A Horseshoe Theater in Red and Gold

This is the largest theater of the 19th century, holding more than 2,000 people. Boxes ring the stage in a horseshoe shape, the traditional form of an opera house. Because the Teatro dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, built in 1642 by the Italian architect Carlo Fontana, is considered the original horseshoe theater, this layout is also called the "Italian-style theater." Its advantage is that the stage and seats are close, so sightlines are good, which suits opera, where the acting has to be visible and the sound has to carry.

The auditorium and stage are covered in gold and red. In the round ornament above the stage curtain, the sun, the emblem of Louis XIV, sits at the center, with the year 1669 to its right. That's the year Louis XIV founded the Royal Academy of Music, which grew into today's Paris National Opera, hence the decoration.

Besides gold, Garnier used a great deal of red, for two reasons. Before synthetic dyes were invented, red was hard to come by and signified nobility and royalty, so it was a way to show the Opéra Garnier's prestige. It's also said he chose red on purpose so that elegantly dressed women in the audience would stand out: the light from the chandelier combined with the red makes skin look more radiant.

The theater also had boxes set aside for the emperor and empress, the ones at the edge closest to the stage. For the best view of the stage you'd sit in the center, but the edge, while it offers a poorer view of the stage, lets you see the entire audience at a glance. The emperor and empress deliberately chose the edge as protection against assassination or terrorist attacks. Look closely at the two boxes and you'll notice that the sculpted women differ: the figure on the emperor's side is clothed, while the one on the empress's side is not. The decoration is said to have been meant to please Napoleon III's eye.

Overhead hangs a huge chandelier decorated with about 340 lamps and crystals, weighing a full 8 tons. One of the best-known scenes in The Phantom of the Opera has Erik, furious that the managers ignored his warnings, send the chandelier crashing down. That scene was inspired by a real accident in 1896, when a chandelier counterweight fell and killed a staff member.