Paris: Lang Lang, Place des Vosges, 31 Oct 2013

Wes and Marlow in Paris

31 October 2013

It is Thursday, October 31, Halloween in Paris. We are inside the Theatre des Champs-Élysées. In thirty minutes, we will hear Mr. Lang Lang play Chopin while the soloists of the Houston Ballet dance beside and around his piano.

This theatre was built in 1913. In it's first season, on this stage, Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe gave a performance of a new ballet by a young composer. His name was Igor Stravinsky. His ballet was called, Le Sacre du Printemps. The Rite of Spring. It ends with a young woman in a dance so frenzied that it kills her. The premiere scandalized the music and the dance world. So primal. So sensuous. That was in nineteen-thirteen. We once met a woman, Beatrice Wood, who was at that famous performance in this exquisite theater and she told us what it was like.

The theater is looking good in it's hundredth year. It is Art Deco. Elegant. Gold leaf, Lalique glass, marble, rose-color walls. Every seat on the first two levels is an individual armchair: wood framed with brass tacks and velvet upholstery.  We are sitting in them.

one hour later ....

It is lovely program. Mr. Lang Lang gets to play and play. Uninterrupted. One beautiful Chopin work after another while the dancers dance.  Only a few streets away from this theater, delicate and sickly Frederic Chopin lived, taught, composed and induced swoons from the elite who attended the salons where he played, where he dazzled. Tonight, too, has a salon ambiance. The interior of the theater is round. The chairs are typical of a living room. The lighting gives the room a warm glow. It feels intimate.

The sixteen dancers began and ended the show together on stage.  In between, there were solos, duos, trios and quartets. Typically, during a dance concert the musicians will follow the dancers. In this instance, with a celebrity piano soloist, the dancers were obliged at times to follow the piano when he'd get in a lickity split mood. In these days when dance companies cannot afford live musicians, the Houston Ballet must be under a lucky star.

We have been in Paris for one week. Everyday we walk in the Place des Vosges, a square with former royal apartments and a park in the center. The park has double rows of trees on the perimeter and in each corner is a two-tiered fountain and lawns. In the center of it all is a circle of chestnut trees surrounding a stone statue of King Louis the Thirteenth on his horse (which is anatomically correct).

The current statue was erected near 1830 as a replacement for a bronze statue installed in the sixteen-thirties. That statue was pulled down and destroyed during the French Revolution.

There is in the Place des Vosges an outstanding hotel, the Pavillon de la Reine. We stayed there twenty-five years ago, in our youth. We stopped in this week to have a look, rekindle a memory. If one wants to splurge it is a great place to stay. You'd never have to leave the square. There are restaurants, an art museum, the park to promenade in, and there is the residence of Victor Hugo, the author of Les Miserables.

Place des Vosges is an elite address. The apartments, no longer royal, are still palatial. On the ground floor are various restaurants. I peeked into one. It is called L'Ambroise. Sumptuous. Luxurious. Intimate. Living room like. Velvet, mahogany, brocade, gold leaf, every material the best of it's kind. I read the posted menu. Here are the general prices in US dollars: appetizers, $130; main course, $200; dessert, $110. And that is the Place des Vosges.

Wes and Marlow in Paris
31 October 2013