"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.