Ah, sacred reconfinement which prevents us from going to the theater… But no worries, the theater comes to us. Here is a mix of plays, musicals, ballets and operas that are available online during this reconfinement. Let's continue to bring the world of theater to life!
Without further ado, here are 20 shows to have online during the reconfinement:
Farewell Mr. Haffman by Jean-Philippe Daguerre
Jean-Philippe Daguerre's show was staged in 2016 and two years later received 4 Molières including female and male Revelations as well as best francophone author.
The play has also been adapted for the cinema with Daniel Auteuil in the main role. The film will be released sometime in 2021.
More Farewell Mr. Haffmann, What is it about ? In Paris in 1942. Joseph Haffmann asks his employee Pierre Vigneau to run his jewelry store, if he agrees to hide it. Peter accepts but on one condition: that Joseph help Peter and his wife to have children.
The show is available for free on France TV. Not to miss !
The musical Rent of the Hope Mill Theater
Rent was scheduled to perform from October 30 to December 6 at the Hope Mill Theater in Manchester. The cast includes all the rising stars of the English musical (Millie O'Connell, Dom Hartley-Harris, Alex Thomas-Smith, Blake Patrick Anderson,…).
To learn more about the musical Rent, click here !
Unfortunately, the British re-containment decided otherwise. The last performance finally took place on November 3.
The excitement around the show was such that all the tickets sold out within hours. For this reason, the English theater decided to broadcast the show online. This version of the online show was filmed during the live performances.
Critics are unanimous: 5 stars for Rent!
A good way to support a great English theater which had to close its doors on March 17th. Since opening in 2015, the theater has struggled to bring quality musical theater performances to Manchester and many of them are moving to the West End!
You can therefore experience the show on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays between November 27 and December 20 for £ 25! Reserve your seats here !
pixel by Mourad Merzouki
Qualified by Télérama as a "visual" magic, Mourad Merzouki's show is a success wherever it goes. The French choreographer created pixel for 11 dancers from his company Käfig. The piece mixes contemporary dance, video performance, circus, and contortion. It's visually impressive, physically and emotionally.
Mourad Merzouki communicates his hip hop choreography with the interactive and 3D videos of Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne.
A delight.
You can find the show until October 18, 2022 for free on Arte TV.
An American in Paris for rent on Stage2View
ahhh, An American in Paris, the superb story of love, friendship, dance, music and celebration of the City of Light. Vincente Minnelli's 1951 film starred Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Quickly becoming a masterpiece, the film has moved generations through its choreographies, notably with the final 16-minute ballet, sumptuous. We also find the tunes of Gershwin's songs "I Got Rhythm", "S'Wonderful" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me".
To learn more about An American in Paris, it's this way.
The stage version of the musical was premiered in 2014 at the Théâtre de Châtelet. The show then flew to Broadway and then to London where it received critical acclaim. The show also won 4 Tony Awards
It is with great luck that we find the show on the new Stage2view platform. The stage version was filmed in 2017 during the London production.
You can rent the 48h movie for € 5,99. To view it, it's here !
You can find plenty of musicals filmed on this brand new platform!
The Lady of Chez Maxim in a production by Zabou Breitman
The play was at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin at the end of 2019 and includes a hell of a cast. We find Micha Lescot, Léa Drucker, André Marcon and many others. You will have the chance to see Léa Drucker sing, dance and even skate! Zabou Breitman signs a rhythmic and very colorful staging of Feydau vaudeville!
The plot: Doctor Petypon, respectable doctor, partied all night at his friend Maxim's. When he wakes up, he discovers the Môme Crevette, a dancer at the Moulin Rouge. The latter is forced to pretend to be his wife and willingly lends herself to the game. This will cause a lot of misunderstandings!
The show can be found for free on France TV until March 7, 2021. Find it here!
Turandot Puccini's last opera
Turandot is the ultimate opera composed by Puccini, which is moreover completed posthumously by Franco Alfano. The opera includes the famous aria “Nessum Norma”.
The opera follows the adventures of three suitors for Princess Turandot. To be the lucky one, they must solve three puzzles. But if they fail, then they will die. The young Prince Calaf falls in love with the princess and succeeds in all three puzzles, but in his turn offers a new challenge: if the princess guesses his name before dawn then he will agree to die.
The opera is to be seen just for the futuristic scenography, using 3D and video mapping by Franc Aleu. The show is put on in the Gran Teatre Liceù in Barcelona. During work in the theater in 1994, a fire broke out. The theater reopened in 1999 with the work of Puccini. To mark the 20th anniversary of the reopening of the theater, it is the same opera that has been put together but in a very different setting.
Available for free on Arte TV until March 7, 2021.
