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      Twenty Years Later, ‘Irreversible’ Still Shocks

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      A look back at Gaspar Noé’s brutal told-in-reverse drama, which has been rereleased in a “Straight Cut” version.In bed with her lover, Alex (Monica Bellucci) recounts a dream: “I was in a tunnel. All red. And then the tunnel broke in half.” In any other thriller, this uncanny vision would play like a warning for things to come. But in “Irreversible,” the moment arrives toward the end, well after Alex enters the red tunnel and is brutalized by a random man — an indelible scene at the heart of Gaspar Noé’s infamous rape-revenge film, released 20 years ago this week.“Irreversible” envisions the night of Alex’s assault in reverse chronological order. First, her boyfriend, Marcus (Vincent Cassel), goes on a rampage through the streets of Paris in search of the culprit. Then the tunnel. Then the party that Alex will decide to leave by herself. Then the couple’s cozy, Edenlike apartment — a space that will never be the same.“By reversing the formula, ‘Irreversible’ strips away the unspoken logic that dominates these kinds of films. It forces us to question the entire relationship between rape and revenge,” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, a critic and the author of numerous books on rape-revenge movies, wrote in an email.Though the film was always conceived as a story in reverse, it was shot chronologically, which allowed Noé to assemble a new version, the “Straight Cut,” that flips the order of events into linear time. “Irreversible: Straight Cut” is currently playing in theaters in the United States, and will be released, along with the original cut, on Blu-ray in July thanks to the cult distributor Altered Innocence. “In a way, the new version is both more sentimental and darker,” Noé said in a video interview, explaining that it emphasizes the pointlessness of Marcus’s vengeance-seeking.When “Irreversible” came out in 2003, Noé had already made a name for himself as a provocateur who liked his films mean and loud. His debut feature, “I Stand Alone” (1998), revolves around an incestuous horse-meat butcher with a murderous streak. Noé’s films — like “Enter the Void” (2010) or “Climax” (2019) — are descents into gruesome hells featuring extreme body horror, abrasive techno-tunes, and delirious whirligig camera movements.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.With “Irreversible,” Noé took several of his formative influences — taboo titles like “Deliverance” and “Taxi Driver,” which hinge on the male crusade for retribution — and cranked them up to match the immersive feel of reality-bending epics like “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For Noé, some acts of violence are as equally capable of shattering worlds as glitches in the space-time continuum.Vincent Cassel in “Irreversible: Straight Cut.” A wild-eyed, macho intensity — the actor’s trademark — is on full display in the film.Emily De La Hosseray/Altered InnocenceSet in then-modern-day Paris, the film also starred some of the country’s biggest talents. Bellucci and Cassel, a couple at the time, were like the French equivalent of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman; Albert Dupontel — who plays Pierre, Alex’s bookish ex-boyfriend, witness to Marcus’s spiraling rage — was beloved for his popular comedies. Without their involvement, Noé noted, the film wouldn’t have received funding.Plus, their participation bolstered the movie’s shocks — who could imagine the steely Italian supermodel-turned-actress so graphically pulverized? Dupontel snapping and beating a man to a pulp? Cassel — well, his unhinged Marcus made sense. In “La Haine” (1996), the modern classic about police brutality in the Parisian banlieues, Cassel played a wannabe gangster, in one scene pointing a finger-gun at himself in the mirror à la Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.” This same wild-eyed, macho intensity — the actor’s trademark — is on full display in “Irreversible.”