Rialto Theatre

This guide to the Rialto Theatre in Montreal follows architect Joseph-Raoul Gariepy's unusual 1923 solution to a narrow Avenue du Parc lot, turning the whole auditorium sideways to seat over a thousand people behind a Paris Opera facade. It moves on to decorator Emmanuel Briffa's gilded, dome-lit interior, which he called his finest work. Listen for the stained-glass dome overhead as you picture the decades of film crowds it once held.