The Day of the Skirt
The 2008 film by Jean-Paul Lilienfeld is adapted on the stage of the Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens with a brilliant staging by Frédéric Fage. The plot follows the day of a French teacher in a suburban college who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. During a theater rehearsal, she discovers a pistol in the bag of one of her students and the situation escalates to lead to a hostage taking.
Isabelle Adjani received the César for Best Actress for this role, played here by Gaëlle Billaut-Dano.
France Tv offers to discover the stage version of the play until October 6, 2021! Find it here !
Leonard Bernstein's first opera, Trouble in Tahiti
Leonard Bernstein's 1952 opera tells the story of the disenchantment of a couple who have been married for 10 years. If this family looks perfect on the surface, Sam, the husband is more invested in his work and hobbies than in his family.
It is the first opera that Bernstein wrote and it is moreover inspired by the relationship between his parents.
A very beautiful 40-minute score to be found in full on Youtube! The opera is also available with a audio-description version.
Phaedra! by François Gremaud
The play was staged in 2017 for schools before opening to all audiences the following year. Since then, the show is sold out everywhere in France!
With François Gremaud's show, you attend a conference on Racine's most performed piece: Phaedra. The actor Romain Daroles quickly goes from speaker to actor of the play and lets himself be carried away by the work. He ends up interpreting the piece and depicts all of its facets. He reveled in the beauty of Racine's language, the strength of the characters' passions and their Greek origins.
It's a very funny show, and comedian Romain Daroles has a communicative energy. Between disgressions, puns and scenarios, the show is super fresh and ingenious: we recommend!
You can find the show in its entirety on France TV until December 12, 2020. And it's free!
Wasted, The Fabulist Sister Fox and plenty of on-demand and live Southwark Playhouse shows
The Southwark Playhouse, which is one of the coolest theaters in London, offers nearly 10 shows. 4 of them are on demand and the others will be live for exceptional evenings!
Among the shows available for free we find the rock musical Wasted, which follows the life of the Brontë sisters in a production by Adam Lenson. There are also two musical shows, Bound, and Twelfth Night and The Beast Will Rise, a series of 14 monologues by Philip Ridley.
For live shows, tickets cost £ 10 and the lineup promises to be great! Poltergeist by Philip Ridley, The Fabulist Sister Fox, a one-woman-show-musical as well as Public Domain. To find on the Southwark Playhouse website.
The Last Five Years
Also related to the Southwark Playhouse, check out the show The Last Years. The musical was on theaters in March and then again in October before being cut short due to the re-containment.
Critics have all given the show 5 stars. So we can't wait to find out, even though it's behind a screen.
The show was filmed during the performances and will be available online for 5 evenings.
This musical was written and composed by Jason Robert Brown. It traces 5 years of the life of the couple between Jamie and Cathy, which is also inspired by his marriage. The show staged in 2001 and has since been seen on stages around the world. A movie was also made in 2014 starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick.
Besides having great songs, the musical has a great dramaturgical feature. Jamie chronologically walks his story with Cathy as the young woman crosses her backwards, starting at the end. The two characters meet at the same time in the middle of the show for the only duo of the show.
To learn more about The Last Five Years, it's this way.
The show is available from November 26 to 29 for 5 performances. It will be broadcast online on the stream.theatre platform and only available on the date and time of the performance you have booked.
The show costs £ 18. Find the show on stream.theatre!
Nomad by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
The show Nomad by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui was born in 2017. The 10 dancers take us on a journey into the desert. They form a nomadic people, sculpting the sand dunes and the wind and sun that surround them. A reflection on Humanity and on the relationship between its isolated peoples and their inhospitable regions.
The show is performed by dancers from the choreographer's company, Eastman. On tour for several years, the piece has been a great success and has been very warmly received by critics.
The show was at the Théâtre de Bretagne from October 13 to 17, 2020 and following the curfew, the show was captured on the 16th. The show is available on Arte TV until October 15, 2022. Find it here.
Orpheus and Eurydice at the Opéra Comique
Aurélien Bory offers a very rich staging both emotionally and visually. For this production at the Opéra Comique and with the help of lights by Arno Veyrat, he uses many sets of mirrors and lights as well as the effect of Pepper's Ghost, play of light and mirror that makes the performers appear. like ghosts.
We also note the incredible vocal performance of the three performers, Marianne Crebassa and Hélène Guilmette in the role of lovers and Léa Desandre in the role of Love. They are accompanied by 7 circus dancers as well as the Pygmalion Orchestra and Choirs, under the musical direction of Raphaël Pichon.
A very beautiful show which allows us to discover in a new light the famous arias from the opera "Jai perd mon Eurydice" and "Lw'Air des Furies" and "Tendre Amour".
