It took some seventy-five years to complete the extraordinary Versailles Royal Opera House. Enamored with ballets, festivals and operas, Louis XIV (who, after all, invented ballet) commissions Jules Hardouin-Mansart in 1685 to build an opera house within this Versailles palace which would be the all-consuming passion of his life from 1660.
One might be surprised that the festive Court of Louis XIV was not equipped with an opera beforehand – but let’s not forget that the Sun King definitively settles in Versailles in 1682 and the castle was only, for several decades, a monumental open-air construction site.
The structural work of the Royal Opera House begins in 1685 but is quickly interrupted by wars and financial difficulties. Refraining from lavish spending, Louis XIV makes do with temporary festive arrangements demolished the day after the performance, until the end of his reign in 1715.
The Royal Opera house is not completed until 1770 under the leadership of Louis XIV’s great-grandson, Louis XV, for the wedding celebrations of the future Louis XVI with the young Archduchess Marie-Antoinette.
The location of the Royal Opera House is planned as soon as 1685 in the North wing of the Versailles palace for two reasons.
On the one hand, the difference in height of the land makes it possible to use the underside of the stage in order to accommodate the machinery necessary for the operas and ballets.
On the other hand, the immediate proximity of the reservoirs needed for the gardens allows access to large quantities of water in the event of a fire – which is smart because the opera venue is only made of wood – for budgetary reasons (it costs less) and acoustic reasons (one usually says that one hears like inside a violin).
At the time, it is the largest Court theater in Europe. And probably one of the most beautiful, thanks to Ange-Jacques Gabriel, first architect to the King and Augustin Pajou, sculptor to the Royal Academy.
The opera venue is built on a truncated ovoid model – it has no blind spots.
It is also modular – a system of winches makes it possible to raise the parterre floor to the level of the stage floor in twenty-four hours, in order to create a room suitable for a ball.
The Versailles Opera House would only be used thirty-seven times until the French Revolution – the three thousand oil lamps and two thousand candles required for a performance are too expensive – and even fewer afterward.
All gold and azure blue, the Versailles Royal Opera House is a miracle of exuberance and balance. It’s intimate, it’s warm and it has nothing to do with other venues, like the Parisian Garnier opera house.
Renovated in the 1950s and reopened in 2009, the Versailles Royal Opera House has now the ambition to become one of the most popular performance venues in France with more than a hundred performances per season. The non-exclusive emphasis is placed on music from the 17th and 18th centuries, to stand out from other opera houses and to stick to the baroque spirit of the place.
Let’s be honest: attending a ballet given within the Versailles palace surrounded by night during the Christmas season is absolutely magical and wonderful.
January 3, 2025
