Does Paris Still Have the Ugliest Opera House in Europe?

Over the years, I attended several unforgettable productions at the Paris Bastille Opera House, such as the Magic Flute and the "Bal Masque". The success of the shows speaks for itself. I've always found the acoustics truly terrific ! So I'm really not sure about what this masochistic rumination is all about... Vive l'Opera Bastille !

It's sad that the wonderful and historic opera house in Paris is primarily only used for ballet and other productions now. Grand operas by Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner would be so great to have staged there again. The Royal Opera in London, War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, and Metropolitan Opera in New York are my three favorite opera venues. The Met's design is outstanding. The audience may be ten years older than Paris but I believe that is less because of design differences between the buildings and more because Europeans appreciate culture more than Americans, especially classical music and opera. Proof of that can often be found by looking at Amazon UK music sales vs sales in the US. New releases of symphonic and chamber music are often much higher in the rankings in the UK, sometimes coming in at #1 while that same album will be thousands of slots lower in the US. In an effort to lower the age of attendees at the Met, productions are modernized all while the critics applaud. Meanwhile, the traditionalists are alienated causing the Met to lose core audience members and supporters.

@Jonathan My apologies. My reply should have gone to "working doc", not you. Bummer and My Bad!

Just tear it down and build a new one. Have the Trump company develop it.

Paris may have the ugliest opera house in Europe, but Sydney, Australia takes the prize as the ugliest in the world. Despite its fame and status as a must-see tourist spot, it has no plausible relationship with its surroundings and is a jumbled mess.

We, my wife and I, spend a lot of time in Paris - out in the Marais, Place de Vosges - and recently when we were walking over to the Place Aligre (which has the oldest covered market in Paris and a great bricolage) my wife asked me as we passed the Bastille Opera if I knew there was an an opera there. (We've only walked past this place about 600 times). Well, yes, I did know that there was an opera there, but I'm not sure that my wife did before that day. And it's easy to see why Parisians might confuse it with a Carnival Cruise Line that wandered off course up the Seine and ran aground at Bastille. Bastille Opera, like the Louvre pyramid, have always seemed to fall in the aesthetic fiasco category to me. Looking out a window at the Louvre recently at the courtyard with that incongruous Egyptian tomb, I speculated that - like the underground Louvre Carousel entrance with all its trendy commercial space and pay toilets - that the pyramid was a lame attempt to create public "interest" in the museum - which is kind of an old fuddy duddy - with the hope of selling more tickets. They have six restaurants in the Louvre now: "We've seen that lady with the weird smile...let's beat it downstairs for a grilled cheese..."

I enjoy going to the opera in different European cities that I visit (though I am no maven). I attended Parsifal at the Bastille in mid-2018 and though I (+ spouse) sat quite high up, we could see the stage well, and the ticket price was not too bad. I was in Vienna last month at the State Opera, again Wagner, by coincidence (not my favorite), and the seats were outrageously expensive, we sat in some balcony level and were told that we would have a full view of the stage, but that would be true only if you suspended me from a rope hanging over the balcony rail. Sitting (they did arrange the seats in this front row so you could stand, though this was NOT the standing room area), we could see probably less than half of the stage. Fortunately, the staging of Das Rheingold was rather sparse and we didn’t have to look at it the whole time. The theater is gorgeous, looks like an opera house “should”, but what good does it do if you can’t see anything? Same goes for La Scala - Unless you are super-rich and sit in the center on the first level, you can’t see a thing. The (relatively) new opera house in Copenhagen had a great view, even from the less expensive seats (and the prices were reasonable, altogether). So to me, though I appreciate a building with architecture that makes me feel it is an opera house, and I like a traditional interior, what is really most important is design of the interior that allows even the people who sit in the seats for the plain folks to see the stage.

I spent the summer of '93 in Paris, and thought at the time the modern opera was very impressive. That's through the lens of a college junior whose dream car was probably a Lotus Esprit Turbo, but hey, it was the 90's.

Wow quite like a shopping mall in Jakarta.

