THE BACKERS WHO FINANCE PERFORMANCES

THE CITY'S WEALTHIEST MEN FINANCED THE SHOWS BY

RESERVING THE MOST EXPENSIVE SEATS 

Those "subscribers"* might use them for their families or visitors from the provinces, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Fridays for a year... .

*The "abonnés," whom we will call "subscribers"

By Honoré Daumier

 ...but the main attraction was dinner on those nights in a private salon next to the now sealed-off door. The tycoons reached it through an entrance created for them alone, after leaving their carriages in the huge space surrounding it — we are coming to it.

Roofs cover tables of the modern restaurant.

That salon — please read on — was at the heart of the edifice and at the heart of its purpose.

It was the place where leaders of industry, commerce and culture connected among themselves, 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.

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Next,
 Ballet, an art of the French court