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Every Known Playboy. The reconstructed opera house is also built for kings. Five bronze portals open onto marble-walled entrance halls that terminate in wide, marble staircases leading up to "gathering rooms" paneled in blue marble and mirrors, and lighted by crystal chandeliers that glimmer and glare like diamonds. The ivory, Bordeaux-red and gold auditorium is'banded by five galleries, and high above, in a luminous oval, is a crown chandelier made from 70,000 bits of polished glass.
A loft full of elevators, derricks, tracks and bridges has been built to the left of the deep stage so that whole stage sets can be whisked in and snatched away in seconds. The acoustics seem perfect. Said the Suddeutsche Zeitung: "There is a silkiness to the violins, a powerful but not overpowering force of the brass. The voices rise gloriously over the orchestra."
The first audiences—which included ex-King Umberto of Italy, ex-Queen Soraya, the Begum Aga Khan, Krupps, Thyssens, Mellons and Rothschilds, flocks of princes and princesses and every known playboy in Europe—took their deepest pleasure in arriving spectacularly and departing gracefully. Relaxed intermissions were spent over swallow's nest soup, Strasbourg pate de foie gras and Piper Heidsieck down in the lavish basement restaurant. The joys of intermission were so great, in fact, that operas that began at 5 o'clock did not end until almost midnight.