It is a recovery the atmosphere is relaxed

He often left his Office on the 8th floor with view on the Arsenal basin to survey the corridors of the Bastille Opera, meets his troops. "I have worked for large opera houses during my thirty years of career, but, of all, it is the most enormous machine to handle", recognizes Gérard mortar. The Director of the national opera of Paris, which will be hand this season, already warned his successor, Nicolas Joël: "should have the qualities of a CEO of multinational and to devote fourteen hours a day to breathe continuously dynamic." 22,000 square metres right to the soil on 14 floors... Beautiful promenade in perspective for those attending, Saturday, guided tour of the premises as part of operation all Opera. City within the city, developments in production, this hive désemplit ever.

6 hours. Cleaning brigades open dance, followed by canteen staff. With 600 to 700 meals to prepare, midday and evening, better is to be morning. Then maintenance and public works companies arrive on the scene: Bastille is already twenty years old and requires of multiple work standards. The puzzle to Gérald Helwig, Director, buildings and investments, a professional versed in the management of large industrial units, is to work subcontractors... in silence, because there are permanently ongoing rehearsals! The challenge of his counterpart at the head of the domestic service, Jean-Jacques Béclier, is rather play the fire on a daily basis: seek printing house program of last minute changes, workshop of locksmith services for one of the key lost 2,500, the fleet for a delicate transport of live animals...

9 hours. Administrative, artists, directors cross access posts that give the 120, rue de Lyon one small side secret defence. Plateau technicians already activate scenes around unique theatrical equipment. The stage, 30 metres wide and deep 20, is that the visible part of a huge platform designed to deliver two operas alternating, while a third is in rehearsal. According to the programming, the sets of "macbeth", the "Third Symphony" and "A masked ball", assembled on mobile trays of 400 square metres, are routed through a hub and rails to the scene or alternate spaces. Six lower floors, in the bowels of Bastille, the King Kong of "The case Makropulos", Janacek, the largest figure ever carved here 10 metres high, 14 wide chipped in 30 blocks of polystyrene, may be raised to the level of the scene by a giant bird's-eye, within twenty-five minutes. By his Gigantism, Bastille has revolutionized the Organization of the work. Scenic engineering in the Office of studies, carpenters to specialists of composite materials or special effects, of painters to the Upholsterers, is about a work that the tasks are now distributed.

9: 55. The stage manager beats the callback through ubiquitous speakers. "Ladies and gentlemen musicians, repetition of"Masked ball"in five minutes in the room Liebermann." Alternating forces, there is not one but two formations at the Paris Opera, the Greens and the Blues. Today, Chief Renato Palumbo is the repetition of the blue at a rate of hell but in good spirits. "Fortissimo". Ta ta ta! "Ask to upset an excellent, but deemed Orchestra constitute a State in the State.

14: 30. Jürgen Höfer, Technical Director, will review his battalion, the most impressive: 500 men. Before heading to Milan to finalize a co-production with la Scala, and then in Berlin to discuss with the Director of the Ring, he inspects paintings in progress for "La Fille mal kept", wheat samples provided for in the design of "Mireille" and "macbeth" minimalist village houses: this setting made in Bastille made a detour via Siberiawhere Verdi's opera was presented in preview.

15 hours. The afternoon announcement also loaded for Christine Neumeister, Director costumes, and his 155 artisans of gold fingers: "on average, 300 costumes are made by work, from models, drawings, photos or just indications given by the costumer Designer." The latter has a "fabric" on-site, but also thousands of buttons, ribbons, feathers, laces, pompons, ribbons... When he cannot find his happiness, the workshop of decoration is tailor-made: printing frit, dyeing, patina... Here, graduates in applied arts can indifferently make "A ball hidden" wolves, "nabucco" jewelled crowns or trophies of bulls of "Carmen"... Next, the small hands of the workshops "fuzzy" and "tailor" made several months Extras clothing and chorus of "A ball hidden". Remains to adjust the adornments of the soloists... Or international stars are sometimes only a week before the show, which may reserve surprises, as the diva who had lost 20 pounds since his last taking action! The Shoemaker, he began to tint black all the Brown boots a version of "Othello" out of the directory, to recycling. An economy significantly, when we know that costumes and sets cost the trifle of 400,000 to 450,000 euros by production.

15: 30. In light bathed Berlioz room, 7th floor, the choristers, sunglasses on the nose, repeat "A hidden ball". It is a recovery, the atmosphere is relaxed. The head of choir, Alessandro di Stephano, leads the dance, a pencil as a wand. A portable sounds. "Champagne!", says, mocking. In the nearby Office, the stage manager of the choruses has the onerous task of ensuring compliance with schedules and the replacement of the sick. The soloists are not lined, it sometimes get the rare Pearl to the hazardous.

17: 30. Clean-up crews are "a rehabilitation" after the school visits and groups. Maintenance has passed through the 2.700 seats of the Hall: daily, 4-6 of them must be repaired. At the rate of the most expensive places, 180 euros, the customer is demanding. Some companies pay same EUR 500 per guest gala evening. The patrons, faithful despite the crisis, should bring even EUR 7.5 million this year. A commercial branch, Jean-Yves Kaced is however always looking for new recipes, because the subsidy paid by the State share fully in the wages of permanent employees. He must still pay the tenor, diva, the maestro invited, the stamp can reach 17,000 euros the evening! The "plateau", composed of Chief conductor and soloists, and cost of 68,000 to 80,000 euro representation.

18 hours. The home and control staff comes into action. Behind the scenes, the pressure rises. "Ladies and gentlemen the audience, you have thirty minutes to win your tickets", announced the "stage manager". Follows a succession of "tops" to sound, light boards, video... Hidden by a screen on which an aerial view is projected, the village square of "macbeth" waiting to be invested by a fifty extras that created here or there. Behind two Fenwick are already "secured" following décor, the show, which will have to be powered on the front of the stage in only a minute and twenty seconds, a quarter of an hour after the start of the show. In this version of the Opera of Verdi, the choir interprets its partition primarily from behind the scenes and stage managers are struggling to obtain the silence behind the curtain. The conversations go well as Lady Macbeth is not unanimously this evening: "It's the Melun Scala!" exclaims a Chorister...

22: 38 pm. Machinists armed carabiners climb the outer walls of the room. At the signal, seven holes filled with stones made of polystyrene are demolished with mallets, projecting of scree in the room, in a cloud of smoke released by technicians. Rideau. In less than an hour, the stage is cleaned, deserted. At midnight, another ballet begins. One of the handlers.