problems. Although its origins may be attributed in part to the French desire to compete with Autumns Venice Film Festival, in 1955, the Palme dOr was created, replacing the Grand Prix du Festival which had been given until that year. In 1957, Dolores del Rio was the first female member of the jury as a Sélection officielle – Member, in 1959, the Marché du Film was founded, giving the festival a commercial character and facilitating exchanges between sellers and buyers in the film industry. Today it has become the first international platform for film commerce, in 1962, the International Critics Week was born, created by the French Union of Film Critics as the first parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival. Its goal was to showcase first and second works by directors all over the world. In 1965, an hommage was paid to Jean Cocteau after his death, the next year, Olivia de Havilland was named the first female president of the festival. The 1968 festival was halted on 19 May, some directors, such as Carlos Saura and Miloš Forman, had withdrawn their films from the competition. The filmmakers achieved the reinstatement of the President, and they founded the Film Directors Society that same year, during the 1970s, important changes occurred in the Festival. In 1972, Robert Favre Le Bret was named the new President and he immediately introduced an important change in the selection of the participating films. Until that date, the different countries chose which films would represent them in the festival, Bessy created one committee to select French films, and another for foreign films. In 1978, Gilles Jacob assumed the President position, introducing the Caméra dOr award, in 1983, a new, much bigger Palais des Festivals et des Congrès was built to host the Festival. It was nicknamed The Bunker and provoked many reactions against it, in 1984, Pierre Viot replaced Robert Favre Le Bret as President of the Festival. It was not until 1995 that Gilles Jacob created the last section of the Official Selection and its aim was to support the creation of works of cinema in the world and to contribute to the entry of the new scenario writers in the circle of the celebrities
7.
Carla Bruni
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Carla Bruni Sarkozy, is an Italian-French singer-songwriter and former model. She is married to former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Gilberta Bruni Tedeschi was born in Turin, Italy. Bruni is legally the daughter of Italian concert pianist Marisa Borini and industrialist, in 2008, however, Bruni told Vanity Fair that her biological father is Italian-born Brazilian grocery magnate Maurizio Remmert. When Remmert met Marisa Borini at a concert in Turin, he was a 19-year-old classical guitarist and her sister is actress and movie director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. She had a brother, Virginio Bruni Tedeschi, who died from complications of HIV/AIDS, one of her maternal great-grandfathers was Italian, while the rest of her mothers ancestry is French. Bruni is heiress to the created by the Italian tire manufacturing company CEAT, founded in the 1920s by her legal grandfather. The company was sold in the 1970s to Pirelli, the family moved to France in 1975, purportedly to escape the threat of kidnapping by the Red Brigades, a Communist terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s. Bruni grew up in France from the age of 7, and attended the boarding school Château Mont-Choisi in Lausanne and she went to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at 19 to become a model. By her biological father, Bruni has a half-sister, Consuelo Remmert, Bruni signed with City Models in 1987, aged 19. Paul Marciano, president and creative director of Guess, inc. came across her picture among composite cards of aspiring models and chose her to model with Estelle Lefébure in campaigns for Guess. By the 1990s, Bruni was among the 20 highest-paid fashion models, while modeling, Bruni dated Eric Clapton, then Mick Jagger. On 11 April 2008, a 1993 nude photograph of Bruni taken during her modelling career sold at auction for US$91,000 – more than 60 times the expected price. She was a subject of a 1999 trompe-lœil wool-knit dress body painting by Joanne Gair that is included in Gairs second book, Body Painting. In 1997, Bruni quit the world of fashion to devote herself to music and she sent her lyrics to Julien Clerc in 1999, based on which he composed six tracks on his 2000 album Si jétais elle. In 2002, her debut album Quelquun ma dit, produced by Louis Bertignac, was released in Europe with success in Francophone countries, in January 2010, her song Lamoureuse was featured in an episode of NBCs Chuck, Chuck vs. In 2004 Carla Bruni won an EBBA Award, in 2005, she wrote the lyrics for ten out of twelve songs for Louis Bertignacs new album Longtemps, and performed two duets with him on the album, Les Frôleuses and Sans toi. In 2006, Bruni recorded Those Little Things, an English-language translation of the Serge Gainsbourg song Ces petits riens for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited and she took part in the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in a parade paying tribute to the Italian flag. She continued recording after her marriage and she released her third album Comme si de rien nétait on 11 July 2008
8.
