Right in the Heart of Paris

As soon as the curtain dropped on the performance of Bellini's Norma, fist fights erupted, insults bounced be tween boxes, and the grandly helmeted Gardes Republicaines clanked into action. One bejeweled matron tore the glasses off a startled young man next to her; another dug her fingernails into her adversary's Balenciaga decollete. Dress Designer Yves Saint Laurent dealt his neighbor a smart kick in the shins. Monaco's Princess Grace, along with Charlie Chaplin, his wife and his brood, fled for the exits. Aristotle Onassis and Rudolf Bing stayed on to applaud. The tumult raged for a full 30 minutes. Then at 2 a.m., the object of it all, Maria Callas, slipped out the stage door of the Paris Opera, ducked into her flower-strewn limousine, and purred off into the balmy Paris night.

Pro-and anti-Callas factions have been squaring off ever since the celebrated diva opened in Norma a month ago. But the big uproar began when at one performance she reached for a high C and nothing came out, eliciting a cry of "Take her to the cloakroom!" from the gallery. Despite the furor, Callas and Norma were judged a triumph by the Paris critics. WHO CARES ABOUT A LITTLE B-FLAT, headlined Paris Presse. This week, at the conclusion of Norma's run, everyone agreed that Director Georges Auric, 65, who was hired two years ago on his promise to "bring a breath of new life" to the Paris Opera, had delivered the most exciting season in recent memory.

Tourists Only. When Auric first took on the weighty title of Administrateur de la Reunion des Theatres Lyriques Nationaux, he took on a ponderous load of problems as well (TIME, April 27, 1962). Mired in a vast swamp of bureaucracy, militant unions and second-rate talent, the state-operated Paris Opera had foundered helplessly for nearly two decades. Five postwar administrators had promised revolution, only to sink quietly into the morass. Some tried staging productions `a la Folies-Bergere, featuring flights of ballerinas being hoisted to heaven on wires, madly flapping their arms and showering rose petals while spray guns hissed perfume into the audience. But the audiences hissed right back, and the Paris Opera, a towering rococo palace covering three acres right in the heart of the city, remained a flop.

Vowing to change all that in short order or else resign, Auric started boldly by scheduling Alban Berg's fiercely modern Wozzeck. "If I am not able to mount this production," he declared, "I will know that nothing can be done for the National Opera here." He demanded an unprecedented 35 rehearsals, grappled successfully with eleven labor unions (guardians of the Opera's bloated staff of 1,100, including 95 stagehands, 35 firemen, 32 electricians, 30 wardrobe mistresses), but still lacked funds for his crash program.

New Era. Undaunted, Auric, who lives in the shadow of the Elysees Palace, marched across the street to have a word with an influential neighbor--General Charles de Gaulle. "We understood each other perfectly," says Auric, chomping on his cigar. "I just said to him, 'General, I need money.' Then I explained the situation, and everything went off very well."

Wozzeck was a smash. "How long," mused L'Express, "has it been since L'Opera de Paris has offered its public a work of such strength, executed with such care, love and precision down to the slightest detail? Not since the war certainly." Hiking the cost of tickets up to a high of $16 for Norma and brazenly importing big-name, high-priced foreign artists in excess of the legal quota (by government decree not more than 10% of the singers can be foreign), Auric mounted new productions of Tannhaeuser, Don Carlos and The Damnation of Faust. After the first two years, critics were heralding "a new era."

"It's still too early to tell," insists Auric, mindful that many of the old problems, such as the regulation limiting rehearsal time to a mere three hours daily, still exist. But despite his caution, the signs are all good. Parisians queued up before dawn to get tickets to Norma, and a black market in seats is prospering nicely.

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