Opéra Grand Avignon / Avignon Theater - SHORT - Avignon France - ECTV

The Opéra Grand Avignon, initially named Théâtre Municipal, then Opéra-Théâtre d'Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse, is a performance hall built during the nineteenth century on the Place de l'Horloge in Avignon in the French department of Vaucluse in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.

History
Construction
In 1824, during the development of the Place de l'Horloge, the Avignon City Council asked Ange-Alexandre Bondon and Alexandre Frary, the city's architects, to clear the ruins of the former Benedictine abbey of Saint-Laurent, which adjoined the City Hall, and to build a new theatre there[2].

They had a building built with a Greco-Roman style façade adorned with two superimposed colonnades. They were crowned by a row of allegorical statuettes representing Apollo and the Muses, the work of the sculptors Baussan and Lacroix. The first performance was given on 30 October 1825[2].

Fire and reconstruction

Sculpture on the façade of the Opéra Grand Avignon

Sculpture of the façade of the Opéra Grand Avignon
This new theatre burned down on 26 January 1846. The municipality decided to have it rebuilt on the same site. It called on the architects Théodore Charpentier, from Lyon, and Léon Feuchère, from Nîmes. The work was spread out from 1846 to 1847.

On the front of the building stood the statues of Molière and Pierre Corneille, made by the chisels of Jean-Louis Brian and his elder brother, Joseph, but the material chosen did not resist. They were redone identically by the sculptor Jean-Pierre Gras and the two originals were relegated in front of the town hall of Le Thor[3]. In medallions on the façade, bas-relief busts of King René and Petrarch, by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste-Jules Klagmann (1810-1867).

In his book on Avignon, André Hallays is effusive: "The façade is of a very sure and elegant taste, the decoration sculptural, without heaviness or triviality. The idea of the large façade that occupies the entire first floor has often been taken up, but with less success."

. As for Joseph Girard, he affirms: "This theatre is the most graceful and the best understood of the buildings built in Avignon in the nineteenth century"[3].

Renovation
In 1978, the Opera House was renovated for the first time, to approach a style of Italian Theatre, preserved today...

The Opéra Grand Avignon is being renovated from 2018 to 2021, in order to benefit from better comfort. It is initially scheduled to open in April 2020[4] But with the COVID19 epidemic, the date is postponed.

During the construction period, an ephemeral opera house was built in front of the Avignon TGV station. It is called Opéra Confluence and hosts performances at the Opéra Grand Avignon for two seasons.


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