Crimson & Navy & Rose

Crimson is the Grand Rideau — the deep vivid crimson of the Garnier's grand velvet stage curtain. The Opéra Garnier: the Palais Garnier (designed by Charles Garnier — who won the public competition for the design of the new Paris Opéra building in 1861 at the age of 35 — the most significant architectural competition in the history of French public architecture — against more than 170 competing designs) is the most completely and the most extravagantly elaborated example of the Second Empire Beaux-Arts architectural style — with a facade of colored marble, gilt bronze, and decorative sculpture; an auditorium decorated in the most extensively applied and the most richly varied combination of velvet, gilt, and painted ceiling (the ceiling painted by Marc Chagall in 1964 — the most immediately famous and the most controversially modern addition to the Garnier interior — the luminously colorful Chagall panels surrounding the existing Garnier chandelier). The crimson interior: the Garnier auditorium is decorated primarily in the most vivid and the most deeply saturated crimson velvet (the horseshoe-shaped auditorium — the most traditional Italian operatic form — seated in horseshoe-shaped rows of velvet-covered stalls, with the most elaborately decorated box tiers rising to the ceiling) — the specific deep vivid crimson of the seat upholstery, the velvet-lined box fronts, and the most dramatically crimson Grand Rideau is the single most immediately beautiful and the most specifically theatrical color in the Garnier interior. Navy is the darkened auditorium — the very deep dark navy of the Garnier auditorium at the most dramatically charged pre-curtain moment. The auditorium before curtain: the moment when the houselights in the Garnier auditorium finally dim — after the most elaborate pre-performance ritual of audience arrival, social display, and programme perusal — is the most theatrically charged and the most atmospherically beautiful moment of the entire operatic evening. In the Garnier specifically, the dimming houselights reveal the full decorative programme of the auditorium in the most dramatically warm and the most intimately goldened remaining light — the gilded caryatids, the painted lunettes, and the painted ceiling gradually receding into the most magnificently shadowed darkness — before the Grand Rideau begins to rise. Rose is the footlight glow — the vivid electric rose of the operatic footlights. The footlight tradition: theatrical footlights (the row of lights along the front edge of the stage — pointing upward — creating the most characteristic upward-casting light on the performers' faces — the most immediately distinctive theatrical lighting effect) have been a feature of European theatrical performance since the early 18th century — originally as a row of oil lamps or candles, later as gas lights, and finally (from the 1880s) as electric lights. The specific rose glow: the footlights of the most important operatic venues (particularly the Garnier and the Vienna State Opera — the two most celebrated historical opera houses in Europe) used amber-to-rose-gelled lights in the most important traditional positions — creating the most characteristic warm rose glow at the stage edge — the most immediately and the most specifically theatrical lighting effect in the entire history of Western theatrical tradition.