Alexandre Dumas was wowed by it and Burt Lancaster starred there. Now the Cirque d’Hiver has a new spectacle
For more than 170 years the Cirque d’Hiver, the world’s oldest circus, has been the scene of many a breathtaking act.
In 1859, gymnast Jules Léotard – whose name would become synonymous with the one-piece – captivated audiences by launching himself from one swinging trapeze to another without a safety net for the first time in public.
Half a century later, when the circus artist Rosa Van Been married the animal trainer Joseph Bouglione, the blessing was held inside the circus’s lion cage; in 1955, the film Trapeze starring Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster was shot inside the imposing 20-sided building in Paris’s 11th arrondissement.
Today, however, the wow factor has come not from the daring acts or smoke and mirrors in the ring but from the uncovering of an extraordinary panorama of painted canvas panels that were hidden for more than 70 years.
