PARIS // “The true home of kings and the house of ages” is how Napoleon Bonaparte described the Palace of Fontainebleau, the royal residence that sits in the heart of a vast forest almost 60 kilometres south-east of Paris.
Fontainebleau started out as a 12th-century hunting lodge, was transformed into a palace in the 16th century and became associated with every French ruler – king, queen, empress and emperor – for almost 800 years.
Now, thanks to Abu Dhabi's sponsorship of the restoration of Fontainebleau's theatre, the name of the President, Sheikh Khalifa, will be added to an illustrious list that includes Francois I, Henry IV, Louis XIV, and Napoleon III.
On Wednesday evening, during an intimate ceremony hosted by Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA), and Aurelie Filippetti, the French minister for culture and communication, the newly renamed Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Theatre was officially opened and applause was heard in the auditorium for the first time in more than 70 years.
The small, 430-seat theatre is one of the few to survive unmodified from the time of the French Second Empire (1852-1870). Napoleon III commissioned the Imperial Theatre in 1853 from Hector Lefuel, the palace architect who was later responsible for the renovation and completion of the Pavillion de Flore at the Palais du Louvre.
Directly inspired by Marie Antoinette’s theatre at Versailles, the theatre was inaugurated in May 1857 during the visit of the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, brother of Tsar Alexander II, but used only about a dozen times during Napoleon III’s reign.
“The theatre was closed in 1868 when the royal court left Fontainebleau,” said Vincent Cochet, Fontainebleau’s curator.
“After that, it was only used once in 1936, and about 10 times during the Second World War. In 1941, it was decided that it was too dangerous to keep the theatre open.
“Everything in the theatre is made of wood and there were only candles to light the space. It has been closed since then.”
The theatre’s renaissance came in 2007 when, almost exactly 150 years after its inauguration, the Government of Abu Dhabi offered to finance its restoration with an annual renewable grant of €5 million (Dh25.5m).
“People thought about the restoration in the 1930s, in the 1960s and in the 1980s, but thanks to the sponsorship, we have been finally able to do it now,” said Mr Cochet.
“It will take another three years before the restoration is finally complete. In the second phase, we have to consider all of the smaller rooms around the auditorium, as well as the old machinery and all of the elements backstage.”
These include the stage curtain, proscenium, draperies and 250 stage sets, including scenes of cities, a Gothic interior, a prison and even a Moorish palace.
Before work could begin on the restoration of the auditorium’s musical cupids, gilded mouldings, yellow damask walls and its two-tonne bronze-and-cut-crystal chandelier – which had crashed to the floor in 1926 – it took a team of architects and conservators five years to complete all the necessary survey work. At the same time, vital repairs were made to the theatre’s roof.
As Mr Cochet explained, the idea is not to turn the theatre into a fully functioning performance space.
“The idea of a working theatre was abandoned in favour of a restoration and display as a museographic space – yet with the possibility of organising performances five times a year,” he said.
As part of the opening ceremony, a programme of works by the French Baroque composer, Jean-Philippe Rameau, was performed on period instruments in front of an audience that included Dr Zaki Nusseibeh, Cultural Adviser to the UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Mubarak Al Muhairi, the director general of TCA Abu Dhabi, and Mohammed Al Raisi, the UAE’s Ambassador to France, along with Jean-Luc Martinez, the president-director of the Louvre Museum.
After the concert, guests were given a tour of the palace, which is a Unesco World Heritage site, before attending a reception in the spectacular 16th-century Galerie des Cerfs.
This is a former library, commissioned by the French renaissance monarch Henry IV, which is decorated with stags’ heads and large panoramic maps of royal chateaux and hunting grounds.
From tomorrow, the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Theatre will be open to the public as part of an itinerary covering the Second Empire at Fontainebleau.
“In France, it has been thought that the style of the Second Empire was rather lacking in imagination,” Mr Cochet said. “But when you see the theatre now, it is like arriving back in the Second Empire.
“Before we had a grey theatre, but now we have a bright theatre and we can show the reality.”
nleech@thenational.ae
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
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Investment raised: $4 million
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
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Stamp duty timeline
December 2014: Former UK finance minister George Osbourne reforms stamp duty, replacing the slab system with a blended rate scheme, with the top rate increasing to 12 per cent from 10 per cent:
Up to £125,000 - 0%; £125,000 to £250,000 – 2%; £250,000 to £925,000 – 5%; £925,000 to £1.5m: 10%; Over £1.5m – 12%
April 2016: New 3% surcharge applied to any buy-to-let properties or additional homes purchased.
July 2020: Rishi Sunak unveils SDLT holiday, with no tax to pay on the first £500,000, with buyers saving up to £15,000.
March 2021: Mr Sunak decides the fate of SDLT holiday at his March 3 budget, with expectations he will extend the perk unti June.
April 2021: 2% SDLT surcharge added to property transactions made by overseas buyers.
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
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A State of Passion
Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Rating: 4/5
Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
US tops drug cost charts
The study of 13 essential drugs showed costs in the United States were about 300 per cent higher than the global average, followed by Germany at 126 per cent and 122 per cent in the UAE.
Thailand, Kenya and Malaysia were rated as nations with the lowest costs, about 90 per cent cheaper.
In the case of insulin, diabetic patients in the US paid five and a half times the global average, while in the UAE the costs are about 50 per cent higher than the median price of branded and generic drugs.
Some of the costliest drugs worldwide include Lipitor for high cholesterol.
The study’s price index placed the US at an exorbitant 2,170 per cent higher for Lipitor than the average global price and the UAE at the eighth spot globally with costs 252 per cent higher.
High blood pressure medication Zestril was also more than 2,680 per cent higher in the US and the UAE price was 187 per cent higher than the global price.
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