It stands at the top of Paris's Avenue de l'Opéra, its facade a sculpted memory of harmony, music, opera and dance, whose nude bodies, imagined by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, caused a scandal. Since 1875, the Palais Garnier has remained a behemoth of art history, a formidable engine of fantasy. Always in the vanguard of life and the contemporary scene, it attracts a million visitors a year, who stroll beneath its gilded ceilings, photographing themselves from every angle, especially on the monumental 30-meter-high white marble staircase. Its steps slope curiously from concave to convex, serving as a podium for selfies copying that of the heroine of the hit American series Emily in Paris.

But history is no stranger to paradoxes: In 2025, the opera house designed by Charles Garnier – its facade currently hidden behind a tarpaulin for renovations – will celebrate the 150^th anniversary of what can only be called, without exaggeration, a reign. Few monuments have ever been so popular. Revealed at the 1867 World's Fair, its facade sparked a European aesthetic debate as soon as the building was inaugurated on January 5, 1875. It enthused, charmed, divided and even provoked duels. It became the subject of novels (the most famous being Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, published in 1910), before conquering Hollywood. A memorable moment is Audrey Hepburn twirling in a white dress and green cape on the steps of the Grand Staircase in Stanley Donen's Funny Face (1957).

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