Eliana Willis

Songs from “Starmania” are frequently heard and covered in France, but until a new production opened in Paris, few had a chance to see the 1979 rock opera onstage.PARIS — Imagine a musical so beloved that on opening night, its lyricist receives a standing ovation before the show even starts. That’s what happened here Tuesday night. As the songwriter walked to his seat, the audience at La Seine Musicale couldn’t contain their excitement — starting with Brigitte Macron, the wife of President Emmanuel Macron of France.No, this musical wasn’t “Les Misérables.” (In fact, while it was originally created in French, few people in the country are aware of the existence of “Les Miz,” or the wild popularity of its English-language version.) The occasion was the long-awaited return of “Starmania,” a dystopian rock opera that has turned into a singular French phenomenon since it was first heard in the 1970s.Of the numbers co-written by Michel Berger, who died in 1992, and Luc Plamondon, whose appearance triggered the ovation on Tuesday, at least 15 — like “Need For Love” and “The World Is Stone” — are frequently heard and covered in the world of French popular music, with their eloquent lyrics that speak of loneliness, power struggles and rebellion. Yet “Starmania” itself has been elusive onstage.It’s not entirely surprising: Like many examples of the rock opera, a genre born in Britain in the 1960s, “Starmania” started life as a concept album, albeit one with a complex, multicharacter plot set in a futuristic global city, Monopolis. The first theatrical run, in 1979, lasted only a month, and the last full stage production in France — a country where musical theater isn’t especially popular — was back in the 1990s. An English version, “Tycoon,” written by Tim Rice, was released as an album starring Cyndi Lauper, Céline Dion and Tom Jones in 1992, but never took off in theaters.This poses unique challenges for any director looking to tackle “Starmania.” Even as the songs remained cultural touchstones, the narrative’s twists and turns have faded from memory. For instance, few know that “The Businessman’s Blues,” an idealistic number about an entrepreneur who yearns to be an artist, is actually sung by Zéro Janvier, a disingenuous real estate tycoon turned fascist political leader.It was time to rediscover Berger and Plamondon’s socially prescient work. In Monopolis, the capital of the newly unified West, Janvier is running for president on a law-and-order platform, against the environmentalist Gourou Marabout. Around them, would-be Monopolis influencers chase fame on TV, while a gang of punk rebels, the Black Stars, sow violence in the streets.The current, pandemic-delayed revival at La Seine Musicale, an impersonal venue in the Paris suburb of Boulogne, was entrusted to Thomas Jolly. This 40-year-old director is having a banner year: In September, he was announced as the artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, a plum job that will put him in the international spotlight. While Jolly’s flamboyant style has long been divisive with French critics, his fondness for laser lights and over-the-top special effects may serve him well on the Olympic stage, and it is on full display in “Starmania.”Manet-Miriam Baghdassarian as Sadia in “Starmania.”Anthony DorfmannI can’t recall ever seeing so much lighting equipment. The lighting design — or rather, the laser choreography — was created by Thomas Dechandon, and several key numbers are sung without sets, under a canopy of lights flashing furiously to the beat. Right before the climax of “The Businessman’s Blues,” trap doors open onstage, and a small army of additional spotlights rear their mole-like heads.Eye-watering electricity bill aside, it is a staging choice that wows at first, yet offers diminishing returns over the course of the three-hour show. Perhaps because of the demands of touring, since “Starmania” will be performed around France, Belgium and Switzerland over the next year, Emmanuelle Favre’s sets are fairly minimal. A rotating, towerlike structure is the most distinctive element, and effective when representing Naziland, the nightclub where Janvier awaits the election results.Berger and Plamondon created an improbably rich world, and there was room to imagine just how Monopolis — a city of skyscrapers and underground tunnels — might feel. Yet even the Underground Café, whose waitress Marie-Jeanne acts as the story’s narrator, is a quasi-blank space.The real star of “Starmania,” though, is the music. Not only does each of the eight lead roles have at least one vocally acrobatic solo turn, but most audience members still have the exact texture and phrasing of past performers in mind. In a nod to the 1970s cast, the well-known French singer France Gall appears in a hologram in one scene.Gall’s silhouette drew applause, as did many of the songs — not when they ended, but as soon as the first words were heard. At least a dozen times over the course of the first night, the six-strong band and singers would start a number, only to be drowned out by cries of joy. Rather than a new production, “Starmania” often felt like a collective trip down memory lane, tapping into layers of emotion that have accumulated over decades.The weight of expectations must be daunting, but the large cast of singers from France and Canada were brilliantly fearless. (Unforgivably, their names weren’t listed anywhere in the theater or on the production’s website.) David Latulippe avoided egregious villain mannerisms as Janvier, and had a superb match in Magali Goblet (known as Maag), who brings weary depth to the role of Stella Spotlight, a broken actress Janvier seeks out as his consort.Stella gets some of the most virtuosic, heartbreaking numbers, starting with “The Farewell of a Sex Symbol,” which lays bare the mental health toll of being objectified as a young actress. The cult of celebrity, and its darker side, are the overarching theme of the plot. In the musical, “Starmania” is the name of a TV show that promises instant fame to a lucky few. Ziggy (Adrien Fruit), a record dealer, falls into that trap, abandoning his friend Marie-Jeanne to chase success with Janvier.As Marie-Jeanne, Jolly and his team cast a nonbinary performer who uses male pronouns, Alex Montembault. He is the heart and soul of the show, with an understated simplicity that contrasts with showier personalities, like Manet-Miriam Baghdassarian, who brings darkly intimidating energy to the gender-fluid character of Sadia, a Black star described as a transvestite.The word may be dated, but here again, “Starmania” makes space for questions around gender that are far more common today than they were in the 1970s. And it does so with a songbook so saturated with memories for many who have grown up in France that there is joy — and occasionally melancholy — in simply mouthing along to the lyrics.Jolly has crafted a production that may not be subtle, but it is generic and spectacular enough to make space for newcomers as well as audience members who grew up with “Starmania.” After over two decades without an opportunity to see it onstage, that’s enough of a gift.Starmania. Directed by Thomas Jolly. La Seine Musicale, through Jan. 29. More