Works for a new opera house
In 1826, the City of Nice purchased the Theatre on the advice of King Charles Felix and decided to demolish it in order to build a grand opera house in the Italian style on the same site.
It was Brunati, the City Architect, and Perotti, a Turin-based architect, who designed a building with a spacious stalls area, without seating, as was still customary at the time, with four tiers of boxes to seat the wealthy public in comfort, and the grand royal box supported by two gilded caryatids.
The stage was closed by an enormous curtain on which the painter Biscarra depicted, in a giant fresco, the exploits of Nice’s heroine Catherine Ségurane. The back of the stage, facing south as it does today, opened onto a large bay window looking out to sea.
This bay window was bricked up in 1866 and a gigantic sundial was placed at that spot on the Quai du Midi side.