Leaving the Opera in the Year 2000
Nineteenth century artist Albert Robida predicted what luxury transportation would look like by the millennium.
Chris Wild
1882
In 1882 French illustrator Albert Robida (1848–1926) completed a wildly futuristic engraving: his vision of fashionable Parisian opera attendees, in the year 2000. In tandem, Robida wrote a science fiction trilogy in the late nineteenth century, which drew comparison to author Jules Verne's renown works, such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In Robida's novels he predicted many phenomena of the forthcoming modern world: mass tourism, pollution, guided missiles, chemical weapons and the emancipation of women.Most striking was the Téléphonoscope, a flat screen television display delivering 24-hour news, programs, education and face-to-face communication.Below we examine the details of "Leaving the Opera in the Year 2000."
* The date given for this engraving by the Library of Congress is c. 1882 yet, as one reader has pointed out, the Eiffel Tower was initially designed c. 1884, and constructed in between 1887 and 1889, which suggests a slightly later date for the image than the one given by the Library of Congress
Leaving the Opera in the Year 2000
Chris Wild
1882