Les Enfants du Paradis: Paris Opera Ballet
Paris, Palais Garnier
About the Event
Les Enfants du Paradis, drawing on Jacques Prévert's scenario for the film by Marcel Carné, is dancer Étoile José Martinez's first major ballet for the Company. To an original score by Marc‐Olivier Dupin, the choreography alternates large ensembles with the intimacy of the lovers' pas de deux.
Garance, Baptiste, Frédérick Lemaître: names that remain unforgettable for every generation that has seen Marcel Carné’s 1945 film Les Enfants du paradis. In 2008, Étoile dancer and choreographer José Martinez adapted Jacques Prévert's poetic screenplay into a ballet created at the Paris Opera.
Set to Marc‐Olivier Dupin's romantic score, composed especially for the occasion, the ballet portrays the impossible love between Baptiste and Garance in a fictionalised 1830s Paris.
From the joyful crowds on the Boulevard du Temple to the backstage bustle of a theatre, through the exuberance of a carnival scene, theatre enters the realm of theatre, even spilling out of the auditorium to conquer the grand staircase of the Palais Garnier during the interval.
Drawing on dance, mime and commedia dell'arte, José Martinez infuses his choreography with the cinematic dimension of film whilst paying homage to the magic of live performance.
Cast / Production
Ballet in two acts
After the screenplay by Jacques Prévert and the film by Marcel Carné
José Martinez
Choreography and adaptation
Marc‐Olivier Dupin
Music (1954)
Kevin Rhodes
Conductor
François Roussillon
Adaptation
Ezio Toffolutti
Set design
Agnès Letestu
Costume design
Pascal Neniez
Lighting design
Address
Palais Garnier, 8, rue du Scribe, Paris, France — Google Maps
