II.7.2. BACKERS, SEX AND MONEY

2.7.2. Backers sex & money

OUR GUIDE STRIDES THROUGH AN EMPTY PASSAGE

TOWARD A BOARDED-UP DOOR

To the right of the passage is the salon of the "abonnés" (subscribers). It was the heart of the monument. 

Cyprian Leym

They were Paris's wealthiest men.

Americans would call them the "donors."

• The abonnés finance performances

• Detour: ballet, an art of the French court

• Millionaires and ballerinas

• Degas's "Little dancer"

• A ceiling decorated by an orgy

*     *     *

Next,

The abonnés finance performances

THE ABONNÉS FINANCE PERFORMANCES

THOSE TYCOONS FINANCED THE SHOWS BY RESERVING THE MOST EXPENSIVE SEATS 

They might use them for their families or visitors from the provinces, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Fridays for a year...

By Honoré Daumier

But the main attraction was dinner on those nights in a salon next to the now sealed-off door the last page shows. They reached it through an entrance created for them alone, after leaving their carriages in the huge space next to their rotunda. 

There leaders of industry, commerce and culture connected, and met the most venerable nobility in a context as intimate and exclusive as that of a salon.

The dinners took place while awaiting the end of the ballet that took place after the opera's second act.

 This view, 

from a window of the passage on the last page,

 is the only way to perceive the void.

 More later.  

The rectangles cover tables of what is now a restaurant.

*     *     *

Next,
 Detour: ballet, an art of the French court

DETOUR: BALLET, AN ART OF THE FRENCH COURT

 

IT BEGAN AS PROCESSIONS THAT ROYALS LED

(FROM ABOUT 1560)

Louis XIII and Anne of Austria conducted them or observed the ritualized dances that followed:  

     The Ball by Abraham Bosse, 1634 / zoom 

Maurice Leloir in Richelieu by Théodore Cahu, 1901, a history of France for children

They were allegories about royals that young members of the court performed. In his youth Louis XIV, an excellent dancer, starred in the role that led to the name of "Sun King."

Maurice Leloir in Le Roy-Soleil by Gustave Toudouze, 1931

Later he established the first school for ballet and ordered that a  performance be inserted after the second act of every opera produced at court.

 The Man with the Iron Mask by R. Wallace with Leonard Dicaprio as Louis (1998) and Le roi danse by G. Corbiau (2000) 

Ritualized dance was part of court life until the end of the Old Regime:

The Princess of Navarre by Nicolin Cochin, 1745 / zoom

# # #

  

The Opéra continued the royal tradition, with a ballet after the second act of every opera. All Degas's dancers were "Opéra girls:" The city had no other ballet.

 Shown at the exhibit Degas at the Opéra at the musée d'Orsay (2019)

Their interludes are the link 
 between court dance and cabaret floor shows, 
which also began in Paris.

 *     *     *

Next,
Millionaires and ballerinas

MILLIONAIRES AND BALLERINAS

"KEEPING" A DANCER WAS A SOURCE OF IDENTITY, PRESTIGE AND CREDIT

 "Mr. Leuwen, the wealthy banker who keeps Mademoiselle des Brins, of the Opéra..."

-- Lucien Leuwen by Stendhal, 1834

# # #

The second act over, the subscribers would meet the dancers backstage or in a room specially designed for that purpose, whose idealized image contributed to Paris's reputation for high-end sex:

 Backstage at the Opéra by Jean Béraud, 1889, Musée Carnavalet 

     The Foyer de la Danse, courtesy Opéra archives

"It is meant [...] as a setting for the graceful groups of ballerinas [...] one thinks of a kaleidoscope when they intermingle in thousands upon thousands of ways."

 -- Charles Garnier

As seen by Degas:

        Shown in the exhibit Degas à l'Opéra on the centenary of his death, in 2017.

Those ballerinas, "the elite of Parisian pleasures:"

-- Splendor and Misery of Courtesans by Balzac (1838-47).

• "Her mother, as I have since learned, to my horror, was a dancer at the Opéra."

-- Said of the adventuress Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray 1848.

      Degas monotype, origin unknown

• The expression C'est ma danseuse  ("It's my dancer") means a pastime that absorbs huge resources and gives nothing in return. It harks back to the dancers' exorbitant demands for presents.

.

From humble backgrounds, usually illiterate, they left no records, and we know of them only through men who despised them.

They despised them back. The black choker Degas's dancer wears recalled a dog collar and meant, "We know what you think of us. We don't like you either."  

-- Nadège Maruta, cancan choreographer and historian,

personal communication

• Dancers' and courtisans' revenge : "At every bite, Nana devoured an acre...

She passed [...] like a cloud of locusts [...] she burned the land where she placed her little foot. Farm by farm, prairie by prairie, she bit into the inheritance [...] without even noticing, as she would munch a packet of pralines [...] but one night, all that was left was a little wood. She swallowed it with a look of contempt, for it was not even worth opening her mouth."

