Seen Live: Le Bal des Vampires

My favorite vampires (the non-sparkling, dancing ones) descended on Paris, France. I hadn’t seen an official version since 2011 (Seinajöki, Finland), the missus not since 2004 (Hamburg), the boy wonder and my brother hadn’t seen the show at all, so a road trip was in order.

It took a taxi, an early train to Rotteram, a Thalys and a couple of hours to get to Gare du Nord in Paris. (Fun fact: Rotterdam-Paris, France takes less time than Rotterdam-Leeuwarden by train. Good thing we’re not living there anymore. Anyway:) From Gare du Nord it was a quick stroll to a lovely apartment on the Rue de la Fayette, which my brother had skillfully arranged. (A massive thanks is in order, and he knows it.)

Since we had a show to see that night, we didn’t have much time to see the sights, so we went through Galeries Lafayette to their rooftop terrace for some views. Then, off to diner and a show:

Le Bal des Vampires

It was, as expected, très magnifique. The singing, the cast, the staging (this version was directed by Roman Polanski, and it showed), the whole-shebang. Even though my grasp of the language is a bit flakey, I was able to pick up a few details of the text and the jokes here and there, and it seemed to work well. Even adding more Chagal (my least favorite character) worked. His pas de problème! when he took down the cross at the end of the ballroom scene was a nice touch. The only quibble I had was with the ending of L’insatiable appétit: they cut the final verse, where Krolock turns to the audience, warning them There is a prediction that I now will make and I’m sure I will be right: When the next millennium finally comes the god most worshiped in this world will be the god of appetite….

Which brings us to Stéphane Métro. Boy, can he sing:

(And looking at these clips, I wouldn’t mind all of that on a shiny disk. No, sir, not at all.)

No, excellent, excellent show.

The next two days we had time for the sights: we hit all the mayor ones. The Sacre Cœur (including a climb to the top of the dome), the Arc de Triomphe and Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the Notre Dame, the Eiffeltower and the Louvre. Due to the sheer size and the limited amount of time we had to skip large sections but, hey, we saw the Egyptian and Roman wings, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. And it’s an excuse to go back. Plus, I got to check off number 92 from the list.

Excellent, excellent trip. And I didn’t even mention the food.

(There are some more pictures.)

Seen live
Le Bal des Vampires at Théâtre Mogador, Paris, France on October 18th, 2014