Opened almost 150 years ago, the building inspired the design of the municipal theaters in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
On Wednesday (21), during the break of ‘Jornal Nacional’, the Itaú commercial starring Madonna premiered. She also signed the artistic direction. The film was recorded over seven hours in the early hours of November 19 last year, during the ‘Celebration Tour’ through France.
The chosen location was the Palais Garnier, home of the Paris National Opera, a masterpiece of neo-baroque architecture. The inauguration took place in 1875, after 14 years of construction with a series of interruptions due to various problems, including the Franco-Prussian War.
Monumental and luxurious, the palace inspired the novel ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, written by Gaston Leroux in 1909 and which inspired the script for the miniseries of the same name shown on the now defunct TV Manchete in 1991.
Madonna took advantage of the building’s main staircase to make the triumphal entrance that opens the commercial. She appears walking through the Gran Salon (large hall) and dances in front of the bronze sculpture of the priestess Pythia, of Apollo, the god of Greco-Roman mythology.
The dazzle of the building served as inspiration for the design of Rio’s municipal theater, designed by civil engineer Francisco de Oliveira Passos, inaugurated in 1909, and also that of São Paulo’s municipal theater, designed by architects Ramos de Azevedo, Claudio Rossi and Domiziano Rossi, which opened its doors in 1911.
The Paris Opera can be visited outside concert times. Tickets for tourists cost 15 euros, equivalent to R$80.00. There is a lot of demand all year round. It should get even busier with Madonna’s Brazilian fans wanting to take selfies from the same angles in which the queen of pop appears in the commercial.
Madonna approved the luxurious location for recording the commercial and chose the main names of the team
Photo: Reproduction
Explored in the commercial, the Palais Garnier staircase is an attraction where thousands of visitors take photos
Photo: Reproduction
The Paris Opera building has a total area of 11 thousand m² in the central area of the French capital
Photo: Reproduction
The singer recorded in sumptuous spaces that can be visited by tourists
Photo: Reproduction
The large concert hall at the Paris Opera, with a capacity for 1,900 spectators, does not appear in the commercial
Photo: Reproduction
Above, the facade of the Palais Garnier; below, the municipal theaters of Rio and São Paulo, with architecture inspired by the French building
Photo: Reproduction
+The best content in your email for free. Choose your favorite Terra Newsletter. Click here!