Spectacle in Paris

Paris has long been rather bored with opera. Since shortly before World War I, only a few real enthusiasts have been turning up to see the Lohengrin?, and the Pagliaccis sung against dusty backgrounds; the 2,300-seat Paris Opera House has been half empty even on gala ballet nights. But two years ago the management signed a new director, Maurice Lehmann, a man with the outsized imagination of a Cecil B. de Mille; since then, things have been looking up.

Lehmann pinned his hopes to two monster new productions: Rameau's forgotten Les Indes Galantes and Weber's beautiful but silly Oberon. "I wanted to give people plenty to look at," he says. "Les Indes has a shipwreck with thunder and lightning. In Oberon, cities appear by magic and goddesses are wafted to the clouds." Last week, the Paris public and press were devouring the new Oberon like happy children with ice cream cones.

Oberon's plot: to regain his wife, Oberon, King of the Elves, scours the earth to find a faithful couple. He finds a brave knight and his beloved who are shipwrecked escaping from Bagdad; she is captured by pirates, pursued by a sultan, rescued by her knight, and finally blessed by Charlemagne. Oberon, of course, turns up at every crucial moment to rescue his charges.

On such a flimsy plot, Lehmann drapes a super production involving 160-odd voices, 13 changes of scene, 94 stage hands, 37 electricians and some 100 supers. There is a showgirl chorus line, and eight special ballets. Flowery perfumes, concocted to match Weber's music, waft through the theater. In Act II there are no fewer than nine women suspended on nearly invisible wires above the staga ("They reminded me of airplanes waiting to land," said one reviewer).

Director Lehmarm, 59, was always mixed up with the theater. After graduation from drama school (with a first prize), he joined the famed Comedie-null soon left the formal atmosphere to become, at 26, Paris' youngest theatrical director. Stressing dazzle in his productions, he brought Paris such musical shows as Show Boat, New Moon and, lately, Annie du Far-West.

Today, as director of both the Opera and the Opera-Comique, Lehmann has been overworking, feels he needs a rest, and may not renew his contract in September. If so, Paris will remember him as the man who put opera back on its feet.

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