Netflix doesn’t qualify as a solo offender when it comes to Gallic stereotypes, as three musical theater works on the city’s stages show.
PARIS — There’s been no shortage of complaints from Parisians about the Netflix series “Emily in Paris.” Yet an endless stream of clichés about the city — from cafes by the Louvre to chain smoking and ménages à trois — isn’t merely the province of Americans. French artists indulge, too; at home, however, rose-tinted nostalgia hits differently.
Musical theater has been a frequent offender, and recently, mythical visions of Paris have been on offer at two rival playhouses. At the Théâtre du Châtelet, the city often felt like the protagonist of “Cole Porter in Paris,” a musical set in the 1920s; the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées roped the designer Christian Lacroix into lending period glamour to Jacques Offenbach’s operetta “La Vie Parisienne” (“Parisian Life”).
And the stereotypes woven into their fabrics, by and large, are the same. Luxury fashion? Check. Casual philandering? Check. Entitled members of the bourgeoisie? Check.
“Cole Porter in Paris,” especially, is an odd offering. Created and directed by Christophe Mirambeau, it is a jukebox musical of Porter hits. The songs are uneasily stitched into a plot about the years the composer spent in the French capital, from 1917 to 1928. His love for the city ran deep: Porter’s first Broadway hit was called simply “Paris,” and he often turned to this formative period for inspiration after his return to the United States.
Mirambeau draws from Porter’s large oeuvre — inserting only George and Ira Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” as a bonus — to conjure nostalgic visions from les années folles (“the crazy years,” as the 1920s are known in French). The result is a breathless tour of a decade of French culture, filtered through an American sensibility and repackaged.
“I love Paris every moment,” three singers inform us in the opening number, drawn from Porter’s 1953 musical, “Can-Can.” The…
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