Victor Louis designed the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, which was inaugurated on April 17, 1780. Its Neoclassical facade has a portico of twelve colossal Corinthian columns, and twelve statues on the entablature represent the nine Muses and three goddesses, Juno, Venus and Minerva. Pierre-François Berruer made four of them, and his assistant Van den Drix carved the rest from Berruer's models.
Its grand staircase served as a model for the grand staircase of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. A large fresco by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Robin decorates the auditorium ceiling. La fille mal gardée premiered here in 1789, and the theatre briefly housed the French National Assembly in 1871.
It is one of the oldest wooden-framed opera houses in Europe that has never burned or needed rebuilding. A 1991 restoration returned it to its original blue and gold, and it seats 1,100.
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