Big success for 'A Little Night Music' in Paris

(AP) — French audiences used to turn up their noses at Broadway-style musicals. Has a new staging of "A Little Night Music" won them over at last?

Parisian theatergoers and critics are heaping praise on the first-ever French production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's tale of romantic intrigues and escapades based on the Ingmar Bergman film "Smiles of a Summer Night."

It stars Greta Scacchi as celebrated actress Desiree Armfeldt and Leslie Caron as her mother, the worldly wise Madame Armfeldt.

La Croix newspaper's Web site dubbed the English-language production "a well-deserved triumph." It said the audience at Monday's premiere gave Sondheim "one of those spontaneous standing ovations that mean both 'bravo' and 'thank you.'"

Le Figaro newspaper's headline read: "Stephen Sondheim, the giant of Broadway in Paris at last."

"A Little Night Music," directed by Lee Blakeley, is playing at the Theatre du Chatelet in the heart of Paris, which has lately played a big role in persuading France to get over its historic skepticism about musical theater.

An English-language production of "The Sound of Music" recently ran for five weeks at Chatelet to rave reviews.

Amazingly, the theater will stage the French revolutionary tale "Les Miserables" for more than a month starting in May — in English. The musical's original version was in French, but it never had the same overwhelming impact as the version later made famous in London and then Broadway.

Chatelet's director, Jean-Luc Choplin, says he wanted to put Broadway in the spotlight in 2009-2010 because it "has produced so many masterpieces and artists of renown" but "has so rarely been honored in France."

Besides dancer-actress Caron, star of the classic 1950s movie musicals "An American in Paris" and "Gigi," and Scacchi, the cast includes Lambert Wilson as Desiree's longtime lover.

Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper said Caron "wears her age with noblesse and energy."

Caron has been working hard to master the role's difficult singing part. She recalled singing in "Grand Hotel" in Berlin and "hating it."

"This is different," she told Le Figaro. "I'm an old lady, I don't need to have a pretty voice. What counts are the words."

"A Little Night Music" runs at the Theatre du Chatelet through Saturday.

A revival of "A Little Night Music" currently is playing to hefty business on Broadway. It stars Catherine Zeta-Jones as Desiree and Angela Lansbury as Madame Armfeldt.