Opera Garnier Tickets
Palais Garnier: Self-Guided Tour
For visitors who just want the building itself, this ticket gets you into the Grand Staircase, the Grand Foyer, and the auditorium at your own pace, no live guide required.
Palais Garnier + Notre-Dame Cathedral Combo
Pairs the opera house with a small-group walking tour of Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité. Useful if you’re only in Paris for a day or two and want both landmarks covered.
Paris City Card
Bundles discounted entry across dozens of Paris sights plus transport. Worth it if the opera house is one stop on a bigger sightseeing week rather than the main event.
Highlights
isogood/DepositphotosTickets & Prices
Palais Garnier, also known as Opera Garnier, sells tickets to tour the building separately from tickets to see an opera or ballet.
Besides the self-guided option, the opera house also runs guided and immersive ways to see the building, booked directly through its own site if you want more than a self-guided walk.
Online booking is mandatory for visits. Residents and citizens of France or the EEA pay a reduced rate with valid ID. Children 12 and under, and disabled visitors plus one companion, get in free.
Plan Your Visit
| Visits | Opening Hours | Last entry |
|---|---|---|
| Daily (standard season) | 10:00 – 17:00 | 16:00 |
| Daily (mid-July to August) | 10:00 – 18:00 | 17:00 |
Unlike a museum, the building’s biggest access risk isn’t crowds so much as rehearsals, which close the auditorium without warning.
Check the venue’s real-time attendance tool before you lock in a date, and book the first slot of the day if you want the fullest run of rooms with the smallest crowd.
Palais Garnier sits at Place de l’Opéra, within a few minutes of several metro, RER, and bus lines that cross central Paris. Get off at Opéra or Chaussée d’Antin-La Fayette and you’re steps from the building:
- Metro: Lines 3, 7, and 8 (Opéra), Lines 7 and 9 (Chaussée d’Antin-La Fayette)
- RER: Line A, Auber station
- Bus: Lines 20, 21, 27, 29, 32, 45, 52, 66, 68, and 95
A taxi or rideshare from central Paris usually takes 10 to 20 minutes, depending on traffic.
Parking on the streets around the opera house is limited, but there are two paid garages nearby if you’d rather drive:
- Q-Park Édouard VII
- Q-Park Meyerbeer
There’s only one entrance for visits: the box office at the corner of Rue Scribe and Rue Auber, behind Garnier’s statue, not the main facade on Place de l’Opéra that you see in photos.
A lift reaches the self-guided and guided tour areas, so wheelchair users follow the same route as everyone else. The temporary exhibitions at the Library-Museum and bookshop sit outside that lift access.
Audio-description tours run in French for visitors with visual impairments, and French Sign Language tours run for visitors who are deaf or hard of hearing. Book either through the opera’s accessibility line rather than the standard ticket, since they’re a separate booking flow.
A few rules worth knowing before you go:
- Suitcases and large bags aren’t allowed inside, under the venue’s security rules.
- Cloakrooms only open during performances, not during daytime visits.
- A visit ticket doesn’t cover a show. Performance tickets are booked separately.
Insider tips
What to See & Do
The Grand Staircase
White marble steps rise under a balustrade of red and green marble, past La Pythie, the statue watching from the base. It’s the building’s real opening act, the room Charles Garnier designed to make every visitor feel underdressed before they’ve reached the Grand Foyer.
Head partway up and look back down at the entrance hall. The staircase was built wide enough for the hoop skirts and trains of a Second Empire audience to pass each other without a single sideways step.
The Grand Foyer
Garnier pitched this room to compete directly with the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, and the mosaics, gilding, and run of chandeliers still carry that ambition. It was built as a salon for the audience to see and be seen in during intermission, not as a passageway.
The tall windows along one side look out over Place de l’Opéra, so it’s worth timing a visit for daylight if you want the room at its brightest.
The auditorium and Chagall’s ceiling
Tip your head back here and you’re looking at Marc Chagall’s ceiling, painted in 1964, a swirl of color that sits oddly, deliberately, against the auditorium’s red velvet and gold leaf. Garnier never saw it. He designed the room a century earlier for a much plainer painted ceiling that Chagall’s commission eventually replaced.
Beneath the chandelier you’re standing under is where, in 1896, one of its massive counterweights broke loose and killed a concierge, an accident that fed directly into Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel and its own falling chandelier.
The Phantom’s underground lake
The building’s real underground water tank, built to manage a high water table under the foundations during construction, became the legend of the Phantom’s subterranean lake. Visitors don’t get into that tank. The story travels better without it.
Did you Know That? Facts
- Charles Garnier was a 35-year-old, largely unknown architect when he won the competition to design the building in 1861.
- The site’s construction ran into a swampy water table, and it took eight months just to pump the ground dry before building could start.
- The Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune both interrupted construction between 1870 and 1871.
- The Paris Opera’s previous home, the Salle Le Peletier, burned down in October 1873, two years before Palais Garnier finally opened.
- Palais Garnier turned 150 in 2025, and the Paris Opera is marking the anniversary throughout its current season.
History
- 1861 Charles Garnier, a 35-year-old architect with no major buildings to his name, wins the competition to design a new Paris Opera house for Napoleon III.
- 1862 Construction begins, and immediately runs into a swampy water table under the site. It takes eight months to pump the ground dry before the foundations can go in.
- 1870-1871 The Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune both halt work, stretching a project that was already behind schedule.
- 1873 The Paris Opera’s previous home, the Salle Le Peletier, burns down, adding pressure to finish Garnier’s replacement.
- 1875 Palais Garnier is inaugurated on January 5, with a gala performance, thirteen years after construction began.
- 1896 A counterweight from the auditorium’s grand chandelier breaks loose and kills a concierge below, an accident that later inspires Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera.
- 1964 Marc Chagall paints the auditorium ceiling, replacing the original 19th-century design.
- 1994-2007 The building undergoes a long renovation of its stage machinery and structural foundations, while preserving the historic decor.
- 2025 Palais Garnier marks its 150th anniversary, celebrated across the Paris Opera’s current season.
FAQs
Is Palais Garnier the same as Opera Garnier?
Yes. Palais Garnier is the official name. Opera Garnier is the name most visitors search for and use in conversation.
Do I need a ticket to see the building, or only for a show?
You need a separate visit ticket to tour the public areas during the day. A performance ticket only covers that evening’s opera or ballet.
Can I visit without booking ahead?
No. Online booking is mandatory for visits, and the box office doesn’t sell same-day visit tickets in person.
Does a visit ticket include a performance?
No. Visit tickets cover the public areas only. Shows, concerts, and events need their own ticket.
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