For more than two hundred years the company of the Academie Royale de Paris, established in 1673, based at the Palais Royal and known simply as the Opéra, was the most important in France.
The mid-eighteenth century saw conflicts between followers of the French and Italian styles and intense public interest in the debate. Between 1763 and 1781 the theatre was twice burnt down and reconstructed.
In 1821 the Opéra found a new home in the Theatre de l'Academie Royale de Musique. Lit by gas and lavishly equipped, it specialised in spectacular productions of the new grand operas by composers such as Meyerbeer and Rossini.
During the reign of Napoleon III a competition for the design of a new opera house led to the erection of the Palais Garnier, which opened in 1895. The architect, Garnier, was also involved in every aspect of the creation of its highly-decorated interior. The resulting building was intended as a setting for the best of the French repertoire. Italian and German works were slow to be performed; Wagner's Ring cycle was not completed there until 1911.
Interest in grand opera fell off in France between the wars. Then a top-heavy bureaucracy dogged the Opéra on its nationalisation after World War II. Under the direction of Rolf Liebermann, with Maestro Georg Solti as musical advisor, the house was brought back to international importance between 1973 and 1980.
By that time plans were already in train to relocate the company to its new home at the Opéra Bastille. 1989, the last year of its time at the Palais Garnier, saw the first performance of Busoni's Doktor Faust. The company then relocated to the new, very different building, which carries none of the opulence of the house built to reflect the art of an empire, rather than a republic.
