Evening activity in Paris, Opera??

Which opera and where, Palais Garnier or Bastille? Opera Bastille has both French and English supertitles above the stage, so you will know what is going on.

Eglise de la Madeleine often has evening concerts.

Go for palais garnier, this will be a true experience!!!

My personal experience is that even when opera singers perform in English I can't understand what they're saying.

Even in the original language, opera lyrics tend to be pretty functional at best. Just read up on the plot of the opera before you go so that you know what's happening.

If you can actually get an opera ticket at a reasonable price go for it. Just make sure you're aware whether it's Garnier or Bastille, you can go directly between the two on Metro Line 9 if you get it wrong, but you don't want to have to hurry and arrive late.

The Opera Bastille does not have English supertitles. On occasion they get the supertitles from Canada when the opera is sung in something other than French. In those cases, the titles may be in French and English, but normally the titles are in French. It is France. We have been to 8 or 9 operas at the Bastille and only one had dual French/English Surtitles. It is a wonderful opera house and the singing has been uniformly wonderful; the staging is often stunning although we have seen a couple that were less imaginative and one that ended up in concert format because of a stage hands strike.

You buy tickets for operas and concerts at both opera houses through the same web site; you register first if you wish to get tickets. They go on sale months in advance; often they sell out or the mid range seats sell out early. Very cheap seats are not sold on line.

We enjoyed an evening of sing along cafe songs at Le Vieux Belleville; in French but they hand out the lyrics. The dinner was fine and the company was fun. We were the only Americans there our night.
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/le-vieux-belleville-non-je-ne-regrette-rien/

Sorry Janettravels, but times seem to have changed. Here is the first opera on the Bastille schedule where French is the original language: http://saison15-16.operadeparis.fr/en/opera/l-elisir-damore-gaetano-donizetti
Page down and you will see

French and English surtitles

Now this is a coproduction with Covent Garden, maybe that makes a difference.
Ditto for "Madama Butterfly", where the original language is Italian.
Same situation at Garnier with the summer run of "Platee" a Baroroque French opera.
It is also my personal recollection of "Das Rheingold" two years ago.

If you are not opera fans, more so you have never been to an opera, I would discourage you from making this experiment in Paris. Find a great bistro, have a nice dinner, walk along the Seine.

Hi fellow travelers,

Thanks for your replies. We were looking at the Palais Garnier. Now thinking we will just schedule a tour of it instead of attending a performance. My hubby doesn't seem that interested in attending a performance, especially since the language will be somewhat of a barrier. We will save our first actual performance for another time/place.

That said, has anyone ever done the Midnight in Paris tour? http://www.midnightinparisonwheels.com/en/paris-tours/midnight-in-paris-tour-visit-the-city-of-paris-the-night/ It sounds like our cup of tea. We are still open to other suggestions/ideas as well. Going to look into the concert you mentioned at Eglise de la Madeleine Norma, it sounds wonderful.

Thanks again and happy travels!

Good idea. The Palais Garnier is an "Italian-style" theater, meaning it was built in a tight horseshoe form, allowing the important people in the boxes opposite the stage to be seen by everyone in the audience. On the other hand, those on the sides have a view of the stage blocked up to 50% depending on how close to the stage their seats are. You'll appreciate the tour of the building, however.

Paris by Night bike tour with Fat Tire Bike tours( yes its easy enough for anyone) includes a cruise too.

Museum visits, Louvre and Orsay are both open one or two nights a week, and evenings are usually less crowded then day visits!

Sam, that is interesting. We were there two years ago for a Mozart opera sung in Italian with French surtitles only. I suppose it depends on where they get the titles. Of course a co-production with Covent Garden would have the dual titles. We saw Lady MacBeth from Mtinsk sung in Russian many many years ago and it had the dual titles. But we have not had a one do that since then. I don't think tourists should assume there will be English unless it specifically says so for the opera in question. But I just checked the Schoenberg opera we have booked for this fall and notice that it too has the dual surtitles so maybe it is a policy change -- that would be nice. I wasn't so sure about the Schoenberg but am pleased to learn that at least I will be able to figure out what is going on. I speak German but even sung English is not that easy and I am not up to operatic German.

I agree that if one is not an opera lover, this is probably not the place to start unless one picks a really accessible opera like Boheme or Carmen or Fledermaus.

This has (almost) nothing to do with Paris but offers a little advice about opera. Across North America and indeed around the world in 70 countries, productions of the Metropolitan Opera in New York are projected live into movie theatres in real time, just like the Super Bowl. For a wonderful introduction, this is better than going to a theatre first time (sorry, opera purists). The subtitles are there; so are backstage talks with the divas and tenors who have just aspired or expired on stage, like sports sideline interviews. Meanwhile the cameras follow the stage crew shoving the sets around. In some ways it is better than being there, and certainly cheaper. In my theatre I can chomp on a hot dog while the high-Cs collide.
Of course attending a historic theatre is special. But these broadcasts are the best set-up for that experience. The next season begins with Il Trovatori on Oct. 3 http://metopera.org/Season/In-Cinemas/

I did an evening Segway tour with FatTire Bikes and it was great. Lots of fun tootling around on the Segways, the guide was interesting and amusing, the group was small and we had plenty of opportunities to take photos. In April I took the Paris Ghost Tour which was also enjoyable, even though we got rained on a little. The guide was engaging and the stories were interesting.

Several of the old churches have evening concerts. There's outdoor seating everywhere. Plop down and have a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and watch the world go by. For what it's worth, I would skip the dinner on a Seine cruise. You can generally eat better and cheaper just about anywhere else, and if you're concentrating on the view, you may not enjoy the dinner. If you're concentrating on the dinner, you'll miss the great views.

Thanks again everyone!

South, love that link, looks like a fun way to see an opera! Will have to test it out and of course next time we make it to New York would be an awesome way to see it live the first time. The bike and segway tours sound like another great idea, checking them out!

Chani, I know the dinner cruises aren't popular here but when we went on Bateaux Parisienne a few years ago it was amazing, special and fun, food was good, service great and it turned out to be a special experience for us. This time we were going on another one of those but after much reading and research we have decided to give Bateaux Calife a try. Especially like that they have great sounding vegetarian options.

Viva la France! :0)

Jaye think you will have fun, do report back!

Once a month Parisians meet on a bridge to watch the full moon rise. They bring picnic supplies and supposedly it's a lot of fun (going to one this Friday). If you will be here during a full moon it might be worth looking into.
http://www.meetup.com/Paris-Full-Moon-Picnic-Group/