A musical tour of luminous Paris

By Benjamín Aponte *

For a long time, Paris was an inescapable musical metropolis in Europe and the world. Two majestic operas, located five kilometers apart and separated by 115 years of history, bear witness to that. But it is in the heart of the city, in the Ile de la Cité on the river Seine, where its musical history begins in the Middle Ages and where this tour begins with a sound look at the call City of Light.

It all begins at the starting point of all the roads in France, the kilometer zero, which is materialized with a metal plate located on the ground of the esplanade of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in the French capital. The history of European cult music starts from there too. It is here, the cradle of ancient Roman Lutetia, that what musicologists will call the Notre-Dame School: a new way of composing music.

From the second half of the 12th century to the middle of the 13th century, under the aegis of the masters Perotin and Leonin, the first polyphonies written using the process called organum. This version of sacred music consists of superimposing several voices with different melodic lines.

Despite the dramatic Notre-Dame roof fire of April 2019 and the closing of the cathedral to the public, it is essential to stop in front of its façade, contemplate the elegance of this great Gothic lady and imagine wandering around in her majestic nave listening to how the All have seen, de Perotin, one of the very first European polyphonic works that has survived to this day.

The theater of the attack

If you go north across the River Seine on the Pont Neuf (Neuf bridge) you will come to Rue de Richelieu and then to Place Louvois. Here was built in 1792 a National Theater for the Montansier, a famous actress of the time. Do not confuse it with the Montansier Theater in Versailles, opened on November 18, 1777 and still active today. The inauguration of the theater on Rue Richelieu took place in 1793. A year later it will officially become an opera house, under the name Theater of the Arts, when welcoming the 14 of April of 1794 to the troop of singers of the Real Academy of Music.

On this stage the French premieres of The magic Flute, of Mozart, and of La Vestale, de Spontini. It was when attending the French premiere of The creation, of Haydn, which the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte suffered an attack in the Rue Saint-Nicaise, fruit of a monarchical plot in 1800. Frequented by the elite of that time, the theater was closed and demolished. The reason: The Duke of Berry, considered the heir to the French throne after Napoleon’s defeat, was stabbed in that room on February 13, 1820. He died the next day.

Among the places that no longer exist and that one would like to visit, one would find the famous villa where Rossini lived his long retirement and where he invited the intelligence Parisian artistic. It was in this house, called de Passy (actually located in the Boulogne forest), where he devoted himself to his gourmet pleasures. It is said that there he gave his guests the first taste of the culinary recipe he invented: the tournedos Rossini, a grilled piece of veal garnished with a generous portion of foie gras.

The House of Carmen

If you continue north along Carrer de Richelieu until you cross Saint-Marc at right angles, you will arrive at Place Boieldieu. Here is the Comical opera. It’s about the place where Georges Bizet’s famous opera premiered Carmen and also numerous works by Adolph Adam, Felicien David, Jules Massenet and Daniel-François-Esprit Auber.

The Comical opera You can visit it, there you will discover a room on a human scale with a lot of charm. The building is no longer exactly the one where it premiered Carmen (the first caught fire in 1838). The current building dates from 1898 and took the place of the second building after a second fire (in 1887).

Then you can take the Boulevard des Italiens towards the west until the Garnier opera. This majestic building is undoubtedly one of the most iconic examples of the architectural style of the Second Empire, although it was inaugurated only at the end of the reign of Napoleon III. It still houses the Opera dance school, but also… a beehive installed on the roof for twenty years and that produces every year the so-called Parisian honey, one of the purest honeys in France. Due to its purity, it is acquired as a priority by the burn services of hospitals.

The opera premiered at Garnier Thais, by Jules Massenet (whose Meditation for violin it has since become one of the most famous pieces in the classical repertoire) and the ballet Bolero, by Maurice Ravel, World-famous piece to the great chagrin of the composer who did not find it as good as others. Nowadays the Opera Bastille it has a tendency to centralize most of the large productions due to its greater capacity. You can visit the Opera Garnier alone or in a group, with or without a guided tour. Tickets can be booked on the page www.operadeparis.fr, in the window or in the automatic boxes in the hall from the Opera Garnier.

