"Next we behold equeries, whose horses are hoisted on the stage by means of an elevator; electricians who manage the light–producing batteries; hydrauliciens to take charge of the water–works in ballets like La Source; artificers who prepare the conflagration in Le Profeta; florists who make ready Margarita’s garden, and a host of minor employees. This personnel is provided for as follows: Eighty dressing–rooms are reserved for the artists, each including a small antechamber, the dressing–room proper, and a little closet. Besides these apartments, the Opera has a dressing–room for sixty male, and another for fifty female choristers; a third for thirty–four male dancers; four dressing–rooms for twenty female dancers of different grades; a dressing–room for one hundred and ninety supernumeraries, etc."
A few figures taken from the article will suggest the enormous capacity and the perfect convenience of the house. "There are 2,531 doors and 7,593 keys; 14 furnaces and grates heat the house; the gaspipes if connected would form a pipe almost 16 miles long; 9 reservoirs, and two tanks hold 22,222 gallons of water and distribute their contents through 22,829 2–5 feet of piping; 538 persons have places assigned wherein to change their attire. The musicians have a foyer with 100 closets for their instruments."
The author remarks of his visit to the Opera House that it "was almost as bewildering as it was agreeable. Giant stairways and colossal halls, huge frescoes and enormous mirrors, gold and marble, satin and velvet, met the eye at every turn."
In a recent letter Mr. Andre Castaigne, whose remarkable pictures illustrate the text, speaks of a river or lake under the Opera House and mentions the fact that there are now also three metropolitan railway tunnels, one on top of the other.