-- Nana by Émile Zola, 1880.

# # #

The practice declined when the "Opéra girls" joined a strike of Opéra employees and obtained livable salaries: Abonnés' furious letters show that many then refused their "sponsorship." 

(In 1912)

It ended when the austère Protestant Jacques Rouché became director and ended their privileges by financing performances himself.

(In the 1930's)

-- Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, historian of Paris,
personal communication.

When Rouché's funds ran out the State took over.

(In 1939)

 

*     *     *

Next,

Degas's "Little dancer"

DEGAS'S "LITTLE DANCER"

BALLERINAS WENT ON STAGE AGED 13 OR 14, HAVING TRAINED SINCE THEY WERE SIX OR SEVEN: SO THE DEBAUCHERY OF A BALZAC HEROINE BEGINS

(CORALIE IN SPLENDOR AND MISERY OF COURTESANS) 

Their scampering recalled that of rats and they were called "petits rats."

By Degas 

Notice the man on the left and the exchange of glances.

Pedophilia, publicly tolerated

At Palais-Royal, Internet, no further information

"Little dancer, 14 years old:" For Degas, the low forehead and salient jaw were monkey-like signs of degeneration and criminality:

"The vicious muzzle of this young, scarcely adolescent girl, this little flower of the gutter, imprints her face with the detestable promise of every vice."

-- Critic cited in The Painted Girls
 by Cathy Marie Buchanan, 2013, a novel about the model based on fact.

Communards say:
"If you do not want your daughters 
to be instruments of pleasure

 for the aristocracy of wealth, 
workers arise!"

-- Paris Babylon by Rupert Christiansen, 1994

*     *     *

Next,
A ceiling decorated by an orgy

A CEILING DECORATED BY AN ORGY

NYMPHS SEDUCE SATYRS AS BACCHUS* LOOKS ON, IN DECOR THAT COVERS THE FULL CEILING OF THE ABONNÉS' SALON

-- The Fête of Bacchus by Georges Clairin

*God of debauchery

End of this section.

*      *      *  

Next section,
II.7.3.
Blackout?

II.7.3. BLACKOUT?

 2.7.3. MENU: Blackout? 

THE HOMAGE TO TYCOONS IS CAMOUFLAGED WHEN IT'S POSSIBLE, IGNORED WHEN IT ISN'T

 

Pamela Spurdon

In brief

• Tycoons almost equal to an emperor

• Ignoring the obvious and getting away with it

• Masking the monument's purpose

• Merch contributes to the transformation, but is not its cause 

• The donors' void now

*     *     *

Next,

Tycoons almost equal to an emperor

TYCOONS ALMOST EQUAL TO AN EMPEROR

ROTUNDA AND VOIDS OF THE SAME IMPORTANCE SURROUND ENTRANCES OF EMPEROR AND ABONNÉS

 

Except for announcing Napoleon III on the facade, the edifice suggests that he and they are similar. 

      Claude Abron

One combination is for the Emperor, the other for the abonnés, on the city's most expensive land. 

The voids:

• A ramp for horses highlights that of the Empereur, a colonnade the abonnés'.   

• Caryatides emphasize both entries. A pair clothed in drapery flank that of the  Emperor...

And 14 nude statues surround that of the abonnés. Before their restauration in 2016 they radiated a discreet sensuality... please read on.

 Félix Sinpraseuth

     Alex Varenne

"Coming, honey?" 

In official art gods with their idealized bodies represent the Republic, Justice etc. and as cold abstractions do not incite desire. The other example of sensual nudes on buildings of the time is Carpeaux's realistic female reveler in The Dance, on the Opéra's facade. There are no more.

The figures allude to the ballerinas and emphasize the void's immensity. 

Roland Halbe-Yatzer

Lit by the caryatids' lanterns 

the magnates would leave their carriages

in the giant parking lot 

and feeling themselves masters of the universe,

stroll toward their entrance, business contacts

 and meetings with the girls.

*     *     *

Next,

Ignoring the obvious and getting away with it

IGNORING THE OBVIOUS AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT

THE PAINTING OF AN ORGY COVERS THE WHOLE CEILING OF THE ABONNÉS' SALON

Its most explicit scene strikes the eye on entering.

Yet:

 

• The audio-guide comments minor elements of decoration (busts and small tapestries) and mentions neither subscribers nor ceiling.  

•  A touristic article overlooks the salon itself. 

• Guided tours say nothing. I've been in the salon a number of times with visitors and when a group arrives we've listened. The guide omits the ceiling and clients do not ask.

Web site comments show only one visitor's surprise at such decor in one of high culture's great achievements.

Harald Wolff

The Opéra performs the exploit

of turning profit-seeking and pedophilia into grandeur — 

and (most of) the public,

 that of ignoring it.

# # #

Next,

Masking the monument's purpose