The Opera under Louis XIV Pierre Perrin The poet
Pierre Perrin began thinking and writing about the possibility of French opera in 1655, more than a decade before the official founding of the Paris Opera as an institution. He believed that the prevailing opinion of the time that the French language was fundamentally unmusical was completely incorrect. Seventeenth-century France offered Perrin essentially two types of organization for realizing his vision: a royal
academy or a public theater. In 1666 he proposed to the minister
Colbert that "the king decree 'the establishment of an Academy of Poetry and Music' whose goal would be to synthesize the French language and French music into an entirely new lyric form." Even though Perrin's original concept was of an academy devoted to discussions of French opera, the king's intention was in fact a unique hybrid of royal academy and public theatre, with an emphasis on the latter as an institution for performance. On 28 June 1669,
Louis XIV signed the ''Privilège accordé au Sieur Perrin pour l'établissement d'une Académie d'Opéra en musique, & Vers François
(Privilege granted to Sir Perrin for the establishment of an Academy of Opera in music, & French Verse). The wording of the privilège'', based in part on Perrin's own writings, gave him the exclusive right for 12 years to found anywhere in France academies of opera dedicated to the performance of opera in French. He was free to select business partners of his choice and to set the price of tickets. No one was to have the right of free entry including members of the royal court, and no one else could set up a similar institution. Although it was to be a public theatre, it retained its status as royal academy in which the authority of the king as the primary stakeholder was decisive. The monopoly, originally intended to protect the enterprise from competition during its formative phase, was renewed for subsequent recipients of the privilege up to the early
French Revolution. As Victoria Johnson points out, "the Opera was an organization
by nature so luxurious and expensive in its productions that its very survival depended on financial protection and privilege." Perrin converted the
Bouteille tennis court, located on the Rue des Fossés de Nesles (now 42 Rue Mazarine), into a rectangular facility with provisions for stage machinery and scenery changes and a capacity of about 1200 spectators.
Jean-Baptiste Lully The institution was renamed the Académie Royale de Musique and came to be known in France simply as the Opéra. Within one month Lully had convinced the king to expand the privilege by restricting the French and Italian comedians to using two singers rather than six, and six instrumentalists, rather than twelve. Because of legal difficulties Lully could not use the Salle de la Bouteille, and a new theatre was built by
Carlo Vigarani at the
Bel-Air tennis court on the
Rue de Vaugirard. Later, Lully and his successors bitterly negotiated the concession of the privilege, in whole or in part, from the entrepreneurs in the provinces: in 1684 Pierre Gautier bought the authorisation to open a music academy in
Marseille, then the towns of
Lyon,
Rouen,
Lille and
Bordeaux followed suit in the following years. During Lully's tenure, the only works performed were his own. The first productions were the pastorale ''Les fêtes de l'Amour et de Bacchus
(November 1672) and his first tragedie lyrique
called Cadmus et Hermione'' (27 April 1673). Richelieu's theatre had been designed by
Jacques Le Mercier and had opened in 1641, and unlike the huge
theatre at the Tuileries Palace, which could accommodate 6,000 to 8,000 spectators, was of a size consistent with good acoustics. Lully greatly desired a better theatre and persuaded the king to let him use the one at the Palais-Royal free of charge. The
Théâtre du Palais-Royal had been altered in 1660 and 1671, but Lully, with 3,000
livres received from the king, had further changes made by Vigarani in 1674. During Lully's time at the Opéra, performances were given all year, except for three weeks at
Easter. Regular performances were on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. The premieres presented at court were usually during
Carnival and were moved to the Palais-Royal after Easter, where the openings were on Thursdays. About two to three new works were mounted each year. In all, thirteen of Lully's
tragédie en musique were performed there (see the
list of compositions by Jean-Baptiste Lully).
