Palais Garnier

Paris must be heaven on earth for bees. Think about all of the flowering parks scented with nectar and pollen like an alluringly perfumed Parisienne. There’s the Jardin du Luxembourg with its heady chestnuts. The Palais-Royal and its sweet lindens. The giddy rose garden at the Jardin de Bagatelle. The Tuileries’ ever-changing bouquets of flowerbeds. […]

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Like the perfect pas de deux, ballet and opera have been in sync in Paris since 1669, when the Sun King Louis XIV — who fancied himself as a gifted dancer as much as a benevolent patron of the arts — founded the Académie d’Opéra. Ballet was originally performed as an entr’acte during an operatic […]

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Arguably the most famous of all operas, La Traviata, which is currently playing at the Palais Garnier, has been one of the most enduringly popular pieces performed by the Opéra de Paris since the 1850s. Which is not surprising when you learn that, despite its Italian name, La Traviata is at heart a very Parisian […]

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