In 1848 he won the much coveted Grand Prix de Rome, and spent four years in Italy, visiting also Sicily, Greece and Constantinople. Garnier came from a poor family, and as a student had actually helped to support himself by working in Viollet-le-Duc's office for seventy-five centimes an hour. At the end of May, the name of the winner was announced-Charles Garnier, a promising but almost unknown young man of thirty-one.
The five successful competitors were asked to submit more detailed plans by the end of another two months. His design, indeed, was a banal work, partly no doubt because the style had to be classical instead of his preferred neo-Gothic. From the most promising a short list of five names was made, and to the Empress's annoyance Viollet-le-Duc's was not among them. The time allowed was a single month, yet by 31 January 1861, 171 entries had been received. The idea is thought to have been the Empress Eugenie's, who expected her favourite, Viollet-le-Duc, to win. Although a design by the resident Opera architect already existed, it was announced at the end of 1860 that the project would be thrown open to a public competition. The decision that Paris should have a new opera house worthy of the capital of France-one that would be the consummation of all that had gone before, a monument of architecture, a focus of city planning, a splendid setting for sculpture and painting, a shrine of opera and ballet-had been taken as early as 1840, but it was not until Napoleon III and Baron Haussman had begun their wholesale building programme in the 1858 that any practical move was made. The ceiling of the hall, created by Marc Chagall in the year 1964, destroyed irreparably the original paint work and is the subject of a special contention.
The opera holds 2,200 spectators and up to 450 performers at a time. The communication parts of the building, including the staircases and promenade spaces are of very high quality. The interiors contain large amounts of gold and velvet.
The opulent and ostentatious design corresponds to the era. The Paris opera dates back to the period of the Second Empire.
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