ABSTRACT
Many writers comment on opera-going itself – the people who went, the best places to sit, the behaviour of the audience – as well as the merits of opera and its performers. After the fire of 1763 the Opera was relocated in the Salle des Machines in the Tuileries palace, where it remained until the Palais Royal theatre was reopened in 1770. The theatre occupied by the Academie Royale de Musique almost throughout the Lully-Rameau period was scarcely the imposing building one might expect such a royal institution to possess. When Lully came into possession of the Palais Royal theatre, he changed the whole interior. One aim of Lully's refurbishment of the Palais Royal theatre in 1674 was to improve the sightlines. A tourist guide by the wealthy German traveller Joachim Christoph Nemeitz gives advice to the class-conscious visitor on many aspects of Parisian life – among them the does and does not of theatre-going.
