THE PALAIS GARNIER, HOME OF THE LEGENDARY PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, IS NOW ON AIRBNB

• For the very first time in the Opera history, guests will have the occasion to spend the night at the Palais Garnier, the famous theatre house that inspired the legendary ‘Phantom of the Opera’.

• This extraordinary night has been imagined following Airbnb’s supporting program to heritage tourism in France and Europe.

• Airbnb is also supporting the Paris Opera in its projects to restore and highlight its artistic and architectural heritage, including an ongoing renovation of the Palais Garnier’s boxes. The platform will also contribute to the development of the Opera’s streaming platform, conceived to bring Opera closer to a wider audience. 

For the first time in the Theatre's history, two guests will spend a night where everything began: the sumptuous Palais Garnier. There, they will follow in the footsteps of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom and access the mythical underworld that inspired the original story.

One of the most exclusive areas of the Opera, the Box of Honour, has been transformed into a majestuous bedroom where guests will spend a special night, a moment equaling the architectural splendour of the Palais Garnier. They will also benefit from a tour of the Opera backstages and underground lake, featured in Gaston Leroux’s famous novel.

Véronique Dubrulle Leroux, the host of this Airbnb stay and great-granddaughter of French novelist Gaston Leroux, declared: “My greatgrand-father’s classic has inspired so many people throughout time and moved audiences worldwide. Being able to welcome guests for an outstanding stay in the very setting of his novel is a wonderful tribute to him”.

This special night at the Palais Garnier is one of the stays offered by Airbnb in its “Heritage” category, following the platform’s support to European heritage tourism, including its support to the Heritage Foundation, in partnership with VMF Patrimoine in France.

As part of this partnership with the Paris Opera, Airbnb is offering its support to the ongoing restoration of the Palais Garnier boxes. Airbnb’s contribution will also fund the development of the Opera’s new streaming platform, to bring together all of the Paris Opera’s audiovisual content to a wide audience, all over the world.

Guests will sleep in the Palais Garnier’s Box of Honour - a place usually reserved for the VIP guests. The box has been transformed to offer its guests a unique experience:

• The best location to admire the Palais Garnier’s exceptional architecture

• A tour of the Palais backstages, rarely seen by the public, including the Opera’s incredible private archives, the famous underground lake and the prestigious dance studios located under the Opera’s roof

• A personal ballet initiation class with one of the Paris Opera Ballet dancers

• An exclusive recital performed by the artists of the Paris Opera Academy, with champagne

• Dinner in the lavish Foyer de la Danse, a historic dancing rehearsal room behind the stage, used by dancers for warming up before their performance 

Opera ‘Phans’ may request to book the overnight stay on Wednesday, March 1 2023 from 6:00 PM CET at airbnb.com/opera. The stay will take place on Sunday, July 16 2023. This one night stay will cost 37 euros*, as a tribute to the Box of Honour’s number. Let the dream begin!

The booking guests must have a verified Airbnb profile, a good track record on the platform and be aged 18+. Maximum occupancy is two persons. Guests are responsible for their own transportation to and from Paris, France.

Given the exceptional nature of the premises, travellers will be required to be particularly respectful of the spaces and furniture made available to them.

^{* Plus stay taxes and fees. This is not a competition.}

Born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, the Airbnb community has since grown to over 4 million hosts who have welcomed more than 1 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities and discover the world in a different, more authentic and friendly way.

The Paris Opera has been a living centre of creation for over 350 years. A vibrant Institution with two exceptional theatre houses (the Palais Garnier and the Bastille Opera), its own site for the manufacture and assembly of sets (the Berthier Workshops), inhouse Ballet Company, Orchestra, Choruses, Ballet School and Academy, and thanks to the daily work of its 1,800 employees (artists, craftsmen, technicians and administrative staff). Each season, the Opera presents more than 400 performances to almost 900,000 spectators. Appreciation of its artistic and architectural heritage, as well as an increased access to an ever more diverse audience, remain at the heart of Opera’s concerns. As Alexander Neef, its Director, reminds us: “If our institution is heir to exceptional heritage and savoir-faire, it wishes also to make outreach one of its priorities for the 21st century”.

The Phantom of the Opera is a character inspired by the famous eponymous French novel written by Gaston Leroux. First published as a serial in the daily newspaper Le Gaulois from September 1909 to January 1910, the novel has then given birth to numerous movie, musical and literary adaptations. Since the early decades of the 20^th century, The Phantom of the Opera has strongly influenced the general public's perception of the Palais Garnier, where the plot is set. To this day, the Phantom continues to maintain the fascinating and mysterious imagination surrounding this famous Parisian building. The Palais Garnier is the emblematic theatre of the Paris Opera Institution. Commissioned under the Second Empire by Napoleon III, following the assassination attempt on him in front of the Salle Le Peletier, and inaugurated under the Third Republic in 1875, its architectural splendour and ornaments, but also its famous guests, contributed to turn this building into a symbol of the "opera" genre in the 1910s. The Phantom of the Opera was born in this legendary place. Combining the detective and fantasy genres, the story features weird and fatal events striking the Palais and its occupants: artists, technicians and administrative staff. Terrifying facts attributed to the “Phantom”, aka Erik, a composer and ventriloquist entrenched in the underground maze of the Palais Garnier and in box 5. Based on true facts that occurred at the Paris Opera in the 19^th and turn of the 20^th centuries -dancer Emma Livry's tutu that caught fire in 1862, the fall of the great chandelier in 1896 - The Phantom of the Opera keeps legend alive inside the Palais Garnier, from the underground lake to the boxes, and still resonates in the minds of the spectators, as in 2019 with the hologram Marienbad Électrique, designed by artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, in the boxes of the hall.