The #IYKYK Way to Enjoy Paris? The Performing Arts, Of Course.
“Mankind can still continue to live without the Englishman, can continue without the German, can continue all too well without the Russian,” Dostoevsky wrote in Demons. “Mankind can continue without science, can continue without bread—it is only without beauty that we cannot continue, for there will be nothing at all to do in the world!”
It’s worth noting that Dostoevsky didn’t say mankind could continue without the French. Maybe that’s because there’s so much beauty to behold in Paris—much of it, to the surprise of some, outside the confines of museums. Ballet is the perfect thing for a visitor who doesn’t speak a country’s language. The Opéra National de Paris and its ballet perform at the Palais Garnier (above) and at the Opéra Bastille, and I’ve spent many nights—even with my French skills almost nonexistent—enthralled by the programming at the Théâtre du Châtelet and the Théâtre de la Ville, which face each other on the Place du Châtelet.
Theater may be easier to understand in London, but the Comédie-Française furnishes audience members glasses in which they can see subtitles in English. This year I’ve seen a glorious Cyrano de Bergerac and a mannered Macbeth, and soon I’ll catch an adaptation of Demons. On your next visit to Paris, consider exploring the city’s performing arts instead of ascending the Eiffel Tower. The view will be like nothing you’ve seen before.
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