Louvre of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof (fashioned from almost 9,000 steel tubes that form an interior web) that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing. The galleries, which the museum had initially hoped to open by 2009, represent the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since the addition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989. On 5 February 2015, about one hundred archaeologists, protesting against commercial private involvement to protect France's heritage, blocked Louvre's ticket desks to facilitate free access to the museum. At
Paris in the 17th century for his first opera; then, taking advantage of Moliere's death in 1673, he was able to expel Moliere's actors from the theater of the Palais-Royal and take it over for himself. It served as the main Paris opera house until it burned on April 6, 1763. The Petit-Bourbon theater next to the Louvre also continued to present operas until it was demolished in 1660 to make room for the new colonnade of the Louvre, but it was replaced by a large new hall, the Salle des Machines, next to the Tuileries Gardens. This hall had very poor acoustics, but it