Opéra (Rostral Column)

Texto del museo

In the 1800s, gas lamps replaced the oil lights. When Napoleon III commissioned a new opera house in Paris in 1860, it was surrounded by a “Ring of Light,” including this column with three gas streetlights. The opera house became the setting for Gaston LeRoux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, which inspired the 1976 musical and 2004 film. Paris is known as the City of Light because it was one of the first cities to install street lights—oil lamps in the 1660s.

Descripción original del museo, en inglés. Licencia: CC0