“The film is testosterone-phobic. It shows men as beasts,” Noé said. Indeed, the world of “Irreversible” is one of primitive brutes. In one scene, Marcus enters Rectum, a hardcore gay club, tumbling down a crimson rabbit hole filled with leather-clad men, bondage swings and chain restraints, maniacally searching for the assailant. His madness is infectious, inciting Pierre into action, which results in an innocent man’s face turned to bloody mush. They’re in a B.D.S.M. club — a real one whose clients served as extras — so the onlookers watch in fascination and shout excitedly as the two men attack. It’s an unforgettably sinister moment, one that the director Damien Chazelle pays homage to in his latest film, “Babylon,” when Tobey Maguire’s drug-addled criminal kingpin leads a tour through a cave of depravities. “He told me he needed to meet me because he copied me!” Noé said, referring to an encounter with Chazelle in Paris.But for many people, nothing in “Irreversible” surpasses the horrors of its most talked-about scene. Shot on location in a real underpass frequented by prostitutes at the outskirts of Paris (the passage has since been demolished), the rape sequence is like the eye of a storm in a film distinguished by its frenzied visuals. “Moving the camera around would have felt like it was participating in the violence, like it was the ghost of some other complicit man,” Noé said. The rapist (Jo Prestia) puts a knife to Alex’s throat, forcing her to comply over the course of nine excruciatingly long minutes. The mostly static camera makes us hyper-aware of our passivity as spectators; but unlike the faceless figure in the distance whom we briefly see stumbling upon the rape and choosing to walk away, we’re forced to watch.No intimacy coordinators were involved on set — in the early 2000s, the profession was nonexistent — but the scene was actively rehearsed, with all the actors’ movements mapped out to create the illusion of a beating. “It was kind of like a dance,” Bellucci said over the phone, emphasizing how empowering it felt for her to be able to enact the experience from a place of total control.The cinema of toxic masculinity long precedes the current era, though discourses around gender and the various institutional reckonings with sexual violence allows us to consider films like “Taxi Driver,” and, indeed, “Irreversible,” with fresh eyes. Recent films like “The Northman” — a brutal Viking thriller keenly aware of the delusions that underpin the hero’s quest for vengeance, and Patricia Mazuy’s “Saturn Bowling,” a serial-killer movie in which femicide is treated like a sport — seem to have taken up the mantle, critiquing the patriarchy by presenting it at its most monstrous.“I couldn’t make ‘Irreversible’ today,” Noé said, adding that he believes financiers are more inclined to support movies about sexual violence by women filmmakers. Noé praised up-and-comers in the art of subversion, namely the Swedish director Isabella Ekloff. Her film “Holiday” is an unconventional rape-revenge film itself, its centerpiece also a disturbingly lengthy assault.“I grew up watching transgressive movies because I saw them as a challenge from men to see if I was tough enough,” Heller-Nicholas wrote. “Now, I’m blown away by the number of sexual assault survivors I’ve encountered who find these movies cathartic.”Rape-revenge movies like “Irreversible” show that there can be more to the depiction of gendered violence than the easy thrill of looking at brutalized female bodies. Nothing about the “Irreversible” rape scene feels exciting or titillating; and nothing about Marcus’s actions feels powerful or heroic.“Today, the new generation feels more comfortable talking about issues like rape and violence,” Bellucci said, adding that her days of acting in transgressive movies are behind her now that she’s a mother. “‘Irreversible’ is about our reality in a very painful way, and you don’t have to like it, but like the best films, you watch it and you come out a different person.” More