Johnny Hallyday
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Johnny Hallyday is a French singer and actor. He has been called the French Elvis and he was married for 15 years to popular Bulgarian-French singer Sylvie Vartan and the two were considered a golden couple for 20 years. Hallyday has completed 181 tours, had 18 platinum albums, and has more than 80 million records worldwide. Hallyday remains largely unknown outside of the Francophone world, thus earning the nickname the biggest rock star youve never heard of in English-speaking countries, nevertheless, at an international level he is still considered as the only non-Anglophone rock musician having a large international reputation. He was made Chevalier of the Légion dhonneur in 1997, Hallydays father, Léon Smet, was Belgian, his mother, Huguette Clerc, was French. Johnny was raised by Desta and Lee from a young age. Johnny was always loyal to Lee and secured him a permanent job as a producer and A&R man with his label, Philips Records until Lees retirement. Influenced by Elvis Presley and the 1950s rock n roll revolution, Hallyday became famous in the 1960s for singing rock and his debut single, Laisse les filles was released on the Vogue label in March 1960. His first album, Hello Johnny, was released in 1960, in 1961 his cover of Lets Twist Again sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. It topped almost every European chart, although the track did not appear in the UK Singles Chart and he appeared on the American The Ed Sullivan Show with American singing star Connie Francis in a show that was taped at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris. He also staged many appearances in the Paris Olympia under the management of the late Bruno Coquatrix, for their first concert, The Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for Johnny Hallyday in Évreux on 13 October 1966. Black-and-white footage, also from October 1966, exists of Hallyday partying with Hendrix, his manager Chas Chandler, there also is a widely published monochrome photograph of Hallyday walking somewhere in Paris in late May 1966 with Bob Dylan. At the end of the 1960s, Hallyday made a string of albums with Mick Jones and Tommy Brown as musical directors, on Je suis né dans la rue, Hallyday also hired both Peter Frampton and the Small Faces. Amongst their contributions are the songs Amen, Reclamation, and Regarde Pour Moi, often forgotten is Hallydays non-LP single and EP track Que Je Taime from the same sessions. By 1969 alone, his sales of records exceeded twelve million, one of Hallydays later concerts, 100% Johnny, Live à La Tour Eiffel in 2000, attracted an audience of 500,000 and 9.5 million television viewers. In December 2005, Hallyday had his third single in France, Mon Plus Beau Noël. Shortly before announcing his retirement from touring, he released an album, Le Cœur dun homme. The album hit No.1 in both France and French-speaking Belgium and his next album, Ça ne finira jamais, released in 2008, another No.1 on the French album chart, and its lead single, Ça nfinira jamais, also reached No.1
9.