The author should hear an opera there. The production of the ( horribly technical ) Tristan und Isolde I heard thee a few years ago was the most perfect sound I’ve ever heard in an opera house

As an opera singer who has actually sung on the stage of the Bastille (okay, it was for an audition, but still), I can only describe the experience as demoralizing. Pretty much every opera singer I know hates the place - it feels like the building itself wants to undermine the art form, rendering something that is human, warm, and magnificent into another expression of a cold, alienated modern world.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Before one makes a decision one should visit a place and also be aware views can change over time. I have not seen this place but did visit the old Paris Opera House circa 2014. My girlfriend dragged me to the place kicking and screaming since I don't like opera. When I went into the place it was one of the most beautiful sights I have every seen. I still don't like opera but will never forget that visit and thank my gf to this day.

Does an opera house have to look like an 'Opera House'? I may have my facts a little wrong, but didn't the Garnier Opera House take 15 years to build and cost F32million--something in the $billions in today's money ? What city today could spend that amount of money on an opera house without the city council being sacked by the voters and the mayor run out of town on a rail? And why is 2700 seats too big? I think Chicago seats something close to 3500, and isn't the Met almost 3800? by American standards the Opera Bastille qualifies as intimate, the old Opera (Garnier) at 2000 is a jewel box. So the Bastille looks modern, what's wrong with that? Do you really like the Garnier Opera? Come on! It's an over-the-top architectural confection that no one in their right mind could want anymore. Paris always had the best opera house, it still does.

No doubt many ugly buildings went up in the 1980s. The exterior of Bastille is an eyesore by contrast with its surroundings, but I cannot agree with your writer's opinion of the theatre itself, which to me has an austere beauty. And as others have observed the sight lines and acoustics are excellent. From the upper balcony, I heard Sondra Radvanovsky in 'Il Trovatore' last summer and her marvelous voice filled that vast space.

We saw Cecilia Bartoli in "Marriage of Figaro" on New Year's Eve at Bastille shortly after the building opened. Naturally, no taxi was to be had at evening's end, so we took the Metro. And, naturally, half-way home the train stopped (midnight!) and we had to hoof it in heels. For those who love the quirky (and annoying), the grandiose and the random, Paris never disappoints.

New York has the MOMA, once a beautiful tribute to art, now a hideous warehouse hated by any artist I know.

Tear it down and the Pompidou with it.

The new opera building in Krakow is more ugly inside and out. You can hear the streetcar during the performance.

Who cares? I’ve been there and the acoustics met my standards.

@nyt the picture of the demonstration is inaccurately commented: aside the 2 dozen yellow vests, the demonstration was the >10.000 strong demonstration of citizens against the yellow vests.

Like Opera Bastille, another Opera House design was found through a competition open to all and run by politicians and bureaucrats. From a plethora of submissions, sketches by a unknown and unheralded architect, half a world away, was selected. The architect’s design resulted in a building, though not without faults, is universally loved by all the residents of that fine city. The Sydney Opera House, hats off to Jorn Utzon, the Danish architect and the judges with wisdom to make that miraculous decision. Bravo. Going for the unknown rather than the name can be the wisest decision.

The Pompidou was ridiculed too, with good reason, but I don't think anybody would disagree that it's an essential part of Paris. These ugly duckling mid-20th century buildings kind of send a democratic message: All are welcome, and you don't have to be well dressed.

When we go to Europe we visit La Fenice, Covent Garden, but avoid the Opera de Bastille. One of the reasons to go to the opera is to spend the evening in beautiful surroundings. Quel dommage! I will be sure to check out Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen Opera House is one of the most beautiful buildings, inside and out, that I have ever been in.

Mr Barone perhaps echoes what some suspect to be "American snobbery" when it comes to brands and the French culture, of course (had Richard Meier been the author of the Meier-like project, everything would have been fine, 20-something years after). Otherwise it would be hard to find reason to his concern for a Parisian building published in an American journal. Opera de Bastille is a behemoth lying aloof amidst a pretty dense, historical urban fabric, indeed. Apart from its apparent inexpugnable presence and the outdated cladding, the building does not interfere urbanistically with the plaza and the surroundings. This is what Henning Larsen Architects will be doing, by slashing out an atrium to open the interior to the outside, thus correcting a fundamental mistake when it comes to design such architectural programmes (i.e. theatres and opera houses, where open foyers bring the spectacle of the audience into the street). Yet by endeavouring to an article about the Bastille Opera revamping, it would have been useful that its author published the winning scheme showing this building's conversion.