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      A Conductor’s Battle With a Classical Music Gender Barrier

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      Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime fighting sexism and forging a path in a male-dominated profession. Her next targets: pay gaps and age discrimination.This article is part of our Women and Leadership special report that profiles women leading the way on climate, politics, business and more.The baton-waving bully conductor played by Cate Blanchett in “Tár” has earned a series of Oscar nominations and captivated audiences worldwide. That may be, in part, because of her novelty: Until recently, conducting was almost exclusively a male profession.The French conductor Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime battling that gender barrier. In 2019, she co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.“Giving confidence and visibility to the talented women who are emerging as orchestral conductors is a cause La Maestra will continue to champion with commitment and passion,” said a news release inviting contestants for the next competition, in March 2024. The competition, founded with the Philharmonie de Paris, awards prizes of 5,000 to 20,000 euros ($5,300 to $21,400) to finalists who are provided numerous musical opportunities, too. Ms. Gibault also founded the Paris Mozart Orchestra in 2011, one of France’s few female-led orchestras.Born in 1945 and raised in Le Mans in northwestern France, where her father taught music theory at the conservatory, Ms. Gibault was studying violin when she discovered conducting and persuaded the conservatory to teach it.She went on to make classical music history by becoming the first woman to conduct a performance at La Scala in Milan (where she was an assistant to her mentor, the late conductor Claudio Abbado, who was then La Scala’s music director). She also was the first woman to conduct the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.The Run-Up to the 2023 OscarsThe 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12 in Los Angeles.Asian Actors: A record number of actors of Asian ancestry were recognized with Oscar nominations this year. But historically, Asian stars have rarely been part of the awards.Hong Chau Interview: In a conversation with The Times, the actress, who is nominated for her supporting role in “The Whale,” says she still feels like an underdog.Andrea Riseborough Controversy: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why the “To Leslie” star’s nod was controversial.The Making of ‘Naatu Naatu’: The composers and choreographer from the Indian blockbuster “RRR” explain how they created the propulsive sequence that is nominated for best song.Ms. Gibault, 77, has been busy and much in the news lately, especially with the Academy Awards on March 12. She discussed her career, her views on “Tár” and sexism in classical music in a phone interview from Paris. The conversation was translated from French, edited and condensed.Why did you decide to set up the La Maestra competition?In 2018, I was the only female jury member of a conducting competition in Mexico. There were such sexist attitudes on the part of certain jurors that I was shocked. One man on the jury even said that women were biologically incapable of being conductors, because their arms were naturally turned outward to hold babies. Whenever a female contestant came up in the competition, this man would cover his face with his jacket, close his eyes and plug his ears. One female finalist who was very musical and very talented received as many votes as a young man to whom the jury gave the first prize. I found that very unfair.The competition in Mexico was a trigger for me. I was furious. When I got back to Paris, I met with a patron, Dominique Senequier, [founder and] president of the private investment company Ardian. I told her that a lot of female talents were invisible, and that it would be interesting to do something for them. She encouraged me to set up a prestigious competition for female conductors and said she would finance it.The International Conductors Competition La Maestra, at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2022. The three finalists, with bouquets from left, are Beatriz Fernández Aucejo (3rd Prize, ARTE Prize), Joanna Natalia Ślusarczyk (2nd Prize, French Concert Halls and Orchestras Prize, ECHO Prize) and Anna Sułkowska-Migoń (1st Prize, Generation Opera Prize).Maria Mosconi/Hans LucasWhat impact has the competition had?The impact has been extraordinary. Female conductors are now viewed as a very modern phenomenon. Yet we have to be careful and very vigilant: make sure that it’s not just the young and attractive conductors who are being recruited. There is a flagrant degree of age discrimination in the world of classical music. For that to change, we need more women in management positions.What was your own experience as a young female conductor in a profession with almost no women?Audiences took it very well. The problem was the condescension of colleagues — of certain male conductors and of the male managers and directors of orchestras and cultural institutions. For them it was fine to hire women as long as they were assistant conductors, especially if they were very good assistants. I worked on pieces that the men didn’t want to work on, such as new compositions. I knew that this was a battle I had to wage with a smile, never complaining, never whining. That’s the way it worked.Why did you set up the Paris Mozart Orchestra?In my career, I experienced aggressive behavior on the part of musicians who made my job very hard, orchestras that didn’t want to play at my tempo. It was sometimes very difficult. I wanted to be able to choose the program. And I didn’t want to wait to be chosen.What did you think of the movie “Tár”?I found it disturbing, yet fascinating. What I like about the movie is that it’s a fable about power: how power can transform human beings, be they men or women. It’s like a Greek tragedy.Ms. Gibault co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.Maria Mosconi/Hans LucasDid you feel that it was about you?I don’t think we should be egocentric about it. It’s not because I’m a woman conductor that I felt directly concerned. It’s true that when you’re fighting for the cause of female conductors, it’s disturbing to see a woman who accumulates so many reasons to be hated: who takes advantage of her power, who takes drugs, who flirts with the young women in the orchestra. Of course, if a man behaved in that way, it would be a lot less shocking because we’re used to it.That kind of male behavior in classical music is now being called out. I think it’s high time for that behavior to stop. Not only is there abuse of power and sexual misconduct, but male conductors are also overpaid. That’s unacceptable given the economic crisis that the world of culture is going through.You mean the pay gap between male and female orchestra conductors?Yes, but also the pay gap with the musicians in the orchestra. And this incredible disdain that some male conductors have for the musicians that they’re conducting. We need to revolutionize this world from the inside. We need a different set of values.What do you need to revolutionize?The economics of culture. And the fact that careers are being built on notoriety, so the focus is on boosting people’s fame. There are people who are very famous and who are extraordinary artists, and others who are a little less so. I know extraordinary artists who are not famous at all.So there’s a cult of personality?Yes — for purely economic reasons. More

