Paris Opera House Closes for Two-Year Restoration : Music: Plans are under way for a $50-million project to clean, repair and modernize the 119-year-old building.

One of the world’s most sumptuous and storied auditoriums, the 119-year-old Paris Opera House, ended its season this week and prepared to shut down for a two-year, $50-million restoration.

The project, the most extensive in the Opera House’s history, will focus on the vast stage, one of the world’s largest, and the horseshoe-shaped auditorium. It will include cleaning, repairs and the addition of more modern backstage equipment.

“The Opera House is old, you know, and we have to modernize,” said Evelyn Paris, a spokeswoman for the National Opera of Paris. “But we won’t be changing anything.”

The last performers on the opera’s stage were dancers from the San Francisco Ballet, which concluded its engagement Sunday under the direction of Helgi Tomasson.

French critics heaped praise on the San Francisco company’s interpretations of classical works. But they reserved their kindest words for “Rodeo,” a 1942 ballet choreographed by Agnes de Mille to music by Aaron Copland. The French, sitting in the gilded auditorium, just loved those cowboy hats and boots.

Restoration work will soon begin on the grand auditorium, from the padded wooden seats to the rows of gilded boxes to the six-ton chandelier.

“It was time,” Paris said. “We’ve never gone so long without a restoration.”

In the meantime, the Paris Opera Ballet will take its next two seasons to the Bastille Opera, the state-of-the-art but much less personal venue across town. In the four years since the Bastille Opera opened, the National Opera of Paris has performed there, rather than at its original home. The Opera House has featured mostly dance and music programs.

After the Opera House face-lift, though, the opera and ballet companies will split their time between the two venues, using the Opera House for more intimate programs.

Although the Paris Opera auditorium is relatively small, seating only 2,200, its stage can accommodate 450 players and the complex is among the world’s largest theaters, occupying nearly 120,000 square feet.

The theater, which opened in 1875, is often referred to as the Opera Garnier, after its architect, Charles Garnier, who was chosen from 171 contestants to design the Opera House. Although today it is considered one of Paris’ more attractive monuments, the Opera House wasn’t welcomed by Empress Eugenie, widow of Napoleon III, when it opened. Reportedly angered that her architect friend, Eugene Viollet-Le-Duc, had been passed over for the project, she is said to have remarked: “What is this style? It isn’t style. It’s not Greek, not Louis XV, not Louis XVI,” to which Garnier replied: “No. This is the style of the times. It is the style of Napoleon III and you are complaining about yourself!”

Historians, in the end, agreed with Eugenie. Garnier showed insufficient originality to create a new school of architecture, but his masterpiece remains an important monument of the Second Empire.

The facade of the domed building, which resembles the Monte Carlo Casino, another Garnier creation, has a majestic balcony overlooking the Place de l’Opera. Steps take arriving ticket-holders into the marbled arcade, past a Paul Belmondo copy of the sculpture “Dance.” Urban pollution forced the French to move the original, by Carpeaux, into the Louvre some years ago.

More than 500,000 people visit the Opera House every year, making it one of the more popular tourist sites in Paris. As the refurbishing progresses, the Opera House will be periodically closed to visitors, though no schedule has yet been decided. Officials say it will reopen in time for the summer 1996 season.