Marc Chagall’s Ceiling for the Paris Opéra - 2nd series of panels

CENTRAL PANEL

Verdi, work not specified, possibly ”La Traviata”. Dominant colour: yellow. Behind a young couple, a bearded man (Germont’s father?) holds a half-unrolled scroll.

MAIN PANEL

Wagner, “Tristan and Isolde”. Dominant colour: green. Leaning languorously towards Walter and Bourgeois “Daphne”, the couple nestles below the Arc de Triomphe, lit up with the red of passion, and Place de la Concorde, two of Chagall’s favourite subjects, along with other Parisian monuments (“My art needs Paris as a tree needs water,” he wrote).

Berlioz, “Roméo et Juliette”. Dominant colour: green. The embracing lovers are seen with a horse’s head and a « character sign » redolent of Chagall’s 1911 painting “The Holy Coachman” (“Le Saint voiturier au-dessus de Vitebsk”, private collection, Krefeld): it ends in a nimbus or glory (?) which frames their faces.