Madeleine and the ballet

So tired! And yet I woke absurdly early, naturally. My body just doesn’t know when it needs sleep.

These are our first words to each other this afternoon - contrast our experiences with the teaching at L’Institut:

Meg: “My teacher made me recite everyone’s names and it was really embarrassing.”
Alissa: “My teacher made us watch Mr Bean and had us describe what he was doing.”
Me: “My teacher threatened to cut my head off, then he stole my pen.”

I think I’m in the right class…

I gathered together my Meg, and we launched forth on the metro up to La Madeleine.

When we alighted and ascended (as one tends to do on the metro) I was desperate to find the Lavirotte-designed public toilets on the eastern side of the square. It wasn’t hard, as the entrance was lavishly tiled (assuming, of course, that one can tile lavishly). Sadly, we were unable to take pictures of the interior, but we can confirm that it was a very pretty public toilet, if a public toilet and not a masterpiece of Art Nouveau (in my humble opinion). Still, I felt it was a good mix of functionality and flourish.

From the steps of the Madeleine church – covered with flowers – one has a great view down to Place de la Concorde and the Assemblée Nationale opposite, which mirrors the façade of the church. The dome at Les Invalides also peeks over the rooftops.

Madeleine is a favoured venue for society weddings – and it knows it. It has a bit of a severe atmosphere, as it was designed as Napoleon’s temple to his army, based on Greco-Roman temples (hence its north-south orientation) and was dedicated as a church when completed after Napoleon lost to the Prussians and thought better of the army glorification. It does the “stern church” thing well, which really gets up my nose, and I was offended on behalf of Meg’s shoulders that she had to put her cardigan over her sleeveless top. I feel that God’s seen Meg’s shoulders often enough and if it’s suitable for wearing on one side of the church door there’s no reason to stop anyone wearing it on the other. So it’s possible Madeleine and I just got off on the wrong foot.

The huge doors were supposed to show the ten commandments – and they were definitely commandments – but there were only eight scenes. We never quite got to the bottom of this, and would welcome any insight.

Inside, the orientation of the church made the light unusual, and I thought unsettling. There was a lot of dark marble, and where there would normally be chapels, you could tell that the original design had been for imperial art as there were large stone alcoves in which plain white statues were placed. It’s funny – I remember Madeleine in black and white, or more accurately brown and white, but definitely monochrome, and that’s the way it was designed.

The organ is reputed to be one of the best in Paris, and Saint-Saëns and Fauré were both organists at Madeleine at one point.

So, no, I didn’t really take to Madeleine, though it was interesting. We circumnavigated looking for the apostles, whom we found, and for mouthwatering displays of food in the square’s upmarket shops, which we didn’t, alas.

Home to relax, I got changed and read some more of Alexandre Dumas fils’ book, on which the ballet was based: La Dame aux Camelias, or Camille as it’s usually rendered.

After meeting at the bus stop, Tina and I ate just across from the Opera Garnier, one of my favourite buildings in the world and by far my favourite in Paris.

We ate pasta and crème brulée while waiting for Meg and Alissa to appear on the opera steps, where we met them to go inside. I think it was a good deal; €20 for seats in the opera boxes on the third level, and we got to tour the building before taking our seats, when one would normally pay €8 for the privilege. We got a ballet too.

The ballet was really enjoyable, with wonderful costumes and music by Chopin. My only complaint was that they got the date wrong on the sign in act 1: the estate sale did not take place on 16 March 1847 in the book, it was 12 March. Just to clear that up.

During the second interval, Meg went on a phantom hunt after I made the mistake of telling her that box number five was the phantom’s box. She returned, thankfully, having taken a picture. Of the box, not the phantom.

All in all, it was a great evening at the ballet.