Notre Dame au Châtelet

On a Sunday in March, around 5pm, a quick walk before the fateful 6pm curfew led me to the side of Notre-Dame; silence, the street empty, the weather gloomy, and above all, that smell of burning intensified by the humidity! And then, the strange sensation of this immense edifice wounded but above all, now rendered silent.

I went back to my hotel, and let my imagination run off on a creative wander. The next day, I called Châtelet to propose a simple but slightly crazy project: to give voice to Notre-Dame, for one evening, by recreating the interior of the burnt cathedral on the stage, thanks to mapping. By ringing the bells in Place du Châtelet and filling the Theatre with the smell of the burnt building, I want to make the music of a ghostly service heard through Gounod, Saint-Saëns and the Concert Spirituel choir.
Hervé Niquet