Opéra National de Paris - Palais Garnier - Paris

In France the oldest man is always young,
Sees operas daily, learns the tunes so long,
Till foot, hand, head, keep time with every song:
Each sings his part echoing from pit and box,
With his hoarse voice, half harmony, half pox.

- prologue of John Dryden's 1685 Albion and Albanius

The rich history of French music began in 10th century with court songs and chivalrous music. From this point forward, France has an illustrious musical history, ranging from Opéra to classical, to pop and rock. While the first operas that appeared in France during the mid-17th century were experimental, they was soon met with considerable enthusiasm in Paris, especially those based on Italian opera of the time. During the reign of Louis XIV, Italian-style Opéra began to flourish in France. The Opéra represented French grand Opéra and attracted the upper class.





Entertainment for the upper class

There would frequently be huge pageants to celebrate occasions such as the birth of an heir or an empire-building marriage in Italy during the Renaissance. Members of the aristocracy and hired performers to impress the nobility of neighbouring states performed at these events.

When one of King Charles VI's knights married one of the queen's gentlewomen, he performed in a masque or morisco (masked performance) called Bal des Ardents or Burner's Ball where he played a Wild Man of the Forest in a big hairy costume made of flax and pitch. At one moment when he separated himself from the other five "wild men" to talk to a duchess, a torch held by an onlooker set the other five dancers on fire. When the fire spread to the king's costume, the duchess smothered it with her train. All but one of the other five dancers died from their burns.

Christina of Sweden, the kings of Denmark and Poland, the princes of Germany and Italy, the Holy Roman Emperor, all had their Ballets. Even the taciturn William of Orange, later William III of England, danced in a Ballet de la Paix at the Hague in 1668. France was no different. Where the French king led, the courts of Europe followed.


Evolution of Ballet
Men wearing wigs and bloomers with hard shoes and women wearing heavy long-skirted gowns took part in the dance that also had equestrian demonstrations and mock combats!

As ballet advanced and became more dance and less speaking over the next fifty years it stopped being something that was only offered in court and was offered to paying audiences. Also during this time, the nobility, including King Louis XIII, performed in roles ranging from the hero to the lowest scum in the ballet, lending prestige to the portrayal of evil parts. A number of stage works informed the creation of Opéra. It did not remain tied to a single geographic area, and fast became one of Italy's chief exports.





Ballet receives royal patronage in Paris

Cardinal Mazarin
Louis XIV's interest in dancing was strongly supported and encouraged by Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin. Louis XIV made his ballet debut as a boy. Louis accomplished his most memorable feat as a dancer in 1653 when he was just a teenager. He performed a series of dances in Le Ballet de la Nuit . He appeared as Apollo the Sun God for his final piece and he came to be known as the Sun King.

Lully

Cardinal Mazarin promoted Italian influences in the French spectacle. Jean-Baptiste Lully, a Florentine, arrived in Paris at age 14 to serve as an Italian tutor to Louis XIV's cousin, Grande Mademoiselle Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans. Having distinguished himself as a violinist and dancer, he left to take a position in Louis XIV's court in 1652.

Lully composed court ballets with Isaac de Benserade - including the one performed at Louis' wedding. He became one of the king's favorite dancers and rivaled the king as the best dancer in France. He continued to gain importance in the court and in 1661 he was appointed surintendant and compositeur de la musique de la chambre du roi.

Académie Royale de Danse
In 1661 Louis established the Académie Royale de Danse in a room of the Louvre, the world's first ballet school. The king attended a party put on by the finance minister to show off his new home in the country. The king was greatly by the entertainment put up. He thought that the finance minister was a treasonous servant and arrested him. He then hired the ballet master Molière, the home's architect, and the gardener.


In 1662 Lully was granted the title maître de la musique de la chambre which placed him in regular contact with the king. With his directorial duties dispersed to others, Lully began working with the playwright Molière on a series of comédies-ballets -- a new genre combining spoken comedy with singing and dancing.