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      in Theater

      Review: In ‘With No Fanfare,’ Things Fall Apart

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      The play, a hit at the Avignon Festival, explores the twists and turns of a breakup through a whimsical mix of musical numbers and dreamlike vignettes.While romantic drama fuels much of the theatrical repertoire, what happens after a catastrophic breakup isn’t nearly as easy to translate onstage. In “With No Fanfare,” a French musical theater production directed by Samuel Achache, it takes a set that literally falls apart to establish the slow process of picking up the pieces.The metaphor is transparent, but it isn’t overblown. “With No Fanfare” (“Sans Tambour”) centers on a nameless couple, a man and a woman who have already reached their breaking point when the play starts. The man (Lionel Dray) frantically washes the dishes in a small sink; the woman (Sarah Le Picard) accuses him of caring only about clogged drains. As they trade barbs, they punch the kitchen walls, or whack household items at them. One by one, the walls collapse like a house of cards.And that’s just the first 15 minutes. What comes next — mourning and rebuilding — is told through a whimsical mix of musical numbers and dreamlike vignettes. One character lands at an imaginary clinic for broken hearts. Later, the cast re-enacts the medieval story of the star-crossed Tristan and Isolde. The process is unpredictable, tragicomic, slightly messy — and thoroughly touching.“With No Fanfare” first made a splash at the Avignon Festival last summer, and it has now reached the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, where it feels right at home. When the director Peter Brook brought this dilapidated music hall back to life in the 1970s, he didn’t hide the visible wear and tear on the walls. The set, a two-story house designed by Lisa Navarro, has a similarly ramshackle quality, with peeling paint and a hazardous stairwell.Lisa Navarro’s set suggests a ramshackle, two-story house.Christophe Raynaud de LageOver the past decade, Achache has developed a quirky brand of musical theater, often in tandem with a co-director, Jeanne Candel. The company he founded in 2021, La Sourde, employs both musicians and actors, and “With No Fanfare” takes advantage of that as it weaves compositions by cast members and the musical director, Florent Hubert, on top of a series of lieder by Schumann.The soprano Agathe Peyrat sings many of these numbers, and acts almost as a shadow for the actors, expressing their grief-stricken feelings. Along with her, five musicians are onstage nearly throughout, and they also take smaller acting parts.More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This SpringMusical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Rising Stars: These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Gustavo Dudamel: The New York Philharmonic’s new music director, will conduct Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in May. It will be one of the hottest tickets in town.The back-and-forth between drama and music lends “With No Fanfare” much of its power, because the show’s dreamlike logic can be hard to follow. The part in which characters play Tristan and Isolde doesn’t quite land, for instance: A relationship built on a mythical love potion isn’t an ideal point of comparison for a modern couple.“With No Fanfare” is stronger when Achache and his cast (who all get a writing credit) let their imaginations roam freely. Once the central relationship has crumbled for good, the woman suddenly reappears at a treatment center where doctors offer remedies for heartbreak.There, the woman meets a third character, a writer named Spinel. Played by the actor and singer Léo-Antonin Lutinier, Spinel is a test patient for the clinic’s offbeat, metaphorical procedures. On doctors’ orders, he swims in his own tears. Later, he has surgery to remove the last remaining traces of love from his brain.“With No Fanfare” weaves a series of songs by Schumann into the narrative, as well as additional compositions by cast members.Christophe Raynaud de LageLutinier brings a dryly burlesque quality to the proceedings, and Spinel is in some ways the most affecting character, even though his relationship with the others isn’t fully fleshed out. Many scenes in “With No Fanfare” rely on plain physical comedy, as when Spinel tries to reach a piano that is hovering above the stage. He looks at it, and then brings a ladder that doesn’t reach; when he tries to climb it despite this, the steps give out under him, a Buster Keaton-style digression.Yet even the most absurd scenes have a melancholy quality to them. Achache somehow connects them to the long, frustrating process of rebuilding a life when the world you had imagined with someone collapses. As the nameless central man, Dray — an actor with over-the-top energy — spends much of the show standing precariously on a half-destroyed stool, a hammer in hand.It makes little sense on paper, yet onstage what you see is a man struggling to re-establish a sense of normalcy. Achache doesn’t aim for a tidy narrative. The characters don’t get a happy ending, or any real ending at all, but that lack of resolution rings true.At the end, Dray sits alone on the upper level of the set, dangling his legs over the edge, and surveys the ruins underneath. “And still, I coped with it,” he says, looking bemused. Mourning is a mental journey, and “With No Fanfare” makes a fitting visual and musical response to its twists and turns. More

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      in Movies

      ‘A Radiant Girl’ Review: Coming of Age in Paris, 1942

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      This Holocaust drama could have easily passed for a blissful teen romance; instead, it’s an awkwardly rendered portrait of a young Jewish woman in denial.With its swoony pop music and soft summertime twinkle, “A Radiant Girl” could have passed for a blissful coming-of-age romance. Irene (Rebecca Marder), a bubbly, motor-mouthed 19-year-old, seems convinced she’s in one. But this deceptively warm drama — the directorial debut of the French actress and chanteuse Sandrine Kiberlain — is as much about the darkness that creeps at the edges of Irene’s life as it is about her rose-tinted moments of self-discovery.It’s Paris, 1942, and German officials and the French police are deporting Jews to concentration camps in increasing numbers. Things are changing quickly: Irene’s well-to-do Jewish family is forced to hand over a radio, a telephone and their bicycles. Neighbors and shopkeepers are beginning to act weird, even aggressive.These developments are sprinkled throughout the film like a trail of bread crumbs. Though Irene’s family — her anxious father (André Marcon), a flutist brother (Anthony Bajon), and her freethinking grandmother (Françoise Widhoff) — can feel those changes, Irene barely seems to notice as she prepares for a conservatory audition, breaks hearts, and eyes her family doctor’s cute assistant.Irene is the epitome of a theater kid — a talented one at that, and an expert fainter — but her ability to sustain an illusion seems to extend to her worldview as well. Is she tragically naïve or in denial?Fantasy, performance and the discovery of hard truths intermingle in several coming-of-age films set in Europe during World War II, including Louis Malle’s “Au Revoir les Enfants” and Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful.”Clearly Kiberlain had these movies in mind, but the film’s conceptual intentions are betrayed by its mishandled idiosyncratic flourishes. In Marder’s overly affected performance, Irene comes off as a precious idiot rather than a buoyant young woman concealing hidden depths. At points, the contrast between Irene’s joy and the encroaching horrors is jarring and eerie, but “A Radiant Girl” seldom hits these notes — the rest is deflating and awkward.A Radiant GirlNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Music