Arles
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Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence. A large part of the Camargue is located on the territory of the commune, the city has a long history, and was of considerable importance in the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis. The Roman and Romanesque Monuments of Arles were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1981, the Dutch post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh lived in Arles from 1888 to 1889 and produced over 300 paintings and drawings during his time there. An international photography festival has held in the city since 1970. The river Rhône forks into two branches just upstream of Arles, forming the Camargue delta and its area is 758.93 km2, which is more than seven times the area of Paris. Arles has a Mediterranean climate with an annual temperature of 14.6 °C. The summers are warm and moderately dry, with averages between 22 °C and 24 °C, and mild winters with a mean temperature of about 7 °C. The city is constantly, but especially in the months, subject to the influence of the mistral. Rainfall is fairly evenly distributed from September to May, with the summer drought being less marked than in other Mediterranean areas, the Ligurians were in this area from about 800 BC. Later, Celtic influences have been discovered, the city became an important Phoenician trading port, before being taken by the Romans. The Romans took the town in 123 BC and expanded it into an important city, however, it struggled to escape the shadow of Massalia further along the coast. Its chance came when it sided with Julius Caesar against Pompey, Massalia backed Pompey, when Caesar emerged victorious, Massalia was stripped of its possessions, which were transferred to Arelate as a reward. The town was established as a colony for veterans of the Roman legion Legio VI Ferrata. Its full title as a colony was Colonia Iulia Paterna Arelatensium Sextanorum, Arelate was a city of considerable importance in the province of Gallia Narbonensis. It covered an area of some 99 acres and possessed a number of monuments, including an amphitheatre, triumphal arch, Roman circus, theatre, ancient Arles was closer to the sea than it is now and served as a major port. It also had the southernmost bridge on the Rhône, very unusually, the Roman bridge was not fixed but consisted of a pontoon-style bridge of boats, with towers and drawbridges at each end. The boats were secured in place by anchors and were tethered to twin towers built just upstream of the bridge and this unusual design was a way of coping with the rivers frequent violent floods, which would have made short work of a conventional bridge. Nothing remains of the Roman bridge, which has replaced by a more modern bridge near the same spot
10.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
11.
Monte Carlo
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Monte Carlo /ˈmɒnti ˈkɑːrloʊ/ officially refers to an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. The permanent population of the ward of Monte Carlo is about 3,500, from west to east they are, Fontvieille, Monaco-Ville, La Condamine, and Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo is situated on a prominent escarpment at the base of the Maritime Alps along the French Riviera and it is also the location of the Hôtel de Paris, the Café de Paris, and the Salle Garnier. The eastern part of the quarter includes the community of Larvotto with Monacos only public beach, as well as its new center. At the quarters eastern border, one crosses into the French town of Beausoleil, at the time, a number of small towns in Europe were growing prosperous from the establishment of casinos, notably in German towns such as Baden-Baden and Homburg. The success of the casino grew slowly, largely due to the areas inaccessibility from much of Europe, the installation of the railway in 1868, however, brought with it an influx of people into Monte Carlo and saw it grow in wealth. Saint-Charles Church on Monte Carlos Avenue Sainte-Charles was completed in 1883 and it was restored in its centenary year. The municipalities were merged into one in 1917, after accusations that the government was acting according to the divide and conquer. Today, Monaco is divided into 10 wards, with an eleventh ward planned to land reclaimed from the sea. The quarter of Monte Carlo was served by tramways from 1900 to 1953, in 2003 a new cruise ship pier was completed in the harbour at Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo is host to most of the Circuit de Monaco and it also hosts world championship boxing bouts, the European Poker Tour Grand Final and the World Backgammon Championship as well as the Monaco International Auto Show, fashion shows and other events. Although the Monte Carlo Masters tennis tournament is billed as taking place in the community, Monte Carlo has been visited by royalty as well as the general public and movie stars for decades. The rally, however, takes place outside the Monte Carlo quarter and is run mostly on French roads, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo or Salle Garnier was built to designs of the architect Charles Garnier, who also designed the Paris opera house now known as the Palais Garnier. Although much smaller, the Salle Garnier is very similar in style with decorations in red and gold and it was inaugurated on 25 January 1879 with a performance by Sarah Bernhardt dressed as a nymph. The first opera performed there was Robert Planquettes Le Chevalier Gaston on 8 February 1879, gunsbourg had remained for sixty years. This production formed part of an association between the company and Massenet and his operas, two of which were presented there posthumously. Other famous twentieth-century singers to appear at Monte Carlo included Titta Ruffo, Geraldine Farrar, Mary Garden, Tito Schipa, Beniamino Gigli, Claudia Muzio, Georges Thill, and Lily Pons. Apart from Massenet, composers whose works had their first performances at Monte Carlo included, Saint-Saëns, Mascagni, indeed, since its inauguration, the theatre has hosted 45 world premiere productions of operas