Molière
At court, Molière and Lully collaborated, with Molière choreographing and Lully composing the music for ballets. By the end of the decade, Lully witnessed the first attempt to perform opera in Paris.

Académie d'Opéra et Académie Royale de Musique
In 1669 Louis, (still Louis XIV), established the Académie d'Opéra which was renamed as Académie Royale de Musique a year later. Pierre Perrin and Robert Cambert were given royal permission (a "monopoly") to stage operas. Then, in 1670 the king, past his physical prime, retired from dancing, allowing other, better dancers to take lead roles. Though Perrin and Cambert were bankrupt three years later, Lully was keenly aware of the possibilities and persuaded the king to transfer the monopoly to himself.

In 1672 Lully established a dance academy within the Académie Royale de Musique. This dance company survives today as the ballet of the Paris Opera - the world's oldest continuously running ballet company.

Lully accidentally stabbed his foot in 1687 with his time marking stick and subsequently succumbed to the injuries. At this time, ballet was normally performed in a theatrical form known as opéra-ballet by the same productions as opera. The music academy that Lully had run set the standard in the opéra-ballet, which people attended for the dancing as for the music. L'Europe Galante(1697), the composer of one opéra-ballet suggested making the opéra-ballet more popular by lengthening the dances and shortening the skirts of the now common female dancers.

Through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the Paris Opéra occupied a succession of buildings:
Première Salle du Palais Royale, from 1673
Salle des Machines du Palais des Tuileries, from 1764
Deuxième Salle du Palais Royale, inaugurated in 1770
Salle de la Porte Saint-Martin, from 1781;
Théâtre des Arts, from 1791 and
the Salle Le Peletier, constructed from 1820-21 on rue Le Peletier. The Salle Le Peletier was destroyed by fire in 1873.



Palais Garnier

All the previous halls, since the foundation of the Académie Royale de Music, had been either of temporary construction or had been destroyed by fires. Hence Napoleon III decided to build the Grand Opera in 1858.

An architectural competition was organized for the new opera house in 1860. Charles Garnier's design was selected out of the 171 entries. He created an Opera House and stage in the traditional Italian style inspired both by the Grand Theatre in Bordeaux built by Victor Louis in 1870 and by the Italian and French villas of the 17th and 18th centuries. The passages, halls, foyers, staircases, and rotundas occupy a far larger area than the theatre itself. This was to facilitate hosting the festivities of the Emperor's entourage and of elegant audiences from the moneyed and social élite, for whom a night at the Opera was a pleasant excuse for meeting people and renewing acquaintances.

A water table was discovered at the site when the construction started in 1861 and it had to be drained before the construction could begin. This slowed down the work drastically. An enourmous concrete well was designed and filled with water to carry the stage and fly tower. The well was filled with water in order to counter the water pressure (hence the legend of the underground lake popularized by Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera).

Franco-Prussian war and the Commune interrupted the construction works in 1870. But the fire at the old opera in Rue Le Peletier in 1873 hastened the completion of the monument. Begun under the Second Empire in 1862, construction of the opera house took about 14 years to complete. It was officially inaugurated during the Third Republic by Field Marshall de Mac-Mahon on 5 January 1875.

The building, which is a perfect example of 19th century stage architecture, hides its iron frame under flamboyant decoration. The overall impression is harmonious in spite of the diversity of its inspiration and the temes taken up by Charles Garnier. He personally supervised the integration in the architecture of decorative works entrusted to sculptors, painters and mosaic artists representative, as himself was, of state-sponsored artists.



TRIUMPH OF ECLECTICISM
Garnier's architectural principles are imbued with Renaissance ideals. Garnier also had "general interest in all kinds of technological progress", such as "balancing the ancient craft of stonecutting against iron's modern industrialization of architecture. This diversity of the materials used in the building and the range of colours used right from the façade, takes you into the fairy-tale world of the Opera House.

