Historedia
EuropeEvent

Fire destroys the Opéra de Nice with fatalities

When
1881
Where
Opéra de Nice
Episodes
1

On March 23, 1881, a gas leak caused a fire at the Opéra de Nice in Nice, France. The incident occurred during the performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. The venue is located in Nice, a city on the French Riviera.

Episodes

  1. 1881-03-23 · Opéra de NiceGas Explosion Fire

    A gas leak caused a huge fire at the Opéra de Nice during the performance of Lucia di Lammermoor on March 23, 1881.

Background and detail

Background. The Opéra de Nice is the principal opera venue in Nice, France, housing the Ballet Nice Méditerrannée and the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra. Nice is a city and commune, the prefecture of the department of Alpes-Maritimes, situated on the French Riviera on the country's southeastern Mediterranean coast.

Incident. On Wednesday, March 23, 1881, as the opera Lucia di Lammermoor began, a gas leak started a huge fire. The incident occurred in Nice, a city in the south of France. The specific number of fatalities is not stated in the supplied passages.

Context. Nice is located on the French Riviera, the country's southeastern coast on the Mediterranean Sea, at the foot of the French Alps. The city is the prefecture of the department of Alpes-Maritimes and the administrative region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

Sources

  1. Opéra de Nice Wikipedia, revision of 2025-03-22
  2. Nice Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-08

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.