Believed to be one of the most beautiful
buildings in the entire world, the Paris
Opera House is (like many buildings in
Paris) rich in history. Construction began
in 1861 and ended in 1876, costing over
forty-seven million francs! One of the
largest Operas of its day, the building
seats 2000 people and has seventeen stories,
seven of these stories are below the ground,
and two contain pieces of the famous lake
later depicted in Lloyd Webber's The Phantom
of the Opera.
In fact if you have ever seen the play
“The Phantom of The Opera”
this is the opera that said phantom haunted.
The bottom layers contain levels beyond
levels of cellars, fountains, abandoned
prop rooms and tunnels; a perfect place
for a ghost hunter to go exploring and
since it is rumoured that there are secret
connections the famous Paris Sewers it
is not for the faint of heart.
One
can never tell what is below a city as
old as Paris, and part of the mystique
of the opera house is the levels that
it inhabits underground. Rooms are being
abandoned, reoccupied, and reconstructed
to serve as chorus rooms, green rooms,
ball rooms, set rooms, cellars for waste
props, closets, dressing rooms, and general
creepy storage areas. Apparently the “lake”
is most likely a series of rooms below
the Paris water line that got filled up
when an over zealous worker hit a set
of water pipes. It is rarely seen, as
most of the tours don’t go very
deep into the building.
Today the Opera of Paris is open and running
for the public, and thousands of people
come from all over the world to looks
at its grand outsides as well as it fabulous
insides. Seeing a show in this building
of buildings is an even not to be missed
and it remains one of the leading spots
to visit in Paris.
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