After Lully After Lully died (in 1687), the number of new works per year almost doubled, since his successors (
Pascal Collasse,
Henri Desmarets,
André Campra,
André Cardinal Destouches, and
Marin Marais) had greater difficulty sustaining the interest of the public. Revivals of Lully's works were common. French composers at the Opéra generally wrote music to new librettos, which had to be approved by the directors of the company. The Italian practice of preparing new settings of existing librettos was considered controversial and did not become the norm in Paris until around 1760. One of the most important of the new works during this period was an
opéra-ballet by Campra called ''
L'Europe galante'' presented in 1697. From 1680 until Lully's death, it was under the direction of the great dancing master
Pierre Beauchamp, the man who codified the
five positions of the feet. When Lully took over the Opéra in 1672, he and Beauchamp made theatrical ballet an important part of the company's productions. The
ballet of that time was merely an extension of the opera, having yet to evolve into an independent form of theatrical art. As it became more important, however, the dance component of the company began to be referred to as the
Paris Opera Ballet. In 1713 an associated ballet school was opened, today known as the Paris Opera Ballet School. The Académie Royale de Danse remained separate, and with the fall of the monarchy in 1789 it disappeared.
The company after the Revolution and in the 19th century , principal venue of the Paris Opera from 1794 to 1820 , view of the scene With the
French Revolution and the founding of the
Republic, the company changed names several times, dropping its association with the royal family (see the
List of official company names for details), and in 1794, moved into the
Théâtre National de la rue de la Loi (capacity 2800) where it took the name Théâtre des Arts. In 1797, it was renamed the Théâtre de la République et des Arts. With the
Restoration in 1814, the company was renamed the Académie Royale de Musique. It became part of the in 1816. In 1821, the company moved to the
Salle Le Peletier, which had a capacity of 1900 spectators and where it remained until the building was destroyed by fire in 1873. In the second half of the 19th century, with the ascension of
Napoleon III in 1851, the name Académie Impériale de Musique was reinstated and after 1870 with the formation of the
Third Republic, was changed to Théâtre National de l'Opéra.
20th century Between 1908 and 1914
Henri Benjamin Rabaud conducted at Palais Garnier. Rabaud also composed several works which first premiered at
Opéra-Comique, but were later also performed at Palais Garnier. In 1939, the Opéra was merged with the
Opéra-Comique and the company name became Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux. The Opéra-Comique was closed in 1972 with the appointment of
Rolf Liebermann as general administrator of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris (1973–1980), but in 1976, the Opéra-Comique was restored. In 1990, the Opéra moved its primary venue to the new
Opéra-Bastille, becoming the Opéra de Paris, although it continued to mount productions, primarily ballet, at the Palais Garnier; and the Opéra-Comique regained its autonomy. In 1994 the Opéra de Paris became the Opéra National de Paris. Regardless of all the changes in its "official" name, the company and its theatres were commonly referred to as the Opéra.
21st century The current managing director of the Opéra is Alexander Neef, since September 2020. Past principal conductors and music directors of the Opéra have included
Myung-whun Chung,
James Conlon and
Philippe Jordan. In April 2021, the Opéra announced the appointment of
Gustavo Dudamel as its next music director, effective 1 August 2021, with an initial contract of 6 seasons. In May 2023, Dudamel announced his resignation as music director of the Opéra, effective August 2023. In January 2026, the Opéra announced the appointment of
Semyon Bychkov as its next music director, effective 1 August 2028, with an initial contract of four years. Bychkov is scheduled to take the title of music director-designate of the Opéra on 1 August 2026.
Video streaming service On 7 April 2023, the company launched a
video streaming service, Paris Opera Play (or POP). The initial release consisted of 80 titles, including videos of operas, ballets, documentaries, and master classes. Subscribers can also watch video of live performances. Video is watched with a
web browser:
Google Chrome,
Firefox,
Microsoft Edge Chromium, and
Safari are supported. Subtitles in French and English are available for most videos. To watch videos on a
TV, one can use
Chromecast or
AirPlay; however the latter does not support subtitles. An alternative method, which supports subtitles, is to play the video on a computer connected to a TV with an
HDMI cable. In March 2025, it was announced that Paris Opera Play had become available for streaming, with apps for
Apple TV and
Android TV. ==Gallery==