PARIS — In a city that likes to strut its cultural stuff, the location of the handsome Opéra Comique — an ornate monument to the Belle Époque — is curiously off the beaten path.
Tucked away in a warren of streets in the city center, the theater — rebuilt in 1898 after a second fire in 50 years — faces its own little lamp-lit square, with its back to one of Paris’s grand boulevards.
The building may be hidden, but the history of the Opéra Comique, founded in December 1714, stands squarely at the crossroads of France’s venerable theater traditions, between the Opéra and the Comédie-Française, born of a lively competition of genres and fiercely guarded state monopolies.
Now on the eve of a season-long celebration of its 300th anniversary, the Opéra Comique, which has suffered bouts of obscurity as well as fire, is enjoying a resurrection that has put its historic repertoire and creative reputation back on the map.
The theater’s low point came after 1939 when, because of a shortage of funds, it was attached to the Opéra de Paris. It regained full autonomy in 1990 and starting in 2005 began a series of renovations, culminating with the reopening last year of the Grand Foyer, its frescoed ceilings restored to their original glory with help from the World Monuments Fund.
More important, the theater — where Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” Claude Debussy’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” and Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann” all had their premieres — has witnessed a rich and popular offering of old favorites, rediscovered works and new creations that stretch across three centuries.
“My objective was to restore to our repertoire its ‘letters of nobility,”’ Jérôme Deschamps, director of the theater since 2007, said in an interview in his office just off the theater’s stage.
Mr. Deschamps, whose mandate comes to an end this fall, set his sights high from the start. In his opening negotiations with the Culture Ministry, he fought to increase the theater’s annual budget to 10 million euros, or $12.7 million, from €6 million.
“My argument to the government was yes, my mission is expensive at 10 million,” he said, “but to spend 6 million and fail would be even more expensive.”
With the additional money, amplified by sponsorships and a series of ambitious co-productions, the Opéra Comique set out to attract top directors, conductors and artists to perform in the small historic theater — which has just 1,255 seats, half as many as Opéra Bastille, and which is known for its charm and acoustics.
Without its own orchestra, choir or ballet, the Opéra Comique has the freedom to attract acts from elsewhere, adding diversity.
“It was enough to love the repertoire and put the spark in the right place,” Mr. Deschamps said.
The theater’s intimate size is a draw for performers, while lower ticket prices, set at about 60 percent of the prices at the Paris Opera’s Garnier and Bastille theaters, help attract audiences put off by the notion of opera as an entertainment for the elite.
“There was an elderly audience that was happy to get its favorites back,” Mr. Deschamps said, “but others came as confidence increased because of the quality of the performers.”
This has been true for less-known works like “Ali Baba,” a late-19th-century French operetta set in a mid-20th-century shopping center, which played to full houses this spring; or “Ciboulette,” a 1923 work that triumphed in 2013 when audiences were invited to sing along.
“We are training a young audience,” said Mr. Deschamps, citing initiatives such as lunchtime concerts and conferences, a young artists program and operas for children. “It’s a charm operation.”
In 2009, he waged a high-stakes gamble on yet another “Carmen,” the world’s most performed opera, with a version directed by John Eliot Gardiner and starring Anna Caterina Antonacci. It sold out, and was a critical success.
“I could have done a less important Carmen but if I had done less, I would have been alone with my Carmen,” he said.
William Christie, the American-born French conductor and specialist in Baroque music, has had a long association with the Opéra Comique. In 1987, he conducted a legendary performance of “Atys,” by Lully. He has been back several times recently, with his Arts Florissants choir, performing “Dido and Aeneas” by Purcell and “Platée” by Rameau.
“We feel very much at home there,” Mr. Christie said by telephone. “I still get emotional when I rehearse or give concerts there, just thinking of who has been there before me.” Mr. Christie credits Mr. Deschamps for the theater’s recent success. “He simply brought back the class, the elegance and the intelligence that this theater has been known for,” he said.
The tricentennial season, which begins in November, will feature works that scan the Opéra Comique’s 300 years, including “Les Fêtes Vénitiennes,” a 1710 French ballet opera that will be conducted by Mr. Christie and directed by Robert Carson; “Die Fledermaus,” the 1874 operetta by Johann Strauss that will be sung in French and directed by Marc Minkowski; and a new creation, based on the 1953 Japanese film “Tales of a Pale and Silvery Moon After the Rain,” that will be co-produced with the Opéra de Rouen Haute Normandie.
The Opéra Comique traces its origins to the 18th-century fairs of Paris, where two troupes banded together for performances that had to skirt rules protecting existing establishments. Opera and dance were then the exclusive domain of the Opéra (then the Royal Academy of Music), while the illustrious Comédie-Française, the home of Molière, Racine and Corneille, had a monopoly on the spoken word.
“It was created in opposition to existing genres,” Mr. Deschamps said. “We were in a battle of institutions, where the competition was very strong and very intense, one in which the public was a participant.”
In time, a new genre emerged, namely opéra-comique, a French innovation that combined singing and spoken text. Other ruses, including pantomime and audience sing-alongs, were used to avoid sanctions and by the mid-18th century, the Opéra Comique, now merged with its rival, the Comédie Italienne, had acquired the status of a royal theater.
It moved to its current location, called the Salle Favart, which was inaugurated by Queen Marie Antoinette in 1783.
By 1807, the Opéra Comique had a monopoly on dance and opera, but by the mid-19th century it lost its dominant position and the theater moved into high gear, with a mix of genres.
“That was the hour of glory of the Opéra Comique, because the shows talked of society, of brigands, of people who are dangerous but attractive,” Mr. Deschamps said. “It was popular in the best sense of the word.”
This identity is what Mr. Deschamps has sought to revive, staking out a cultural space that, once again, aims to complement the Opéra de Paris and the Comédie-Française. And once again, according to Mr. Deschamps, the Opéra Comique’s ambitions have met with passive resistance, this time from the Opéra de Paris.
“They ignored us,” he said. “They’re much more powerful and they played with their advantages, instead of looking to complement each other. It’s a pity.”
Stéphane Lissner, who took over as director of the Opéra de Paris in August, declined to comment on Mr. Deschamps’s remarks, which referred to a dispute in 2009 over an exclusivity clause demanded by the Opéra de Paris in its contracts with top singers.
So as it enters its fourth century, the Opéra Comique, true to its tradition, is determined to stay in high spirits.
“I think what I have achieved is a good mood,” Mr. Deschamps said. “To direct a house is to establish a mood, and that gets transmitted to the audience, I am convinced of it.”