Opéra Garnier

Rank: Top 300

Wonder Type: Cultural

Country: France

Best of: Architecture, Beaux Arts, Opera House

The Palais Garnier is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. The Opera has been called "probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica." This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and, especially, the novel's subsequent adaptations in films and Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular 1986 musical. Another contributing factor is that among the buildings constructed in Paris during the Second Empire, besides being the most expensive, it has been described as the only one that is "unquestionably a masterpiece of the first rank. [More Details]