The two side pavillions formerly provided access for the regular subscribers on one side and for the Emperor on the other. They are today occupied by the Library and the Opera Museum. At the right of the entrance halls, there is the famous group of dancers by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux - the original is in the Musée d'Orsay. The great staircase continues down towards Pythia's water basin and the former subscribers' rotunda. The stairs are decorated in marble and onyx, a true theatre of worldly events, while the lobby is decorated with Venetian mosaics.

Two small rooms, one dedicated to the Moon, the other to the Sun, lead to the main foyer, a princely gallery of gilded luxury in which the mythological characters and the allegories of Paul Baudry stand out. The rotunda is adorned by eight tapestries made by the Gobelins, under a ceiling by Georges Clairin. In the auditorium itself, the great chandelier illuminates the ceiling by Marc Chagall, which has, since 1964, covered the original work of Jules-Eugène Lenepveu. Echoing the colorful style dear to Charles Garnier's, Chagall has designed his painting as a living image of the festive spririt surrounding each performance: luminous, fluid figures surge forth, contrasting with the gold and red tones of the theatre.



Among round arches and soaring Corinthian columns, busts and medallions of celebrated composers adorn the stately façade of dressed stone. The four thematic façade groups at the entrance to the opera house include Harmony by Jouffroy; Instrumental Music by Guillaume; Lyric Drama by Perraud; and The Dance, the celebrated sculpture by Carpeaux.


The façade attic groups with winged goddesses by Guméry are entitled Harmony and Poetry. Each flytower corner group by Lequesne features Pegasus rearing above the great, copper-plated dome. At the stage flytower apex stands Aimé Millet's monumental group Apollo Crowning Dance and Poetry. The youthful god holds aloft a golden lyre - a decorative leitmotif throughout the splendid Palais Garnier.

The French Revolution of 1789 prompted the Paris Opéra to produce a series of operas on revolutionary subjects. In the middle and late 19th century, grand opera, exemplified in the works of Giacomo Meyerbeer, flourished in the company’s repertory. The Opéra underwent a decline in the 20th century, and attempts to rejuvenate it began at mid-century. Its administration was joined with that of the Opéra-Comique, which traditionally stages works with spoken dialogue. From 1875 to 1990 the Paris Opéra was housed in the Théâtre Nationale de l’Opéra, an architectural landmark that is better known simply as the Opéra. In the latter year the company occupied its new home in the Opéra de la Bastille building.

"The Leaning" Tower of Pisa -- Torre pendente di Pisa

Pisa was one of the greatest marine republics of Italy in the middle ages.It extended its dominion and influence from Corsica to Sardinia and to Sicily. It was master of all the Tuscan shore. The people of Pisa were very good sailors and they conquered many lands, including Jerusalem, Carthago, Ibiza, Mallorca, Africa, Belgium, Britania, Norway, Spain, Morocco, and other places. They had only one real enemy, the people from Florence. The "Tower of Pisa" was built to show the rest of the world the wealth of the city of Pisa. It was nothing more than a "bell tower".

The absence of precise written references places doubt on whoever had initially planned the Tower. Tradition attributes the construction of The bell tower, famous for the yielding of the ground that has provoked its inclination,to Bonanno Pisano, in conjunction with William of Innsbruck. Recent hypothesis credits it to Diotisalvi instead. The construction was continued, after one long interruption, by Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni Pisano and concluded in the XIV century by Tommaso di Andrea Pisano.

The people of Pisa started to build the tower in 1173A.D. but stopped after a while. The war with Florence started again and they stopped the construction work. In 1180 they restarted and in 1185 they had finished the 1st, 2nd and the 3rd. floor. They started another war with Florence, and the construction work stopped. In the same year the tower started to lean to one side. So the tower was already "the leaning" tower even during construction. They put bells on the top of the 3rd. floor in 1198.