Now we love Garnier (I do too), but for quite a while it was considered the epitome of tackiness (16 shades of gold in the interiors !). Bastille was unidentifiable (and ugly) when built, it now has the charm of a very dated architecture (common in London, unusual in Paris). And even if you don’t have a premium seat, you are confortably seated and can see the show properly : priceless !

The Opera de Lyon is a magnificent building on the outside, and an astounding rebuilt all black leather and painted interior. In a way, the Opera in Lyon is amazing while the Opera in Paris gives most of the coverage. Too bad.

OK, many find the Bastille house ugly on the outside and no end of sniping is possible about the details of the exterior or the interior. But make no mistake-- the acoustics and the sight lines are excellent, and once the house lights go down, that's all anyone cares about. I love the traditional theaters, and in fact perform in one as a member of a regional ballet company here in the States. But enough about the Bastille not being the Palais Garnier-- it was never intended to be.

One gets to appreciate the Opéra Bastille when living in Paris. It is the only modern opera house, with the better acoustics and visibility. Its enormous inside volume provides a feeling of great open spaces, not afforded by the crowdness of Garnier, Châtelet, and the other opera places. To enjoy music and spectacle Bastille is still unparalleled and one learns to forgive its unassuming facade. While the new Philharmonie hall outclasses it in acoustics, I go with great pleasure at Bastille, a place of memory of many great spectacles.

I summer on my boat in the Arsenal Marina across the street from the Opera Bastille, so I'm familiar with the building in all her moods. I think it's great. Its curved, sort of ragged, sort of jagged, look fits in perfectly for being in the dynamic place where the 3rd, 4th, 11th and 12th converge in one great, albeit threatened, roundabout. The structure doesn't dominate, except at night when its giant 'scoreboard' lights up the entire Place de Bastille. And then it's a beacon of sorts for all walks of life. The Place wouldn't be the Place without the Opera Bastille. On many Friday nights I take friends on a cruise of the Seine, from Bercy to Ile Sequin and back. The two buildings nobody ever asks about are the two other 'Grands Projets' — the enormous Bibliothèque Nationale and the Ministry for the Economy and Finance. The exterior of the first could have been done by a three-year old copying a pair of upright books, while the latter is a jumbled mess that needlessly juts into the Seine and appears to have been done by someone whose computer 'stamp' function temporarily got stuck. I can't comment on the interior of the Opera Bastille. The time I was going to see an opera, the stagehands went on strike, so the actors were going to have to play their roles in street clothes. How French!

Architects design to impress other architects. They reject beauty as bourgeois unsophistication. In fact, they couldn’t design a beautiful, contextual building if their lives depended on it.

The moral of the story seems to be that politicians should not be given a role in making aesthetic judgments. Mitterand had a notorious ego, the kind that blinded one to his faults, but he wasn't the only one. Another tragedy is the Musée Branley on the other side of town, a tacky pastiche of cyber trends at the time done to satisfy Jaques Chirac's ego. Still I can't offer any full proof solution. The audience for art and architecture remains small because the education of children in those fields is still considered unimportant in most societies. Paris and New York were both important art centers during the 20th century but neither city has ever bothered to support the arts communities sufficiently and both are know simply residential zones for the uber - rich without a functioning cultural intelligentsia tat could raise the alarm about these sorts of turkeys in time. Here we have the new Whitney, a recent starchitect stamped novelty whose 25 foot ceilings absolutely destroy any picture less than 12 feet in height. So private wealth offers no better result than public folly. The only real solution is to educate further and value the non-wealthy who happen to be better educated enough to keep them in town. Most have been priced out of Paris and New York long ago and in their place you have people like Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump or worse real politicians.

Those jaggedly descending squares -- the worst part of the facade -- should be removed.

The Opéra Bastille's entrance and corridors engulf people like a huge uninteresting airport, but once in the salle one does appreciate the wonderful acoustics and open lay-out. Very industrial feeling otherwise, however.

The short answer is “yes”.

