Palais Garnier

Most of the time business trips are dull and exhausting and not-at-all the glamorous adventures people who don’t travel for work assume them to be. But every now and then they do show their perks.

This evening our team was given a private tour of the grand Palais Garnier, the famous and opulent opera house on the Boulevard des Capucines. The interiors are every bit as striking as the building’s impressive facade and the mix of architectural styles prove a feast for the eyes no matter where you fix them. The foyer, grand staircase and theater itself are, of course, the signature attractions but our group got a peak quite literally behind the curtain to see the inner workings of the still operating venue which made the experience all the more memorable.

The most interesting part of the tour proved to not be behind the curtain but below it. We were shown the antiquated pulley systems used to raise the curtains and move props about the stage. For their time they were quite modern, innovative even, but today they seem like relics, the sort of thing you’d see on an old galleon. And, yet, to my astonishment, we’re told they’re still in operation today and handle many of the tasks for which they were originally intended.