The rivalries with Lucca and Genoa undermined Pisa's power and it was finally defeated by Genoa in 1284 by the betrayal of their own count - Count Ugolino della Gherardesca. The enraged people of Pisa locked the count and his family in the tower of Gualandi and threw the keys in river Arno. The prisoners died of starvation. Now the people of Pisa did not have any reason to show off their power. However, they resumed the construction and completed all the floors in 1319. The bell tower was finally put on top of it in 1350. In 1392, Pisa was sold to Florence.

The people of Pisa started a rebellion. But in 1406 they had to surrender because they were under siege and everybody was dying of starvation. In 1499 they started another war against Florence who were using the people of Pisa as slaves. Again the brave but unfortuned army of Pisa lost and that is the end of the history of Pisa. They never managed to gain the wealth as in the early years. Now it is just a small city somewhere in Italy where the people are still showing off this leaning tower that was listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages with "The Colosseum of Rome", "The Catacombs of Alexandria", "The Great Wall of China", "Hagia Sophia" of Constantinople, "Stonehenge" and "The Porcelain Pagoda of Nanjing".


Wars with Florence, Lucca and Genoa -- blessing in disguise!
The foundations of the tower had been situated at a mere depth of three meters, on a bedding of dry stones. The actual work was halted after the completion of 3rd story due to the ongoing wars with Florence. About ten years after the beginning of the construction, the ground yielded and that caused the first leaning of the constructed tower. There was an appraisable sinking between 30 and 40 cm and an initial lean of about 5 cm. A repair plan was needed to rectify the lean caused by inadequate foundation.
Professor Piero Pierotti, an architectural historian opines that the construction materials of significant weight and the functional characteristics created by the staircase, prevented the reduction of masonry toward the top. This left very few options to resolve the lean.

In 1275, over a century after laying of the first stone, Giovanni of Simone undertook the construction of three more floors. In 1284, the six gallery floors were completed and the tower stood at 56.70 meters (on the highest side). The accomplished technician mitigated the effect of the inclination by raising up one side of the galleries on the upper floors, partially correcting the lean of the bell tower.

At that time the lean of the Tower was more than 90 cm. Long phases of delay during the construction due to wars or political disruption, gave the bell tower the much needed "rest" and enabled the tower to settle into the ground and stabilize its most famous lean. It now stands inclined behind the cathedral with the neighbouring baptistery and cemetery.



The apocryphal Tale of Galileo and the Tower of Pisa
Galileo Galilei was born near Pisa on 15 February 1564 -- the same year in which Shakespeare was born and the year in which Michelangelo and Calvin died.He began to study medicine at the University of Pisa but changed to philosophy and mathematics. In 1589, he became professor of mathematics at Pisa. In 1592, he moved to become mathematics professor at the University of Padua, a position he held until 1610. During this time he worked on a variety of experiments, including the speed at which different objects fall, mechanics and pendulums.

The story goes that in order to demonstrate to Aristotlean scholars that two balls of different weights fall at the same rate, Galileo dropped a cannon ball and wooden ball from the top of the Tower of Pisa. While some of his earlier predecessors actually performed this experiment, Galileo did not.

Eiffel Tower -- Paris

In 1889, to honor of the centenary of the French Revolution, the French government planned an international exposition and announced a design competition for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars in central Paris. Out of more than 100 designs submitted, the Centennial Committee chose Eiffel's plan of an open-lattice wrought-iron tower that would reach almost 1,000 feet above Paris and be the world's tallest man-made structure. Eiffel, a noted bridge builder, was a master of metal construction and designed the framework of the Statue of Liberty that had recently been erected in New York Harbor.




















Eiffel's tower was greeted with skepticism from critics who argued that it would be structurally unsound, and indignation from others who thought it would be an eyesore in the heart of Paris. Unperturbed, Eiffel completed his great tower under budget in just two years. Only one worker lost his life during construction, which at the time was a remarkably low casualty number for a project of that magnitude. The light, airy structure was by all accounts a technological wonder and within a few decades came to be regarded as an architectural masterpiece.

