Theatres are at their most ghostly during the daytime, when everything else seems supernaturally benign. In dark hours they are alive, bustling with the activity of a thousand evenings out, of gaiety and entertainment. They aren't meant to be frequented in the daylight. They wait when the sun is up, holding their breath in anticipation of the hour when they come to life, when electricity courses through their circuits to light them up and throw open their doors to welcome the masses. That may have explained why the Opera Garnier was so quiet that Sunday, even though crowds were filling its marble halls and chattering in its passageways. It was daytime. The theatre was still just sleeping.
The footsteps of the multitude who had come to celebrate one of the European Heritage Days by looking around the grand building must have echoed in the huge halls, but I don't think anybody could really hear them. The minute you stepped through the door you could tell that there was a spell on this place. The eerie half-light cast on gold leaf decoration and sumptuous painted ceilings created an atmosphere of quiet repose. Later on the orchestra would strike up and the artistes would take to the stage, but for now all was still. We could all look, but no matter how hard we tried, with our tourist desires for pictures and exploration, we could not wake the slumbering beast. She was silent. The black marble bust of Saint-Saens looked silently down from above the fireplace and surveyed nothing but silence, even amongst the throng.
These were the corridors that Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera was supposed to have walked amongst before descending into the depths below the stage. And what of those depths? I read once that there is water there, a river, canal or maybe a sewer even, filled with fish who are kept well fed by the scene shifters and stagehands. I was longing to know if this was true, but alas there was no access allowed to the bowels of the building. We could but glimpse the stage from afar, peering through the tastefully etched glass of small portholes in the doors of the plush velvet boxes. Otherwise we just walked the corridors like phantoms ourselves, climbing the ornate staircases and emerging from amongst the faint chandelier glow into the bright light of day on the front balcony, looking out at all the traffic and the people on the Place de l'Opera who were creating disorder amongst the ordered beauty of Haussman's town planning.
Who had stood on that balcony and looked out as we did now, but at the proper theatre-going hour, champagne glass in hand? What romantic assignations had been made there, or in the stillness of each marble impasse and velvet alcove within? Once this place had been filled with the sound of voices singing the bold tones of operatic notes. What stories could each gently flickering chandelier bulb tell of those days before the large scale productions decamped to the ultramodern grey steel of the Opera Bastille, leaving the Opera Garnier as the home of ballet? How is it different now that silk-shod feet tread the boards more often than robust tenors shake them? The building oozes history from each marble-clad brick but she only hints at answers to my questions. She isn't really talking, she's resting now, waiting for the night. So we leave the daytime spirits to their sleepwalking, turning back to see the gilded statues that crown the imposing edifice glowing golden against the darkening clouds, knowing that we have only heard a tiny whisper of the beating heart of the Opera Garnier. The true whole would only be revealed to those paying guests after dark, shrouded as it is in pure theatrical magic.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
A Weekend on the Trail of Monet
The Normandy cider wasn't too sweet but it had a fragrant tone that spread out its almost herby musk across the palate as each sip was savoured. We sat under a tree, shaded from the strong sun, at a table outside the Hotel Baudy in Giverny. Many artists had sampled the hospitality here over the years, but having little talent in that direction ourselves we were simply left to reflect on the works of those who had gone before, drawn here as we were by Monet, the grand master Impressionist.
I like to imagine Monet strolling down to his lily pond with a couple of bottles of the heady local brew protruding from his picnic basket, ready to absorb himself in a day of creativity at the easel. In paying a visit to his former home at Giverny today one can still enter the world of his paintings, following in his footsteps from Paris out to the countryside in a haze of deep contemplation. Departing from the city is like shedding your skin. Gradually you gain the space to move freely as the train leaves the suburbs behind and the sun becomes a giver of bright, sparkling light instead of oppressive, cloying heat.
Monet painted scenes of the Place de l'Europe and the Gare St. Lazare, from whence one still takes the train to the town of Vernon, the closest station now to Giverny. The long-abandoned railway line that the artist once took provides the modern traveller with a pleasant track along which to walk or cycle from Vernon towards his tranquil retreat. In the distance the Seine flows broad and calm, flanked with lush green trees and populated by large industrial barges. We watched their slow passage from a picnic bench, contentedly munching on fresh, buttery pastries to fuel us on the rest of our journey.
It was early and the road was still quiet as we climbed the gentle slope into the centre of Giverny. Seeing a small house for sale we pondered what it would be like to live on Rue Claude Monet, here amongst the warmth, the light and the last of the summer's flowers. Monet's house itself was unassuming from the street, but once viewed from the magnificent garden it looked almost as if it had grown up from the ground along with the riot of sunflowers and rudbeckia all around it. With its green framed windows it had an organic quality, nestled as it was amidst the tightly packed, abundant beds of the "Clos Normand", as the garden closest to the house is known.
