Patrick Sabatier

With a keen sensitivity to the demands and specificities of the American “musical”, and after the triumph of Sondheim’s Follies in 2015, the Opéra de Toulon once again embarked on a Broadway adventure with the French premiere of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, and brought back for the occasion stage director Olivier Bénézech, a major connoisseur of the genre. A true declaration of love to the city of New-York, Wonderful Town tells the tale, with a boisterous rhythm and vast amounts of jazzy tunes, of two sisters from Ohio looking for success and glory in the big city. Lighter in tone than later works like West Side Story or Candide, its smart combination of the different musical traditions one could hear when wandering in the streets of New-York, its accomplished orchestral writing and colouring, and its vivid sense of comedy earned it no less than five Tony awards when it premiered in 1953.

At the Imagerie d’Épinal, the lifeless body of the museum’s artistic director is found trapped in a lithographic press, his hands severed and his tongue torn out. The killer has placed an Épinal print from a triptych—the centerpiece of the exhibition currently on display at the Imagerie museum—on top of the body. The investigation is entrusted to Captain Alice Fournier and Commander Émile Cabat. While Alice, a native of Épinal, knows the Imagerie inside and out—her father ran it—Émile, who has transferred from the customs office in Pointe-à-Pitre to be closer to his daughter, will have to get used to local customs and traditions. Between the two of them, the chemistry is electric. But they’ll have to set aside their differences if they want to solve this case.