Roman Theatre & Museum of Orange

THE ROMAN THEATRE of ORANGE

It owes its fame in particular to its magnificent stage wall, amazingly well-preserved and unique in the Western world. A venue for shows in Roman times, it continues in this role today, to the delight of music lovers the world over.

The exterior façade or postscaenium“The finest wall in my kingdom”. This was how Louis XIV described the imposing façade of the theatre, 103 metres long, 1.80 metres thick and 37 metres high. The stage wall, the frons scaenae. The stage wall was very important as it helped to properly project sound and comprised the only architectural décor in the theatre. The terraces, the cavea. Capable of accommodating 10,000 spectators, the terraces were carved out of a hillside to make construction easier and render the final building more stable.The orchestra. With a diameter of 19 metres, this semicircle is the epicentre of the terraces. The stage The stage is flanked by two towers called basilicae. These towers housed the rooms that served as foyers. The stage roof. The architecture and structure of the roof over the current stage are resolutely contemporary and the fruit of extensive scientific and archaeological research.

THE ART AND HISTORY MUSEUM OF ORANGE

The Principality Room conjures up the astonishing past of Orange, from the Middle Ages to modern times, thanks to varied items such as a series of engravings and portraits of the princes and princesses of Orange-Nassau, The Portico Room home to a major work: the Centaur mosaic. The Land Registry room presents the fragments of 3 Roman land registries engraved on marble slabs. These unique documents were discovered in Orange in 1949. Others rooms to discover : The Curiosity Cabinet, the Gasparin Room, The Bishp’s Room, The Wetter Room, The Frank Brangwyn and Albert de Belleroche Rooms,,,