The Marriage of Figaro, showing at the Palais Garnier from now until the end of the year, is one of those ballets and operas that are perfectly placed on the to-do-in-Paris list. That’s because it’s so quintessentially Parisian in soul as well as story. Sure, it does have a Spanish setting … But Mozart based […]
Paris History
In Search of the Paris of Dangerous Liaisons
The latest version of Dangerous Liaisons (below; currently streaming on Starz in the US, Prime Video in the UK and Stan in Australia) is a Bridgerton-style (read: steamy scenes and heaving corsets) origin story of the classic French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The series, filmed in Prague, is set in Paris of […]
Vive la Liberté! Where to See the Statue of Liberty in Paris
For an icon that is so quintessentially American in spirit, the Statue of Liberty is also so very French at heart. A little history to explain … In 1871, the French republican politician Edouard de Laboulaye approached sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who had an interest in colossal statuary, with a big idea. The Americanophile envisioned […]
Feast for the Senses: Paris’s Exquisite Art Nouveau Restaurants
Art Nouveau was a decorative style of applied art that flowered in Paris from around 1890 through to the First World War. And flowering was the operative word, for Art Nouveau was inspired by the flowing forms and soft shades of nature — think tendrils, lilies and dragonflies; pale green finishes and shimmering floral mosaics. […]