The Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, home to the National Opera of Bordeaux, was built between 1773 and 1780 by Victor Louis, a Parisian architect whose appointment immediately irritated every architect in the city. Local resentment aside, the result was transformative.

Louis crowned the neoclassical façade with twelve Corinthian columns and statues of nine muses and three goddesses, then solved one of opera's great practical annoyances inside: candle wax dripping on the audience. His solution, a candle-ringed dome whose light reflected off painted ceilings and onto the stage, was so effective that Charles Garnier copied it when designing the Paris Opéra decades later.

The building has also served, rather improbably, as France's temporary parliament during three wars. Today it houses the National Opera, ballet and orchestra.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the Grand Théâtre's outsized influence on European culture, connecting its lighting innovations to the Paris Opéra and exploring the Freemasonry networks that shaped much of Bordeaux's 18th-century architecture.