page_title: Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré)
section_title: Second theatre
hierarchical_section_title: Théâtre du Palais-Royal (rue Saint-Honoré) / Second theatre
caption_attribution_description: English: Plan of the ground floor of the Palais-Royal in 1780. This plan was reconstructed in 1829 by the French architect Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine.
context_page_description: The Théâtre du Palais-Royal on the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris was a theatre in the east wing of the Palais-Royal, which opened on 14 January 1641 with a performance of Jean Desmarets' tragicomedy Mirame. The theatre was used by the troupe of Molière from 1660 to 1673 and as an opera house by the Académie Royale de Musique from 1673 to 1763, when it was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt and reopened in 1770, but again was destroyed by fire in 1781 and not rebuilt.
context_section_description: The City of Paris, which was responsible for the opera house, decided to build a new theatre on a site slightly further to the east (where the rue de Valois is located today). In the meantime the company performed in the Salle des Machines in the Tuileries Palace, which was first reduced to a size more suitable for opera by the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot. The new theatre in the Palais-Royal was designed by architect Pierre-Louis Moreau Desproux and was the first purpose-built opera house in Paris. It had a capacity of more than 2,000 spectators.
  The new theatre opened on 20 January 1770 with a performance of Rameau's Zoroastre. It is especially noteworthy as the theatre where most of the French operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck were first performed, including Iphigénie en Aulide (19 April 1774), Orphée et Eurydice (the French version of Orfeo ed Euridice) (2 August 1774), the revised version of Alceste (23 April 1776), Armide (23 September 1777), Iphigénie en Tauride (18 May 1779), and Echo et Narcisse (24 September 1779). Among the many other works premiered here are Piccinni's Atys (22 February 1780), Grétry's Andromaque (6 June 1780), Philidor's Persée (27 October 1780), and Piccinni's Iphigénie en Tauride (23 January 1781).
  The theatre continued to be used by the Opera until 8 June 1781, when it too was destroyed by fire. The Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, much further to the north on the Boulevard Saint-Martin, was hurriedly built in two months to replace it. In the meantime the opera company performed in the Salle des Menus-Plaisirs on the rue Bergère.
caption: 1780 plan of the Palais-Royal with Moreau's opera house in the lower right quadrant
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