The show will also be on the stage of the Royal Opera of Versailles from March 5 to 7, 2021.
You can find the show online on Opéra Vision which also offers more than 30 operas in full on its site, and for free! Orpheus and Eurydice will be available on the platform until December 4, 2020.
The Disney musical: Tangled (Rapunzel)
This version is the cruise version of the musical Tangled, or Rapunzel in French. This 1 hour version follows the same plot as the animated film and offers shortened versions of the hits "Mother Knows Best", "When Will My Life Begin" and "I See the Light" as well as 3 original songs.
Super 1 hour show for a good moment of relaxation!
The Telephone, an opera for 2 singers and a telephone
Summer 2020 marks the first time in 73 years that the Edinburgh Festival has been canceled. To support artists, the Festival created the “My Light Shines On” initiative. This program consists of commissioning works from Scottish artists so that spectators can enjoy the theater from their homes.
La Edinburgh Festival Youtube Channel is a veritable treasure chest of chamber music concerts, sonatas and filmed concertos. You can find them for free and unlimited!
Love Winner by Olivier Py
Olivier Py tackles once again a tale of the Brothers Grimm for his show Love Winner. The director of the Avignon Festival revisits the tale “Demoiselle Maleen” and adapts it into an operetta for the 73rd edition of the Festival. Olivier Py signs here the text, the staging and even the musical composition.
Through this story, he thus reconnects with theater for young audiences, this show being recommended for over 9s.
The story tells the story of a princess locked up by her father at the top of a tower on the eve of war. She is locked up because she refused a political marriage, being already in love with a young prince from the enemy country. But it's also the love between a young gardener and a washing-up girl.
With this tale, transformed into musical theater, Olivier Py initiates young and old to the violence of the world and the force of love, always victorious. The director mixes the funny and the serious on a stage like a trestle theater, accompanied on the piano.
A great discovery to review on the Avignon Festival website.
You can also find another show from the Festival d'Avignon, The game of shadows by Jean Bellorini.
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk live
After the success of its live broadcast of Romantics Anonymous, (which we loved), the Kneehigh Theater company, is offering a new broadcast. Led by Emma Rice, the Kneehigh company offers to find The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, its creation in 2016, in partnership with the Old Vic Theater.
We find the brilliant Audrey Brisson (recently seen in Amélie) and Marc Antolin (seen in Romantics Anonymous) in the main roles.
The show follows the story between Marc and Bella Chagall, partners on the web and in life. And although they were so in love that Chagall had painted them flying over the city, their relationship was very tumultuous and the couple had to face some great historical moments.
This production is delicate and clownish, and offers a theatrical language as delicate as Chagall's painting. The colorful spectacle truly brings us into a painting by Chagall, and his songs and performers are utterly charming.
The company has set up a security system and all actors and technicians are tested for Covid before rehearsals and performances.
You can find the show LIVE online from December 2 to 5. Places cost between £ 16 and £ 31 and are available on the Kneehigh company website!
The show Drumming by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Drumming is one of the flagship ballets of choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. She created this show in 1998 for twelve dancers from her company Rosas. The contemporary dance ballet is composed to the music of the same name by Steve Reich, one of the emblematic works of minimalist music.
The show is qualified by Rosita Boisseau, a French journalist specializing in dance, as a “jewel”. Winners of two Bessie Awards, ballet has already been performed more than 150 times around the world.
The show was supposed to play from October 9 to 20 in Brussels before coming to Paris. Belgian government announced the suspension of representations until November 19. The Rosas company therefore offers us this recording recorded from its Brussels studios.
Romeo & Juliet at the Globe Theater
The Globe Theater in London offers us a 90-minute version of Shakespeare's masterpiece: Romeo & Juliet. This 2019 production was created to introduce Shakespeare to younger people.
The legendary Globe Theater has lost nearly £ 2 million per month since the start of the health crisis. So don't hesitate to support them by clicking here.
The Tragic Love Story is available on Youtube until February 2021!
The musical Bandstand
The musical is available for single dates on the stream.theatre platform until November 11.
It traces the lives of soldiers and their adjustment in their former aims at the end of World War II. They set up a jazz group accompanied by the widow of one of their fallen comrades, in order to participate in a radio competition. This beautiful work was on Broadway in 2017 and won several awards. We had the chance to see her live in 2017 and what was particularly impressive was that all the actors were playing one or more instruments, dancing and singing and the choreographic transitions were particularly well thought out! We also remember some great songs: "Love Will Come And Find Me Again" and "Nobody" and "Welcome Home"
To find out more about the musical Bandstand, it's this way !
To be found on the stream.theatre platform until 11 November 2020.