PARIS : Musique, Musique

A $200-million, state-of-the-art music center, the Cite de la Musique, officially opens Thursday on the site of what used to be a northeast Paris slaughterhouse. The “City of Music,” one of outgoing President Francois Mitterrand’s 11 major cultural projects for France, has been in the works since 1982. A wing housing the national conservatory of music and dance opened in 1990.

Mitterrand will inaugurate the new concert hall, which can seat between 800 and 1,200 people. And the project’s final component, a huge museum of music, is due to open in June--a month after Mitterrand, whose health is failing, is scheduled to step down after 14 years in the presidency.