"Next we behold equeries, whose horses are hoisted on the stage by

means of an elevator; electricians who manage the light-producing

batteries; hydrauliciens to take charge of the water-works in ballets

like La Source; artificers who prepare the conflagration in Le Profeta;

florists who make ready Margarita's garden, and a host of minor

employees. This personnel is provided for as follows: Eighty

dressing-rooms are reserved for the artists, each including a small

antechamber, the dressing-room proper, and a little closet. Besides

these apartments, the Opera has a dressing-room for sixty male, and

another for fifty female choristers; a third for thirty-four male

dancers; four dressing-rooms for twenty female dancers of different

grades; a dressing-room for one hundred and ninety supernumeraries,

etc."

A few figures taken from the article will suggest the enormous capacity

and the perfect convenience of the house. "There are 2,531 doors and

7,593 keys; 14 furnaces and grates heat the house; the gaspipes if

connected would form a pipe almost 16 miles long; 9 reservoirs, and two

tanks hold 22,222 gallons of water and distribute their contents

through 22,829 2-5 feet of piping; 538 persons have places assigned

wherein to change their attire. The musicians have a foyer with 100

closets for their instruments."

The author remarks of his visit to the Opera House that it "was almost

as bewildering as it was agreeable. Giant stairways and colossal

halls, huge frescoes and enormous mirrors, gold and marble, satin and

velvet, met the eye at every turn."

In a recent letter Mr. Andre Castaigne, whose remarkable pictures

illustrate the text, speaks of a river or lake under the Opera House

and mentions the fact that there are now also three metropolitan

railway tunnels, one on top of the other.



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