      A Decidedly French “Hamlet” Returns to Paris

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      Starting in March, Ambroise Thomas’s version of the Shakespearean tragedy will be revived at the Opéra Bastille for the first time since 1938.Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet” had all the elements to become a blockbuster at the Paris Opera in the 19th century. With a gripping plot that unfolds over five acts, a leading baritone in the title role and innovative orchestration deploying newly invented instruments, the work had an enduring hold at the box office after its 1868 premiere.Like so many “grands opéras” that were born and bred for the company, “Hamlet” fell out of repertoire around the turn of the 20th century. Only since the 1980s has the work received a revival on stages worldwide. From March 11 to April 9, Thomas’s Shakespearean adaptation will return to the Paris Opera for the first time since 1938, in a new production directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski and starring Ludovic Tézier at the Opéra Bastille (a pre-opening for viewers under 28 takes place on March 8. Thomas Hengelbrock conducts).The company’s general director, Alexander Neef, has made it a goal to create a more specific identity for the Paris Opera by commissioning research and programming the French grand opera that once flourished there. Having experienced and admired a production of “Hamlet” at the Metropolitan Opera some 20 years ago, Mr. Neef said that the work “came up rather naturally” after his appointment.Mr. Tézier, whom he considers “not only the leading French baritone but maybe the leading baritone in his repertoire,” was also a natural choice. The singer, who is particularly coveted in the music of Verdi, in turn suggested Mr. Warlikowski as director following their collaboration on a 2017 production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” at Opéra Bastille.For both lead performer and director, the production provides an opportunity to deepen their interpretation of a work that has played an important role in their respective careers. Mr. Tézier made debuts in both Toulouse, France, and Turin, Italy, in the title of role of Thomas’s “Hamlet” about two decades ago, while Mr. Warlikowski staged the original play by Shakespeare in Avignon, France in 2000 (he had first learned the drama as an apprentice of the late director Peter Brook in Paris).The director Krzysztof Warlikowski, who staged the original play by Shakespeare in 2000 in Avignon, France. “For me, the essential thing that clinches the drama is of course the apparition of the specter,” he said.Louisa Marie Summer for The New York TimesThis operatic version of “Hamlet” takes an unexpected turn before the curtain falls: The protagonist survives and is crowned king. The liberties taken by Thomas’s librettists, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, met with criticism after the premiere; a Covent Garden version of the opera first mounted in 1869 restores the work’s original, more tragic ending.For Mr. Warlikowski, Thomas’s protagonist shares a great deal in common with the mythological figure of Orestes. “He also rebels against hypocrisy and the ills of this world,” he explained on a video call.The director will also hone in on the scenes in which the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears. “For me, the essential thing that clinches the drama is of course the apparition of the specter,” he said.Mr. Tézier noted that Thomas deployed some of his most dramatically effective music for the ghost by knowing how to pare down the orchestra. The baritone drew a parallel to another Shakespearean opera, Verdi’s “Macbeth,” and the title character’s hallucination of a dagger.“Thomas creates an atmosphere that is favorable to the text and the emotion of the moment,” he said by phone.The composer was exploring orchestral colors with new instruments by the musician and inventor Adolphe Sax at the same time as the composer Hector Berlioz, who held Thomas in great esteem. For example, the second-act banquet scene in which Hamlet accuses Claudius of murdering his father features a solo for alto saxophone. Thomas also wrote for bass saxhorn and six-keyed trombones.An ardent defender of French music against Germanic influence (specifically that of Wagner), Thomas in 1877 stated that every country “should stay faithful to its style and maintain its distinct character,” rather than submit “to the caprices of the time.” In a sign of his patriotism, he volunteered for the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War before assuming the directorship of the Paris Conservatory in 1871.His “Hamlet” has been noted for its specifically French qualities. In addition to mitigating tragedy by allowing the protagonist to survive and avenge the death of his father, romantic intrigue and sensuous instrumentation often set the tone.Ludovic Tézier has a long history with Thomas’s “Hamlet,” having made debuts in Toulouse, France, and Turin, Italy in the title role. He noted that the work “allows the audience to spend a night in the opera in a state of suspense and meditation.”Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesParis was at the time the center of classical musical life, not just in Europe but worldwide. “Hamlet” premiered at Salle Le Peletier, the same theater that mounted such works as Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “Robert le Diable” and Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” before Palais Garnier opened in 1875.The baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, who was at the height of his fame, was captured in portrait as Hamlet by none other than Manet. The role of Ophélie, whose fourth-act mad scene helped ensure the work’s popularity, has also been an important role for sopranos from Christina Nilsson to Mary Garden (the new production stars Lisette Oropesa and, starting in April, Brenda Rae).But by 1891, Wagner’s “music of the future” became something of a game changer. “Lohengrin,” “Die Walküre” and “Tannhäuser” remained in repertoire at the Paris Opera through 1910, while of Meyerbeer’s four major operas, only “Les Huguenots” persisted.Mr. Warlikowski expressed his wish to champion “Hamlet” by “provoking questions and creating a spiritual journey through this timeless story.”Mr. Tézier emphasized that the work was not “second-rate.”“It most of all allows the audience to spend a night in the opera in a state of suspense and meditation,” he said.He compared the infrequent programming of such neglected classics to the unpredictable sightings of the Loch Ness monster: “There is no real explanation. But with each appearance of the monster, you have to see it because it’s a rarity. From the beginning to the end, something really happens in the music.” More

