Salle de la Bouteille


The Salle de la Bouteille or Salle du Jeu de Paume de la Bouteille, later known as the Hôtel Guénégaud or Guénégaud Theatre, was a 1671 theatre located in Paris, France, between the rue de Seine and the rue des Fossés de Nesle across from the rue Guénégaud. It was the first home of the Paris Opera and in 1680 became the first theatre of the Comédie-Française.

History

A former tennis court converted into a theatre, it was inaugurated in 1671 as the first home of Pierre Perrin's Académie d'Opéra. The first French opera, Robert Cambert's Pomone with a libretto by Perrin, premiered there on 3 March of that year. A second lyric work, Les peines et les plaisirs de l'amour, with a libretto by Gabriel Gilbert and music by Cambert, was performed in 1672. On 13 March 1672 the surintendant of the king's music, Jean-Baptiste Lully, acquired Perrin's rights to perform opera and named his company the Académie Royale de Musique, although it also continued to be called the Opéra. Because of legal difficulties Lully could not use the Salle de la Bouteille, and moved the Opéra to a theatre built by Carlo Vigarani in the Bel-Air tennis court on the Rue de Vaugirard.
In 1673, after the death of Molière, the Salle de la Bouteille became the home of the Guénégaud Theatre, a company formed from the remnants of the troupe of Molière and players from the Théâtre du Marais.
In 1680, after merging with the troupe from the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the company became known as the Comédie-Française and continued to perform in the Guénégaud until 1689, when it moved to the Jeu de Paume de l'Étoile on the rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés, today known as the.