Opéra de Monte-Carlo

The Salle Garnier, the opera house of Monte-Carlo, was built onto the casino by Charles Garnier and opened in 1879, a small hall in red and gold with the sea behind the stage wall, and its programme through the following decades premiered work by Massenet, Ravel and Puccini among others. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes were based here. The season runs through the winter. The hall was built in under nine months, which for a Garnier building was extraordinarily fast, and it opened with Sarah Bernhardt reciting on the first night.

Background

The hall was planned in the 1870s, when Prince Charles III and the Société des Bains de Mer added a concert hall to the casino because Monaco offered few cultural diversions. The Salle Garnier seats 524, against about 2,000 at the Palais Garnier in Paris. It opened on 25 January 1879, and the first opera, Robert Planquette's Le Chevalier Gaston, followed on 8 February 1879. Henri Schmit reworked the stage area in 1898-99 to suit opera. Raoul Gunsbourg ran the company from 1892 for sixty years, and the house has staged 45 world premieres of operas. In 1909 it presented the French version of Wagner's Ring cycle in full.

Source: Wikipedia, "Opéra de Monte-Carlo"

What to look for

• The Garnier interior - red and gold by the architect of the Paris opera.
• The premieres - the works first performed in this hall.
• The Ballets Russes connection - the company that was based here.
• The scale - a small hall rather than a grand opera house.

When to go

The season runs October to April with performances through the winter. Tours run outside performance times by arrangement. Summer is largely dark.

Before you go

The season is winter and the house is largely closed in summer. Tickets are expensive and sell out. Tours must be arranged and are not always available.

Nearby

The casino is attached, and the Café de Paris is opposite.

Key facts