The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall and consists of an iron framework supported on four masonry piers, from which rise four columns that unite to form a single vertical tower. Platforms, each with an observation deck, are at three levels. Elevators ascend the piers on a curve, and Eiffel contracted the Otis Elevator Company of the United States to design the tower's famous glass-cage elevators.





















Engineer Gustave Eiffel, had himself indicated the need for painting the structure in a text, "The 300 metre Tower", in 1900. He wrote, "One will never sufficiently assimilate the principle that painting is the essential element for preserving metalwork and that the care taken therein is the only guarantee that it will last."

Rust, urban pollution and bird droppings all contribute to daily damage making cleaning and special care necessary. From the moment it was built, each part of the Eiffel Tower was made "perfectly accessible so that visits could be carried out in all weather to spot the beginning of any rust and to remedy it". Eiffel Tower is repainted every seven years. The colour is usually the same. The three different shades of "Eiffel Tower brown" (from the darkest at the bottom to the lightest at the top) which has been used since 1968, will continue to enhance the slim outline of the elegant construction which, in the past, had been painted Venetian red, then reddish-brown, ochre brown and even in shades of yellow. Its slender figure will continue to enthral the six million visitors or so, who, every year, pay homage to the Beauty and to inspire all kinds of poets as it did in the past with Cocteau, "Belle girafe en dentelle, Rendez-vous de pigeons voyageurs inconnus…" (Beautiful lace giraffe and meeting place for unknown homing pigeons) and Charles Trenet who sang "Y'a d'la joie, la Tour Eiffel part en balade…". (There is joy. The Eiffel Tower is going off for a walk).


View to the northwest from the tower, across the River Seine, showing the Trocadéro gardens

view of Napoleon's tomb

Gustave Eiffel was never fond of school and he spent all his free time swimming in river Siene, attending plays and visiting Louvre. Cruise and dinner on the river is quite refreshing.





























Eiffel's reputation continued to grow with his portfolio of projects, which included prefabricated campaign bridges for the military, the famous Bon Marché department store in Paris, iron framing for the cathedral of Notre-Dame, and his most prominent work before his famed tower - the Statue of Liberty.

Created by noted sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the Statue of Liberty was to be presented by the French as a token of goodwill and friendship to the United States in honor of its Centennial Exposition of 1876. Bartholdi had designed the 151-foot woman, but did not know how to best construct the statue so it could be disassembled for shipping to New York . Also, how could the massive statue be stabilized to withstand the Atlantic winds that were known to gust through Lady Liberty's intended home in New York Harbor?

Enter Gustave Eiffel. Having established a solid reputation as a man in the business of making things that did not fall down, Eiffel was called upon to assist in the construction of the statue. Eiffel built an iron skeleton frame to which sheets of metal could then be attached, and embedded vertical steel beams in the granite base of the statue to which thin copper sheets were attached. The result was a lighter but stronger statue that was able to bear immense weight and withstand the harsh elements. Once again, Eiffel had demonstrated his ability to solve the most complex and stubborn technical problems using innovative techniques that nobody had previously dared to try.

Top of Europe - Switzerland

The Jungfraujoch is one of Switzerland's most attractive excursion destinations and vantage points. It has also proved to be an excellent location for a wide variety of research projects. The high altitude, clear air and easy access by mountain railway are ideal conditions for a wide range of scientific work. Astronomers, geologists, physicists, meteorologists and hydrologists - they all make an essential contribution towards our understanding of the environment.

A recommended route to follow to Jungfrau is
Interlaken Ost - Lauterbrunnen - Kleine Scheidegg - Jungfraujoch - Grindelwald - Interlaken Ost.


