October, Paris’s Most Culture-Minded Month

October is Paris’s most culture-minded month.

September may represent the official rentrée, France’s back to school, back to work, back to politics, back to books, back to the courthouse, back to the museum time of year, but the truth is that Parisians don’t get into the cultural mood until the weather encourages them to put on a scarf or at least a jacket. A little rain helps.

Parisians use the month of September to get reacquainted with friends unseen over summer, to accept with a shrug the season’s tax payment and the new cost of a metro ticket, and to make appointments with plumbers, electricians, doctors, lawyers, and the unemployment office.

It was a beautiful and dry September, giving Parisians an unexpected extra bit of t-shirts and warmth before bringing the duvet out from storage. Now autumn has arrived; the scarves and jackets and umbrellas are out, and with them the cultural floodgates of Paris are open.

I could tell without leaving my building that there was a general call to culture because invitations to openings and opening nights in museums, theaters, and galleries began arriving in my mailbox, both postal and electronic. And a friend called me up to say that he’d just been given two tickets to the opening night at the opera, would I like to go. Uh, sure!

October is the only month of the year—and a full 31 days at that—without a whiff of vacation, unless the Toussaint/All Saint’s Day (Nov. 1) vacation lets the kiddies out of school a few days early. It’s culture time!

The art season

Thanks to gallery openings, one could spend the first few weeks of autumn in Paris surviving on nothing but hors d’oeuvres and Champagne. Despite that attraction, it’s hard for galleries to get their voice heard over the call to art on radio, television, magazine covers, and billboards put out by the city’s museums at this time of year.

The season’s blockbuster art show is Renoir in the 20th Century at the Grand Palais (until Jan. 4). The posters show the kind of rosy-cheeked girl that is immediately recognized as shorthand for post-Impressionist Renoir at the turn of the century. It should also be seen as a warning that attending the Renoir show will be like going to a dress sale at Macy’s, first the wait outside then the elbowing inside: men beware! Still, if interested and if you know the exact time you’d like to go, you should by all means order your ticket in advance.

Another major draw, though less crowded, is Titien, Tintoretto, Veronese… Rivalry in Venice at the Louvre (until Jan. 4).

There’s also—take a deep breath—Bruegel, Memling, Van Eyck at the Jacquemart-André Museum (until Jan. 11), The Subversion of Images at the Pompidou Center (until Jan. 11), The Dutch Golden Age: From Rembrandt to Vermeer at the Pinacothèque (until Feb. 7; click here for my review), Sacred Arts of Bhutan at the Guimet Museum (until Jan. 25), James Esnor and Art Nouveau Revival at the Orsay Museum (until Feb. 4), Matisse & Rodin at the Rodin Museum (until Feb. 28), Teothihaucan, City of the Gods at the Quai Branly Museum (until Jan. 24), and Chasing Napoleon at the Palais de Tokyo (until Jan. 17).

Culture by night

Aside from Wednesday and Friday evenings (until 10pm) at the Louvre, Thursday evening at the Pompidou (until 11pm) and at the Orsay (until 9:30pm), museums are a daytime activity. Yet the real return to culture in Paris is takes place in the evening, under dimmed lights

It’s evening entertainment—stage, screen, restaurant, cabaret, club—that best defines culture in Paris as we head toward the end of Daylight Saving Time (last Sunday in October in Europe). After all, Paris isn’t called The City of Light(s) because it’s a particularly sunny place but because it was a forerunner to the well-lit city, and only a well-lit city could draw the general population out from their home or local bar or favorite bordello and into the theater.

I am writing this after having ventured out of my neighborhood for two shows over the weekend. First I attended the start of the month-long run of the one-man show of impersonator Yves Lecoq, well known in France for his impersonation of politicians, singers, and media types. Yves Lecoq is an excellent impersonator, whose Chirac—his claim to fame—is unbeatably on-the-mark and funny, but there’s no need to describe the show further since readers of France Revisited are an unlikely audience for this show. As was I. I mention it, though, as a personal note to say that it struck me during the show, somewhat disturbingly I might add, that I’d been living in Paris long enough to recognize all of the impersonations, including the past three presidents, old and aging singers, and leaders of political parties that receive 2% of the vote, a thought that gave me the chills. Luckily there were hors d’oeuvres and Champagne afterwards (it was the press opening) to soothe that thought.

The next night I attended the opening of the Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s opera Die Tote Stadt (La Ville morte; The Dead City) at the Bastille Opera, thanks to the aforementioned friend with an extra ticket. I’m not much an opera fan, can’t tell a Puccini from a Rossini, but after the performance I found myself describing it using a French word that I rarely use in public: sublime.

The National Opera of Paris, comprising both the Bastille Opera and the Garnier Opera, has kicked off the season with Giselle andMireille at Garnier and Wozzeck (already come and gone), Die Tote Stadt, Le Barbier de Séville, and L’Elixer d’amour at Bastille, to be followed in November by La Bohème and Salomé, with much more through the 2009-2010 season.

I have written in the past about how French theater typically lacks novelty but nevertheless offers some excellent productions and how it’s a pity that the language barrier keeps foreign visitors away from some fine productions, so I won’t replay those comments here. I note, however, that theater is indeed one of the major cultural entertainment outlets of October.

Musicals, even in French, are naturally more accessible to English-speakers. Far more accessible are musicals. Mozart, L’Opéra Rock, is underway at the Palais des Sports de Paris until Nov. 29 and Le Roi Lion (The Lion King) is now into its third season at Théâtre Mogador. The wider season of musicals won’t start until November though, leading off with Zorro (Nov. 6-Jan. 31) at Les Folies Bergères. The new flesh-light-and-sound show Désirs at Le Crazy Horse isn’t too difficult to understand either, and gives plenty to think about. (Tip for men negotiating travel plans with their wives. Tell her: OK, I’ll go to the Renoir exhibit if you’ll go to the Crazy Horse.)

Theatre du Chatelet, has one of the best and most approachable programs for foreign visitors, with a line-up for the 2009-2010 season that includes The Sound of Music (Dec. 6 – Jan. 3), Norma (Jan. 18-28, 2010), A Little Night Music (Feb. 15-20), Treemonisha(March 31-April 9), and Les Misérables (May 26-July 4).

Whatever you preferred form of entertainment this fall, with our without hors d’oeuvres and Champagne, I hope it leaves you with a taste of the sublime.