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      in Music

      A Paris Opera House’s History and the Phantom

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      The architecture and location of the Palais Garnier are intertwined with the history of France and Paris (and a famous phantom).Showcasing more than 400 performances of opera, dance and music each year, Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera, inaugurated in 1875, is a true cathedral of culture. A promenade through its rooms is a theatrical experience itself, revealing ornate marble columns, bronze statues, crystal chandeliers, and paintings and frescoes. But the Palais Garnier, as the building is known, also holds secrets, from design quirks to haunting tales. Here are some facts about the building.Charles Garnier, the architect, was the last one shortlisted for the project.  Emperor Napoleon III started a competition for an “Imperial Academy of Music and Dance” in December 1860. Five finalists were chosen from more than 170 proposals. They were ranked, and Garnier came in last. With little to lose, he changed his plans, creating a monumental structure layered with imposing arcades, colonnades and flanking pavilions, crowned with a dome and a pedimented tower. “He was using a classical language, but in an eclectic, much freer, and much more expressive way,” Christopher Mead, author of “Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera: Architectural Empathy and the Renaissance of French Classicism,” said in an interview. Garnier’s win shocked the establishment, Mr. Mead said, but worked with the emperor’s effort to cast himself as a reformer.Charles Garnier, second from right, circa 1865 with his partners during construction of the opera house, which became known as the Palais Garnier.adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty ImagesThere is a “lake” under the opera house.When digging the foundations, workers hit a hidden arm of the Seine, causing water to flood the site. It was impossible to remove all the water, so crews had to contain it with a massive concrete reservoir with a vaulted ceiling from which water is still pumped today. The so-called lake was dramatized by Gaston Leroux, author of “The Phantom of the Opera,” who made it the stomping grounds of the Phantom. Mr. Mead was mesmerized by a visit. “You can see why it inspired Leroux,” he said. “You could invent a whole world there.”The falling chandelier in “The Phantom of the Opera” was based on a real event.In 1896, during a performance of Étienne-Joseph Floquet’s opera “Hellé,” a short-circuit caused a counterweight from the chandelier to fall, killing a woman in the audience and injuring several more people. Reporting on the event was Leroux, then a journalist with a Paris newspaper. In “The Phantom of the Opera,” it is the Phantom who dislodges the chandelier from the ceiling. The current ceiling of the Palais Garnier, painted by Marc Chagall. The house’s chandelier, which was involved in a deadly accident in 1896, inspired a plot point in “The Phantom of the Opera.”Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSo was the Phantom (sort of).Leroux first published his novel as a serial in 1909 and 1910. In an interview, Isabelle Rachelle Casta, author of “The Work of ‘Obscure Clarity’ in ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ by Gaston Leroux,” said its characters and story were invented but drew from real-life elements in addition to the lake and the falling chandelier. The Phantom himself was inspired by a pianist who was disfigured after an 1873 fire at the Palais Garnier’s precursor, the Salle Le Peletier, and from an assistant to Garnier who disappeared during construction. “Leroux took all of these stories and he created one of the most important stories of the 20th century,” Ms. Casta said. An attack partly inspired the construction. In 1858, Napoleon III and his wife, Empress Eugènie, went to the Salle Le Peletier for a concert. As they arrived, three bomb blasts threw their carriage onto its side, hurled spectators into the street and blew out windows in the opera house and surrounding buildings. Eight people died, but the emperor and empress survived. The mastermind of the plot was Felice Orsini, an Italian revolutionary who had been critical of Napoleon III for not supporting his pro-republican cause. The emperor, already hoping to replace the Salle Le Peletier, decided to build a new opera house in a more open area with a secure entrance. But he never saw it completed: He died in 1873.Garnier requested that no trees be planted on the main road to the building.Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who oversaw Napoleon III’s transformation of Paris, lined all his Grands Boulevards with trees, except for one: the Avenue de l’Opéra, a half-mile stretch from the Louvre to the opera house. Garnier asked for this to maximize his building’s sense of monumentality and to not block views of it. “He wanted a building that announced itself to the public,” Mr. Mead said. “This was a building for them.” More

