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Where can happiness be found? At the Lido in
Paris ! |
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Where can you find happiness in Paris? On the
world’s most beautiful street... the Champs-Elysées. At this
point, no one knows if it’s that famous avenue that has made the
Lido so well-known, or vice-versa. Over the past 58 years, what
is probably the world’s most grandiose cabaret has been host to
the world’s greatest celebrities. Born on the Champs-Elysées in
1946, the Lido and its Bluebell Girls have expressed “Parisian
Spangles”, “Parisian Champagne”, “Parisian Pleasures” and
today’s “Parisian Happiness”. |
In fact, the Lido is the only
place in Paris to offer audiences shows that all speak the
universal language of pure happiness. What sets the Lido and its
new show apart from other cabarets is its distinctive “Parisian
touch”, which can be seen not only in the dozens of beautiful
girls on stage, but in its audience as well.
From the very beginning, its public has always included
more fashionable Parisians than out-of-towners. Another
distinctive Lido feature is its cuisine. The chef Philippe
Lacroix offers customers a cuisine as refined as that of Paris’
best restaurants.
A spectacular show and “haute cuisine” might have been
sufficient for some people, but Lido managers, Frank and Carl
Clerico, wanted to take excellence a step further. For their
show, they sought out the know-how and creativity of famous
craftsmen and designers who have contributed to the glory of
French high fashion: embroiderer François Lesage, feather master
André Lemarié, milliner Michel, Clairvoy shoes and Swarovski
jewellery.
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The “Bonheur” (happiness) show called for years
of preparation, an investment of 9 M€ and the feverish
dedication of a team that worked non-stop right up until its
press debut. The show’s success is due to a lot of hard work
and the savvy blending of art, technology and beauty.
Artistic Director Pierre Rambert wrote and directs this
story of a “bird-woman” who arrives on a cloud of feathers
from a mythical place where happiness does not exist. Along
with the audience, she discovers the meaning of happiness by
travelling to the four worlds of Woman, Paris, India and the
Cinema. Composer Jean-Claude Petit successfully completed
his mission of writing “happiness music” that makes people
feel truly happy.
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Charlie Mangel and Arnaud de Segonzac
needed 150 craftsmen and three months of work to create the
show’s 23 different types of scenery, including: a cathedral
nave of light, a staircase that is more than five metres
long, a private jet that flies over the public and lands on
stage, a fashion show...and more.
Fabrice Kebour, known as “Mr. 100,000 Watts”,
designed the lighting, sparks and special
effects. The famous choreographers Craig Revel
Horwood and Mic Thompson use their graceful
art to express Pierre Rambert’s story.
Statuesque head dancer Sabine Hettlich (1.77
meters tall) is gorgeous and also has a good
head on her shoulders.
To make it even more beautiful, Alexandre
Zouari created her hairstyle and Stéphane
Marais (high fashion’s make-up artist) does
her make-up. The “Bonheur” show includes 600
costumes designed by Edwin Piekny. It took 18
months to create 140 patterns and produce the
fabulous costumes of luxurious material,
embroidery, feathers and dazzling glass
gemstones. Wardrobe mistress Mine Barral
Vergès will tell you that the thong is the
most important element because it supports the
costume’s entire weight.
It is no surprise that this show reflects
high-fashion style because she has worked with
the world’s greatest designers, such as
Thierry Mugler. In the words of master
embroiderer François Lesage (who dresses the
head dancer): “Each dress represents 1,000
hours of the same kind of hand-embroidery we
do for high fashion.” Dior’s and Channel’s
most sumptuous evenings bear the mark of
François Lesage’s genius and the seven
dazzling “jewelled dresses” he created for the
head dancer are destined to enflame the Lido’s
stage for 1,800 nights (the show should run
for 5 years).
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Honouring the cinema, the “Marilyn sweater”
appears to have “transparent embroidery” on a
diamond and jet background. The show’s voyage to
India includes dancers wearing costumes
embroidered by Caroline Valentin. Their
luxurious braiding is decorated with precious
stones that were sewn on one-by-one. Each of
Maryse Roussel’s fourteen “flower hats” occupied
five pairs of busy hands and called for more
than 40 hours of silk-painting and embroidery.
Under a cathedral nave
of light, each Bluebell Girl wears
a different variety of “flower hat” (rose,
camellia, orchid, iris, poppy, etc.).
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Each giant hat (90 centimetres wide)
necessitated the efforts of five
different artists (watercolour expert Genève
Cotte, who painted the material, embroiderer
Caroline Valentin, jeweller Pierre Annez and
sculptor Michel Carel, who gave Maryse Roussel’s
designs their shapes. For its tantalizing
feathers, the Lido again chose the country’s
very best craftsmen: Février, Lemarié,
John Swift and André Kemp.
More than 9,000 pheasant feathers were needed for the
show’s costumes. The show’s wigs were “made in England”.
Linda McKnight coiffed the Bluebell Girls and the dancers.
She also designed the cat, gangster-cat and fashionable
cat masks, as well as the hairstyles of such mythical
stars as Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and the legendary
main characters of Fellini’s “La Strada”.
For Antoine Clairvoy, who has been creating Lido’s
footwear for 40 years, shoes are performers’ working
tools. He designs and handcrafts over 500 pairs of shoes
(35 pairs of
15 different models) for each new show. 60,000 Swarovski
crystals were needed for the 600 different pieces
of stage jewellery created by
Pierre Annez. For the Indian tableaux, 150,000 beads were
needed
for the 15 sets of jewellery chiselled by Marina Gendre.
Sparkling jewels are an integral part of the
Lido’s magic and all of the Bluebell Girls’ jewellery in
the “Bonheur” show were handmade by Pierre Annez: 180
pairs of earrings, 164 bracelets, 47 necklaces, 40
brooches, 89 shoe ornaments, 72 dazzling armbands and six
leotards that are decorated with 36,000 crystal stones.
Marina Gendre reigns over the show’s voyage to India,
which takes spectators to Shiva’s temple and presents the
legend of the 7-headed White Horse. She chiselled 300 sets
of jewellery using 150,000 beads, lotus flowers,
multicoloured stones and a “maharaja Cartier” style. For
the “Arc-en-ciel” (rainbow) tableau, the legs, arms and
backs of its fifteen dancers are decorated with eight rows
of jewellery for which 42,900 beads were needed! But, as
dazzling as the spectacle on stage may be, the Lido’s
meals are equally spectacular!
Its champagnes are the very best. Almost 300,000 bottles
are uncorked at the Lido each year to punctuate life’s
happiest moments. A staff of a hundred head waiters and
waiters, wearing black uniforms designed by Franck Boclet
for Francesco Smalto, serve the Lido’s 900 merry-makers. T |
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