Opéra-Comique
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- This article is about the Paris opera house. For the London opera house associated with the premieres of several Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, see Opera Comique. For the opera style, see Opéra comique.
The Opéra-Comique is an opera company and opera house in Paris. It is located Place Boieldieu, in the IIe arrondissement of Paris, near the Paris Stock Exchange and not far from the Opera Garnier, home of the Académie Royale de Musique.
The Opéra-Comique company was established in 1714 to offer French opera as an alternative to Italian opera that then dominated the continent. Productions at the Opéra-Comique distinguished from those at the Académie Royale de Musique by their less formal requirements. French opéra comique, in the 19th century at least, did not have to be comic; the term covered a much wider category of work.
Notable composers in the history of Opéra-Comique include Auber, Halévy, Berlioz and Bizet. Bochsa, the famous eccentric harpist can, among others, be mentioned as he also composed seven operas for the Opera-Comique (http://bochsa.site.voila.fr). Opéra-Comique staged the first performance of Bizet's Carmen.
Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust received its ill-fated première on 6 December 1846 at the Opéra-Comique. It was one of the worst setbacks in his career, leaving him heavily in debt and profoundly affecting his attitude to the performance of his music in Paris.
Another striking première in the history of the Opéra-Comique was that of Debussy's only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, on 30 April 1902.
[edit] Salle Favart
Although the current building, known as the "salle Favart," was built in 1898, the opera house is in itself the oldest one in Paris. Two previous buildings burnt down in 1838 and 1887, not an uncommon occurrence with theatres in the 19th century.