The great conservatory

After a visit to the Opera Garnier, if you take Scribe Street and then Mogador Street to the north, you will come to the esplanade of the Church of the Trinity, the former tribune of the organist and composer Olivier Messiaen. Then you can head northwest, you go through the Europa roundabout and at number 14 of Madrid street you will find the Regional Conservatory of Paris, institution that crowns the network of municipal conservatories. This place was for a long time the seat of the Superior Conservatory of Paris, which is currently in district 19. In these conservatories concerts are regularly given with the students or their teachers and also public lectures on musical themes. Most are free or at very affordable prices.

Returning to the roundabout of Europe, take the street of Constantinople, avenue de Villiers to the northwest until you reach the boulevard Malesherbes at the junction with rue Cardinet. Here is the Alfred Cortot Normal School of Music in Paris. Founded by Alfred Cortot and Auguste Mangeot in 1919, this private high school welcomes students from all corners of the world for first-rate teaching.

The Cortot Room, adjacent to the school, saw the 1950 premiere of the Symphony for a man alone, by Pierre Schaeffer, an important representative of the current of concrete (electroacoustic) music.

We take avenue de Villiers again to get to rue Jouffroy d’Abbans, and turn left again on avenue Wagram to Plaça de Ternes. At number 252 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré you will find the Salle Pleyel (Sala Pleyel). Distant heir to the salons of the 19th century Pleyel piano makers. In this room, inaugurated in 1927, on January 14, 1932, the Concerto in G for piano by Maurice Ravel under the direction of the composer and with the soloist Maguerite Long. Renovated in 2006, this large concert hall is perfectly comparable to the brand new Philharmonie de Paris (located near the Museum of the City of Music).

Another room more modest in size, but with exceptional acoustics is the Room Gaveau, whose name also comes from a French family of piano makers. It is located at 45-47 Carrer de la Boétie, near the Miromesnil metro, and its concerts are essentially dedicated to singing, piano and chamber music.

Let’s go back to Place de Ternes to continue along Avenue Wagram to Place Charles de Gaulle to reach the famous Champs Elysees. Let’s take Georges V avenue south to find avenue 15 Montaigne. There they will discover the Theater of the Champs Elysees which has been a very important place in the history of Western music: the highly controversial 1913 premiere of the ballet Spring consecration, by Igor Stravinsky. It was an artistic scandal for two reasons: the first was the surprising novelty of starting a ballet with a bassoon solo; the second was Nijinski’s groundbreaking choreography that included jerky movements far removed from the graceful elegance of classical ballet.

Today most contemporary musical commissions are performed at the Maison de la Radio which has two large concert halls.

The ‘Seine Musical’

To finish this Parisian walk I recommend you take the metro at the station Alma-Marceau on line 9 to Pont de Sèvres station. When exiting follow the signs indicating the “Seine Musical”. It’s a play on French words because Seine (which translates Seine and is the name of the river that runs through the city) and Scène (stage) are homophones. Opened in 2017, la Seine Musical is a cultural center that groups together several buildings which as a whole have the shape of a ship at one end of Seguin Island, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside of Paris. It hosts three groups in residence: L’Iínsula Orquesta, the Philippe Jaroussky Musical Academy and the Maîtrise Hauts-de-Seine. A radical change if it is known that this island was home to the Renault car factories.

By dedicating itself to the education and promotion of young musicians, the Its musical reconnects past and future Parisians on the same river. Of the Ile de la Cité and its polyphonic school of Notre-Dame we finished this tour downstream in the Seguin island, where Jean-Paul Sartre preached nonconformity and love in May 1968. Now there the millennial transmission of love for music is resumed in the enchanted city. (I)

* French music teacher residing in Paris.