National Theatre of the Opera Comique

The Opera Comique features a curved, limestone facade topped with an ornate, copper-domed roof that stands out against the surrounding Haussmann architecture. This theater emerged from an eighteenth-century desire for lighter, spoken-word musical productions that differed from the rigid traditions of the Royal Academy of Music. In eighteen eighty-seven, disaster struck when a gas leak caused a massive fire that killed over one hundred people. The building reopened in eighteen ninety-eight, constructed with iron reinforcements intended to prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again.