Opéra de Nice

This guide to the Opéra de Nice opens on the night of March 23, 1881, when a gas leak caught fire during a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor while the cast and orchestra were at their posts. It follows the disaster's toll on the singers who died, including three siblings training their voices in the city, and the decision to rebuild in iron-reinforced stone under architect François Aune. You'll hear how Charles Garnier reviewed the plans and how painter Emmanuel Costa spent two years on scaffolding overhead. It reopened in 1885, with the ceiling above you as the proof.