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      in Television

      ‘Emily in Paris’ Star Would Like Your Paris Tips

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      Lily Collins explores the city, and the world, with the help of Monocle, word searches and Norwegian coffee.Lily Collins has been “Emily in Paris” for so long that she’s expected to be a Parisian authority. Three seasons into her run as Emily Cooper, an American marketing executive on assignment in the City of Light, she spends large portions of the year in France and is constantly asked for recommendations. But she’s there to work.“I don’t have as much free time as I wish that I had to explore,” she said in a phone interview, which she conducted from her car, parked next to the road in Los Angeles before an appointment. “I’m constantly discovering new places and asking for people’s lists because I like the non-tourist spots.”Collins, 33, has been building her own list by scootering along the Seine, making regular visits to Canal Saint-Martin, and getting to know the side streets around the Clignancourt flea market. But, she admits, one of the best sights in the city is still its most famous.“Whenever I’m in the city and I look up and I see the Eiffel Tower, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still get giddy,” she says. “It’s such a feat.”Season 3 of “Emily in Paris” began streaming on Netflix last month. Collins spoke with us about Five Minute Journals, the concept of hygge and other things she gravitates to at home, in Paris and beyond. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Greeting Cards I have a box where I keep cards that I’m saving for people. Some are over 10 years old. I have people in mind and I’ll get them cards knowing that one day they’re going to have a 25th birthday and they will need this card. I love the idea that a single piece of paper can say so much about how you’ve been thinking of someone.2. Self-Portraits It’s so interesting when an artist or a photographer paints, draws or takes a self-portrait because it’s such an inside look into how someone views themselves. The late photographer Vivian Maier is a really beautiful example.3. The Five Minute Journal It gives you easy prompts to answer and helps you be aware of how you can view things in multiple different ways. Instead of saying the crap that happened to you that day and how you were so upset about something, you get to look at how you could have handled certain things throughout the day better, what you were grateful for, what you’re excited about and what’s good in your life. You also write daily affirmations and things that you would like to accomplish. It’s beautiful to look back to previous journals and see how far you’ve grown.4. Treehotel One of the bucket-list places that I’d been wanting to stay in was the Treehotel in Swedish Lapland, which is basically a collection of beautiful tree houses. Each tree house looks like something different — a bird’s nest, a U.F.O., a steel dragonfly. My husband booked us one during our honeymoon that’s high in the trees. Staying there, you get to feel like an adventurer and you get that little kid feeling that I’ve always loved.5. Word Searches I have always carried a word search book with me on flights. It’s a way to turn my mind off. They put me in a kind of meditative trance. Also, I get a weird sense of accomplishment when I complete one.6. Dried Flowers When we go to farmers’ markets, I always end up finding amazing dried flowers. I sometimes keep them for years so I can look at different flowers and remember where I got them. If I get them from a farmers’ market in a different city or in a different country, I push them in books and bring them back. They’re such romantic mementos.7. “Van Go” On the Magnolia Network show “Van Go,” Brett Lewis converts things like vans and sprinters into homes, stores, food trucks — whatever people want. It’s an interesting way to see what people need, what they want and what their aesthetics are. It’s also a look at what the core necessities are when you pare things down and what can be done in such a small space.8. Hygge I’ve always been someone who loves being cozy: cozy socks, my grandma’s cozy sweater, a fire going, playing a game with friends or family — being cozy in an environment is so important to me. When I learned about the Danish concept, hygge, I felt seen, like, oh my God, someone gets me.9. Coffee I look for coffee shops everywhere I go. In a foreign city, they can provide a sense of home and a sense of comfort. There’s a Norwegian coffee brand called Tim Wendelboe that I’ve discovered on our many trips to Denmark. It’s probably the most incredible coffee I’ve ever had.10. Monocle When we’re traveling, we sometimes schedule our trips around things we read about in Monocle magazine. Art, fashion, you name it, they have the places where residents go and that celebrate local artisans. It also can help dictate where we go next. If there’s a place that is so cool and has all these amazing places to visit that we didn’t know about, maybe that’s the next destination. More

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      in Theater

      A Paris Cabaret Makes Way for ‘Cabaret’

