This summer, on the evening of July 26, during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, Axelle Saint-Cirel, a 29-year-old mezzo-soprano draped in the colors of the French flag, climbed a ladder all the way up to the glass roof of the Grand Palaisqueen9play, the century-old Paris monument.

Amid a sudden downpour, before tens of millions of television viewers, Saint-Cirel delivered a pitch-perfect performance of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” miraculously avoiding any wardrobe malfunctions or makeup smears, even though she was drenched by the end of her performance. When she was finally off camera, she recalled in a phone interview, she allowed herself to blink — and felt a trail of mascara dribble down her face.

ImageArt Basel Paris replaced the FIAC art fair, which debuted in the 1970s and had long been held at the Grand Palais.Credit...Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Saint-Cirel described the experience as transformative.

“As a monument, the Grand Palais has changed my life: It has allowed me to have a vision of the world that’s so much bigger than the one I had before,” Saint-Cirel said. “I’m a very ambitious person. I work very hard. But there are so many artists who work very hard, and who don’t get opportunities such as this one.”

When she walks past the Grand Palais nowadays, she reflects. “I can’t believe that there was a human being on top of it, and that human being was me,” she said.

Image“As a monument, the Grand Palais has changed my life: It has allowed me to have a vision of the world that’s so much bigger than the one I had before,” said Axelle Saint-Cirel, right, who sang the French national anthem for the Olympic opening ceremony this summer.Credit...Pool photo by Anne-Christine Poujoulat

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.queen9play

• The
• queen9play
• Where
• monument
• Fauvism