This unique round-trip by modern cogwheel railway takes you first to Kleine Scheidegg, altitude 2061 metres, at the foot of the notorious Eiger North Wall. We changed trains at Kleine Scheidegg and proceeded to Jungfraujoch as we were running late. We decided we would stop at Kleine Scheidegg on our way back to Interlaken. The train slowly chugged up the mountain. From here the Jungfrau Railway climbs to the station at Eigergletscher , well known for its mountain restaurant and polar dog kennels.

The trip continues through the Eiger tunnel to the stations at Eigerwand and Eismeer, with a five minute halt at each. Enjoy spectacular sightseeing through large observation windows hewn from solid Alpine rock.







Superb views extend as far as the summits of the Vosges Mountains in France and the Black Forest in Germany. The Great Aletsch Glacier, at 22 km the longest ice-stream in the Alps, begins on the Jungfraujoch-Top of Europe.





We were surprised to see snow on the mountain during summer! In fact the mountain peak is covered with snow all the year round. Before the summer heat can melt the snow away, the winter begins and the snow covers the mountains again.





I felt a little out of breath at that altitude. There were a few tables and chairs nearby. M suggested that I sit for a while on the chair and catch my breath. Only when I sat there did I realise that the tables belonged to the little restaurant nearby. A board that read something like "it is courtesy to buy a glass of drinks if you sit on these chairs" made me uncomfortable. I joined M who was by then playing in snow.



The main attractions on the Jungfraujoch are:

Ice Palace
Ice Gateway
Sphinx observation terrace
Plateau with hikes in the eternal snow
"Top of Europe" Glacier Restaurant
High Alpine Research Exhibition
ski & snowboard park, husky-drawn sledge rides,
adventure attractions: e.g. Tyrolienne, snow disk etc.







We met a couple from Mysore on our way to the Ice-Palace (more about the Ice-Palace in my next post). "Aunty" :) gave us "bombay mixture" to munch on:). They were excited to hear us speak Kannada and they walked up to us and introduced themselves. They said they were on their first trip to Europe and were excited. But we couldn't talk for long as they had to hurry and join their group who were ready to move on to their next destination. We proceeded to the ice-palace ...


The Sphinx observation hall and terrace, the glistening Ice Palace, a walk on the eternal snows of the Jungfrau plateau are the amazing all- year-round attractions on the Jungfraujoch-Top of Europe! The Ice Gateway links the Ice Palace with the glacier plateau.

The unforgettable trip to the high-Alpine wonderland of eternal ice and snow is the true "highlight" of a visit to Switzerland.

Kleine Scheidegg - Switzerland

Kleine Scheidegg means "minor watershed". This pass lies between the mountains Eiger and Lauberhorn and connects Grindelwald with Lauterbrunnen. The watershed lies between the catchment areas of the Weiss (white) Lütschine river in the Lauterbrunnen valley and the Schwarze (Black) Lütschine flowing through the Grindelwald valley. The different sediments from each valley gives the waters their different colours. Tourists board the Jungfrau Railway at Kleine Scheidegg to travel to Jungfraujoch.



Impressions of Kleine Scheidegg are dominated by the spectacular views of the 4000m high peaks of the Jungfrau and Mönch and the proximity of the awe-inspiring Eiger North wall.













The two old-world Scheidegg hotels Bellevue (1842) and Des Alpes (1896)









Zara sa jhoom loon mein
arre naa re na re naa...
Zara sa ghoom loon mein
arre naa re na re naa..

One of the many such memorable songs shot in Swiss Alps...

I am not sure if the song was picturised some place near Kleine Scheidegg, but the picturesque town(the small settlement here doesn't qualify for even a hamlet)reminded us of the movie "Dilwale dulhaninya le jaayenge".

We had taken a direct train from Grindelwald to Jungfraujoch but were fortunate enough to miss the direct train back to Grindelwald. We had boarded the train to Kleine Scheidegg while returning to Interlaken and this had provided the opportunity to spend a few mintues in this romantic little place.