The world famous Palais Garneir is a building of exceptional opulence. Halled with elaborate multicolored marble friezes, columns, and lavish statuary, many of which portray deities of Greek mythology; every corner, vault, and ceiling paying homage to music, this hallowed place was surely it's temple constructed upon the Earth.
Fourteen painters, mosaicists and seventy-three sculptors participated in the creation of its ornamentation, a task, which when coupled with an account of it's construction had taken no less than fifteen years to complete.
The exterior featured two gilded figural groups, Charles Gumery's L'Harmonie and La Poésie, crowning the apexes of the principal facade's left and right avant-corps. Whilst at the bases of the two avant-corps there are decorated the four major, multi-figure groups depicting the embodied forms of poetry, instrumental music, the dance, and lyrical drama.
Gilded bronze busts of many of the great composers are located between these columns making up the theatre's front façade. The sculptural group Apollo, Poetry, and Music, located at the apex of the south gable of the stage flytower, with the two smaller bronze Pegasus figures at either end of the south gable.
Located to the east side of the building lay a pavilion, designed to allow the wealthy subscribers and social lights who attended direct access from their carriages to the interior of the building rather than needlessly tiring their legs upon the main stairway. It is covered by a large dome with two pairs of obelisks marking the entrances of the Rotunda to the north and the south.
Once inside the eye was treated to the interior in all it's resplendent glory consisting of interweaving corridors, stairwells, alcoves and landings allowing for the fluid movement of vast numbers of people who would come clothed in layers if the finest silks, and still require space for socializing during intermission. Rich with velvet, gold leaf, cherubim and nymphs, the interior is the epitome of sumptuousness and splendor.
Featuring a large ceremonial staircase of white marble with a balustrade of red and green marble, which divides into two divergent flights of stairs that lead to the Grand Foyer the pedestals are decorated with female torchères. Looking down upon them from above the staircase the ceiling was painted by Isidore Pils to depict The Triumph of Apollo, The Enchantment of Music Deploying its Charms, Minerva Fighting Brutality Watched by the Gods of Olympus, and The City of Paris Receiving the Plan of the New Opéra. All of it culminating to a wickedly beguiling beauty that transfixed the eye, and transcended the mortal bounds to give one a sense of divinity.
The Grand Foyer is a hall eighteen meters high, one hundred and fifty-four meters long and thirteen meters wide. It was designed to act as a drawing room for all of Paris society where they were meant to gather and enjoy all of the finearies their standing afforded them. With an elaborately decorated ceiling, painted by a deft hand in it could be found the representations of various moments in the history of music. The foyer then opens into an outside loggia at each end of which are the Salon de la Lune and Salon du Soleil.
At the building's heart lay the auditorium, having a traditional horseshoe shape it can easily, and comfortably seat one-thousand, nine hunrdred and seventy-nine before the stage which, heralded as the largest in Europe, is able to accommodate as many as four-hundred and fifty artists at a time. And yet the pinical of all this grandeur and luxury was the seven-ton bronze and crystal chandelier, designed by Garnier, the architect for whom the opera house was named. Cast and chased by Lacarière, Delatour & Cie the total cost for the piece which seemed to float with an elegance and grace that only complemented the happenings on stage came to thirty-thousand gold francs.
Yet for all the beauty and wonder the formal areas of the Palais Garneir held, the dormitories, and servants quarters shared little of this magnificence or glory.
Colombe Deveraoux was sixteen years old. A girl of no particular excellence or beauty; she had dark brown hair, mossy green eyes, and a slight, underdeveloped frame. Having lived in the maid's quarters since the age of twelve she knew well the differences between what was meant for the public whose purses over flowed, and what she, with her calloused fingers and habitual lifestyle of having scarcely any monetary funds to her name was deemed worthy of appreciating.
Regardless it was there in the extravagant halls were Colombe had found her sanctuary from a violent and drunkard father, though, ruefully, her meagre wages still supported the wretch. She was a quiet girl, reserved, pious, and moderately well liked among the servants and others of her standing, though few of her betters ever took notice, at least not in the ways she would have wanted. Yet for all her obedience and calm self assurance she was also a girl who's will and sense of whimsy could get her into trouble, laughing late into the night with friends, gossiping, and finding all manner of activities with which to keep herself occupied.
Still, with all her simplicity and anonymity, Colombe was about to find herself part of a tragic tale which was anything but.