Letter from Paris


Our friend and colleague Sarah Dallas, editor of Cities Guide on Economist.com, sends us a first letter from Paris:

“La rentrée” is a serious matter in Paris. From late August, as families reappear after three-week holidays, and shops and bistros gingerly roll back their shutters, the city begins to bristle with a back-to-school charge. This year, the sense of anticipation is especially palpable: President Nicolas Sarkozy made a stunning three-month debut; what will the man, dubbed “the human bomb” by the New Yorker, do next? And then there is the matter of the mayoral elections. Will Bertrand Delanoë, the environmentally-minded socialist mayor, sail into a second term next March, or will Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party come up with a candidate sparkling enough to swing this essentially conservative city back to the right?

On the cultural front, this autumn’s leading exhibitions include a display of paintings at the Musée du Luxembourg by Arcimboldo, an unnervingly surreal 16th-century court painter who made his name with portraits composed of still-life objects (fruits, grains, books). If that doesn’t tempt (some of the paintings are oddly unappetising), the Musée Jacquemart André has an astonishing collection of works by Frangonard in its 19th-centry palace, while the Musée d’Orsay is profiling Gustave Courbet, a 19th-century pioneer of Realism. The show includes the groundbreaking “Burial at Ornans”, a huge canvas which Courbet saw as his “burial of Romanticism”.

On the other side of the river, two orchestras currently in dazzling form swoop into the refurbished Salle Pleyel: Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (October); and Antonio Pappano’s London Symphony Orchestra (November). Opera and ballet fans will have to wait until 2008 for this season’s big hitters (such as a visit from the Bolshoi Ballet), but French-speaking theatre-goers should note a daring new production of “Cyrano de Bergerac”, which will be performed in 20 different venues in Paris, including Sainte-Chapelle (of the famous stained-glass windows) and the city’s Oscar Niemeyer-designed communist party headquarters.

After a drizzly summer, the sun is shining and there is promise in the air. France is back on the global stage, and Parisians are sashaying into September looking decidedly jaunty. Many will have tucked into their bags a copy of the season’s most talked-about paperback: "L'aube, le soir ou la nuit" ("Dawn, Evening or Night"), a portrait of the limelight-loving president during his election campaign, by Yasmina Reza, a French playwright (whose works include "Art"). The New York Times calls it "fall’s literary sensation".

Moreover  Fine art  Music  Paris  

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