Théâtre Silvain

This guide to Théâtre Silvain in Marseille follows postcard magnate Dominique Piazza, who bought a scrubby valley outside the city in 1922 and decided to build a Greek theatre there, sending architect Jean Boët to study the ancient site at Epidaurus. It traces how Comédie-Française stars Eugène and Louise Silvain tested the valley's acoustics and later opened the theatre themselves, and how their deaths and the Depression nearly ended what Piazza built. Listen for the curve of seating around you, restored decades later for summer nights of music and theatre.