The Japanese Water Garden, reached by an extremely unprepossessing subterranean passageway, was even more of an Impressionist painting come to life. The sun was not yet at its height as we walked along the narrow pathway around the pond, so the light was subtle and soft on the pink waterlily buds. It was diffused all the more by the weeping willows that dipped their long, fronded branches into the water alongside the bridge, where a thousand cameras clicked their shutters as every visitor tried to capture that famous view.
The house, filled with family photographs, and the studio (now the inevitable gift shop) were as airy and bright as you would expect any artist's abode to be, so the midday light was not a shock to the eyes as we stepped back out onto the street. We began our slow saunter, via the satisfactions of lunch, back to the capital. Refreshed by cider and nature's rural charms we dodged wobbly American cyclists on the walk back to the station, laughing because they mistook us for French folk and gasped a heavily accented "merci" between frantic moves to control their mounts as we moved out of their way.
The following day we went to see the waterlily paintings at the Orangerie museum, amongst the ordered flowerbeds with well-spaced blooms and neat gravel paths of the Tuileries. The gardens here had been refreshed by overnight rain and as we entered the clean gallery space we dutifully wiped our feet. In the cool, quiet, white room where they were displayed they resonated with the peace and tranquility of that near-yet-far place, of the naturally unkempt joyfulness of Monet's garden in Giverny, where the artist's mind had room to breathe and the fresh country air set his paintbrush free.
I like to imagine Monet strolling down to his lily pond with a couple of bottles of the heady local brew protruding from his picnic basket, ready to absorb himself in a day of creativity at the easel. In paying a visit to his former home at Giverny today one can still enter the world of his paintings, following in his footsteps from Paris out to the countryside in a haze of deep contemplation. Departing from the city is like shedding your skin. Gradually you gain the space to move freely as the train leaves the suburbs behind and the sun becomes a giver of bright, sparkling light instead of oppressive, cloying heat.
Monet painted scenes of the Place de l'Europe and the Gare St. Lazare, from whence one still takes the train to the town of Vernon, the closest station now to Giverny. The long-abandoned railway line that the artist once took provides the modern traveller with a pleasant track along which to walk or cycle from Vernon towards his tranquil retreat. In the distance the Seine flows broad and calm, flanked with lush green trees and populated by large industrial barges. We watched their slow passage from a picnic bench, contentedly munching on fresh, buttery pastries to fuel us on the rest of our journey.
It was early and the road was still quiet as we climbed the gentle slope into the centre of Giverny. Seeing a small house for sale we pondered what it would be like to live on Rue Claude Monet, here amongst the warmth, the light and the last of the summer's flowers. Monet's house itself was unassuming from the street, but once viewed from the magnificent garden it looked almost as if it had grown up from the ground along with the riot of sunflowers and rudbeckia all around it. With its green framed windows it had an organic quality, nestled as it was amidst the tightly packed, abundant beds of the "Clos Normand", as the garden closest to the house is known.
The Japanese Water Garden, reached by an extremely unprepossessing subterranean passageway, was even more of an Impressionist painting come to life. The sun was not yet at its height as we walked along the narrow pathway around the pond, so the light was subtle and soft on the pink waterlily buds. It was diffused all the more by the weeping willows that dipped their long, fronded branches into the water alongside the bridge, where a thousand cameras clicked their shutters as every visitor tried to capture that famous view.
The house, filled with family photographs, and the studio (now the inevitable gift shop) were as airy and bright as you would expect any artist's abode to be, so the midday light was not a shock to the eyes as we stepped back out onto the street. We began our slow saunter, via the satisfactions of lunch, back to the capital. Refreshed by cider and nature's rural charms we dodged wobbly American cyclists on the walk back to the station, laughing because they mistook us for French folk and gasped a heavily accented "merci" between frantic moves to control their mounts as we moved out of their way.
The following day we went to see the waterlily paintings at the Orangerie museum, amongst the ordered flowerbeds with well-spaced blooms and neat gravel paths of the Tuileries. The gardens here had been refreshed by overnight rain and as we entered the clean gallery space we dutifully wiped our feet. In the cool, quiet, white room where they were displayed they resonated with the peace and tranquility of that near-yet-far place, of the naturally unkempt joyfulness of Monet's garden in Giverny, where the artist's mind had room to breathe and the fresh country air set his paintbrush free.
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