Astier de Villatte's Glass Candle in Opera conjures thesplendor of the Palais Garnier; ballet movements in the Great Hall: entrechats, pas de deux, ronds de jambes upon sumptuous parquet floors, polished with beeswax. Richly upholstered foyers reach to the very roof of the Opera, where thick streams of honey are collected from hives that spread the giddying notes of beeswax absolute, made sublime by minute additions of sandalwood and styrax resin.
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