Théâtre du Châtelet

The Théâtre du Châtelet wears a long, colonnaded facade topped by an attic story, standing as a anchor on the Place du Châtelet. Baron Haussmann ordered its construction during his mid-nineteenth century transformation of Paris, replacing a maze of medieval streets with this grand, symmetrical square. In nineteen twelve, impresario Sergei Diaghilev brought his Ballets Russes here to premiere The Afternoon of a Faun. When the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky performed the final sequence, the audience erupted in a brawl that required police intervention.