The Queen of the Night

I stumbled on these photos of patrons at the Paris Opera, by Bill Henson. There’s a kind of fiction to them, of being in the theater, and looking up to see someone near you.

Some of the fun of the opera is looking over to see other people while they listen, which is something almost as intimate as watching someone sleep.

The Paris Opera was built Napoleon the III, a man who cared nothing for music or musicians, and paradoxically remains one of the most important musical institutions of our age.