Opéra de Monte-Carlo — salle Garnier
Performance hall built by the architect Charles Garnier and inaugurated on January 25, 1879, which was the subject of a restoration in the early 2000s.
The Opéra de Monte-Carlo — its hall called Garnier — was inaugurated on January 25, 1879. Its architect, Charles Garnier, is that of the new Paris Opera: the Principality then offers itself a hall signed by the greatest architectural authority of the moment.
A sheet built on a gap in sources
The interest in this sheet lies less in its inauguration date than in what it reveals about the restoration of the early 2000s. The room closed in May 2001 and reopened in November 2005. On the duration of the work, two official sources diverge: the institution’s communication speaks of a closure of “more than five years”, an issue of the Journal de Monaco from 2005 mentions “two years of restoration”.
Memoria points out the discrepancy rather than deciding it. A guide who silently chose one of the two versions would produce a chronology that is wrong in one direction or the other.
A commemorative date that is not a construction date
Sovereign Ordinance No. 11.982 of June 24, 2026 creates a scientific committee for the 150th anniversary of the Opera. This round number does not exactly overlap with the inauguration of the room: it refers to the institution, created a few years before Garnier delivered his building.
Memoria publishes both facts, and refuses to infer one from the other. It is the same rule as for the Princess Grace Hospital Center or the Oceanographic Museum: a commemoration is not an act of construction.
The facts are paraphrased; only the source is cited. A correction, a missing date? Write to Memoria.