In my opinion, beaux arts architecture was generally 'over decorated' (Palais Garnier). And modern architecture is generally 'under decorated' (Opera Bastille). Will we ever develop a 'happy medium'? Probably not.....modern architecture is so much easier and cheaper to 'mass produce'. Or am I missing something here?

The Opera Bastille may not have 19th century elegance, but all ticket holders can see and hear the action on stage. This is worth a great deal to opera patrons.

It’s a shame to realize that in the facade shown in the lead photo, the Bastille’s ugliness derives mostly from the excessive crosshatching on every exterior element. Erase all that – mainly by replacing the densely-tiled windows with a more contemporary seamless glass curtain – and the rest of the structure might well live up to its role as a house of culture.

"Light rods top the Bastille’s facade like a minimalist tiara" About that "tiara": it's a recent addition (like in 2019), it's not only ugly (like florescent light bulbs standing on ends), it's desperate (like putting pearls on a pig), and it's also antithetical to the very history and idea that the Bastille embodies (think guillotine of that famous head that once wore tiaras).

The Opera Garnier is not so much a building as it is the architectural equivalent of an actual opera.

Ouf, I have been living in Paris for 20 years, and this is the first time that I have heard that it is ugly. In a way, I guess it isn’t so beautiful, maybe even a tad bit ugly, perhaps, but it is nothing to worry too much about. Inside, it is fine enough.

The seating has to be the worst in the world.

Well, we and The NY Times, should be careful.... since we have Lincoln Center, lovely as it is by Wallace K. Harrison, it's construction displaced many families and caused a great neighborhood of brownstones to be torn down. While the ugly Bastille Opera, an architectural " don't " in a city filled with so many built-wonders, only replaced a prison.

All the opera houses built for reasons other than music-making and staging and hearing/viewing such things are too big and don't have an acoustic to support it. These reasons include social, civic, financial, and vanity among others. I sang at the Bastille many years ago and it was acoustically unimpressive. Too big, of course, but for an American it felt normal. Our houses are too big as well, and often don't have much of an acoustic. Get back to designing for the voice to carry over an orchestra and make music with dynamics and nuance, and for an audience to be able to see human beings, not specks in the distance. I know I'm in a minority, but if those things aren't there I don't much care about the outside of an opera house.

A few years ago my sister and I jumped on the Eurostar for Paris. As she had never set eyes on the Garnier, let alone been inside, that's where we went. When we entered the Salon de Soleil, she gasped (not surprisingly) and said: "But it's only an opera house". I responded, "No, this is France; this is where heads of foreign states are (or were) entertained; it was designed to knock you flat". I wonder if such a reaction is remotely possible in the Bastille. BTW the Garnier Chagall ceiling is a very acquired taste..... Compare it to that in Prague, for example.

Take a moment to review other buildings designed by Carlos Ott and Opera Bastille makes perfect sense. Give him credit for making a good career out of mistake. It's not a coincidence that many of his buildings (on the shoulders of Opera Bastille) are in China and Dubai if you are familiar with those places.

As an opera buff, when I first visited Paris, I knew that an opera performance had to be a part of the experience. True, the Bastille had the more extensive and interesting choices. But for me, the Paris Opera is the Palais Garnier. It’s as simple as that. I saw two performances there. I didn’t see any need to visit the Bastille; we have plenty of ugly modern auditoriums right here in the States.

Granted the original Paris opera house is spectacular in appearance, but its whats inside Bastille that counts. The opera's I've seen there have been magnificently staged and wonderfully performed, and one of those I can confidently claim as the highlight of my opera going experience (and that includes having seen Pavorotti at the Met).

Personally, I think La Défense has the Opera beat hand down on pure grimness. At least the Opera is in a dynamic neighborhood - La Défense seems like a apocalyptic landscape.

Right, they built the artistic equivalent to the militaristic then later penitential Bastille. Yes, the irony is what makes this whole ordeal artistic, that the opera building itself is a penance for all that the original stood for. Modern generations must suffer all the same, but today they enter willingly, or loiter about outside it, suffering. It is, in a way, its own opera, a kind of architectural tragedy that plays out in real life, a scenic piece to accompany the strife for which protesters use the location.