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      The 1966 American musical has opened at a venue that for decades hosted one of the city’s most famous revue troupes.For decades, the Lido was one of the glitziest cabarets in Paris, home to extravagant, acrobatic numbers and the Bluebell Girls, a renowned chorus line. Last July, the curtain came down on their feathered headpieces for the final time, and the ensemble was disbanded. Their replacement at the theater this winter? “Cabaret” — the 1966 American musical.On a recent evening, with bejeweled Bluebell outfits still shimmering in window displays by the venue’s entrance, the Lido’s patrons seemed ready for a show. When the Emcee from “Cabaret,” directed by Robert Carsen, introduced the musical’s own ensemble, the Kit Kat Girls and Kit Kat Boys, there were eager cheers, but the lack of topless dancing, not to mention the somber Nazi-era plot, may have come as a surprise to some audience members.Yet the Lido’s move from cabaret to “Cabaret” is no coincidence. It speaks to a larger shift in Paris, where American-style musicals have been on the rise just as historic revues have struggled to maintain relevance.The pandemic only accelerated the decline of mainstream French cabaret, long a tourist attraction at venues like the Lido and the Moulin Rouge: Without out-of-towners, there simply weren’t enough Parisians interested in nostalgic cancan dances to prop up expensive revues. Add to that the genre’s increasingly outdated objectification of women’s near-naked bodies, and cabaret appeared to have fallen out of step with the times.The Lido’s reinvention as a musical theater venue — under a new owner, the hotel conglomerate Accor, and a somewhat silly new name, Lido2Paris — is clearly an attempt to lure back local crowds. To mastermind the transition, Accor hired Jean-Luc Choplin, whose tenure at the Théâtre du Châtelet from 2006 to 2017 saw a string of successes with English-language musicals, including “My Fair Lady” and “42nd Street.”This winter, the Châtelet has again been filled to the rafters, this time for a revival of Stephen Mear’s 2016 production of “42nd Street.” And other venues have been listening to the “lullaby of Broadway,” as one “42nd Street” number puts it. At the Théâtre de Paris, a French-language adaptation of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” by the director Alexis Michalik has turned into a runaway hit since its late 2021 premiere, and is currently scheduled to run through April.The storytelling in Théâtre du Châtelet’s “42nd Street” is bright, and Broadway in style. Thomas AmourouxWhile performed in different languages — “42nd Street” is in English — “42nd Street” and “The Producers” don’t depart from Broadway habits. “42nd Street” opens with the curtain raising a couple of feet, so all we see are is the ensemble’s legs, tapping away and garnering enthusiastic applause. The storytelling in both productions is bright, with an almost uncanny rendition into French, in “The Producers,” of the upbeat pace of American-style dialogue.“The Producers” didn’t please every critic — the French newspaper Libération blasted its “discriminatory” stereotypes — but as theaters in France struggle to return to prepandemic ticket sales and the cost of living rises, musicals have seemed immune. That includes the French rock opera “Starmania,” recently revived for the first time in decades, but France simply doesn’t have a wide repertoire of musicals to draw on: The genre was long considered minor, and too entertainment-oriented, by French theater makers.That leaves Broadway favorites, and specifically the classics — what’s missing on Paris stages, inexplicably, is more recent musicals, like “Hamilton” and “The Book of Mormon.” Carsen’s “Cabaret” isn’t actually the first version of this musical, with its book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, to be seen in Paris this century. A French translation, staged by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, was presented at another historical cabaret venue, the Folies Bergère, in 2006. But the Lido2Paris’s production, in English with subtitles, is a dry, ominous showstopper.Carsen, a renowned Canadian director, takes full advantage of the venue’s layout: The Lido was designed as a cabaret-restaurant, with tables laid out on three sides of a thrust stage, and the Kit Kat Klub, the Weimar-era Berlin venue around which “Cabaret” revolves, is right at home in this atmosphere.Before its revue closed, the Lido offered a high-end dinner service each night. (Over 150 people were laid off as part of Accor’s takeover, from restaurant staff to the permanent ensemble.) Now audience members have to trek to one of two small bars to buy a glass of champagne and nibbles, which left the auditorium feeling a little deserted.The production captures the nihilism of 1929 Berlin and the steady rise of Nazism, which some characters see as little more than a distraction, starting with cabaret performer Sally Bowles (a role made famous by Liza Minnelli, here given restless intensity by Lizzy Connolly). Clifford Bradshaw, a bisexual American writer who has come to Berlin seeking freedom and inspiration, comes to see the growing political threat — yet fails to convince Sally, despite the love between them.As the sardonic Emcee who presides over both the Kit Kat Klub and the show itself, Sam Buttery is an arresting sight from the opening “Willkommen” — bald with heavy, dark makeup, at once charismatic and blasé.Sam Buttery plays the Emcee in Lido2Paris’s “Cabaret,” and gives the production momentum.Julien BenhamouAll the soloists acquit themselves well, but Buttery and the 15-strong Kit Kat Girls and Boys lend Carsen’s production much of its momentum. The choreography, credited to Fabian Aloise, is brilliantly dynamic, its exaggerated sexual innuendo rendered grotesque by the dancers’ distorted, over-it facial expressions. The choreographed opening of the second act, in which the dancers slowly don shorts, boots and swastika armbands, transforming into a high-kicking Nazi line, is especially chilling.Near the end, in video projections, Carsen ties the rise of fascism in “Cabaret” to contemporary events, with images of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as well as protests in Western countries like France. It’s a somewhat vague conclusion for an otherwise biting production, given that, by this point, the audience has likely drawn their own parallels.“Cabaret” is worth seeing both for its merits and to say goodbye to the Lido as it existed for decades. In early February, it will close for extensive renovation, with a view to reopening next December. A spokesman for the venue said that it would retain some of its hallmarks, like the tables around the stage, and upgrade its technical equipment.The long-term plan, under Choplin, is simple: more musicals. Tourists may not take to this change of programming, since the genre is hardly associated with Paris, but French audiences seem to approve, and the applause at “Cabaret” was warm.Blow to Parisian history or not, for now, American entertainment is winning the argument. More