When the performing arts is invited to the cinema for all

“Everything is done so that you feel a spectator of the Comédie-Française”, still marvels Niel, living in the South Finistère, to the memory of his impromptu theater experience in the cinema. Passing a few days in Île-de-France to see his children, the septuagenarian tries to reserve places for the house of Molière, in Paris, where is then played Misanthrope, Directed by Clément Hervieu-Léger. The representations displaying complete, he fell back on the cinema of Massy (Essonne) where the room is broadcast live. “We take place in the room at the same time as the spectators of the Comédie-Française. We see them remove their coat and settle at the same time as us. We feel with them the delicious anticipation of the upcoming representation. The black is done in the room, we hear the three shots and the curtain rises. We are there. It’s amazing! »Enthuses the retiree.

Ubiquity

Players, but also operas, ballets, musicals, concerts and even humor shows … More and more productions from the performing arts find a second life on cinema screens. It all started in the late 2000s with an initiative by the Metropolitan Opera (MET), in New York, proposing to broadcast a dozen of its live productions in 70 countries. In France, since 2008, 160 cinemas broadcast a dozen lyrical pieces each season thanks to the Pathé Live firm, one of the three major actors of this type of event. A feat allowed by the digitization of rooms and by technologies to retransmission of images by satellite, on the principle of direct television. The Met opened the ball, soon followed by the Paris Opera, the Scala of Milan, the Bolchoi of Moscow or the Royal Opera House of London. And the formula appeals to an ever more numerous audience.

“Not everyone has the chance to live near an opera when you can easily find a cinema not far from home,” notes Roland Boudraa, director of the two cinemas of Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor), transmitting lyric and plays, to explain this success. The figures demonstrate this: in 2023, the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image (CNC) thus identified 2,056 establishments for 6,322 screens. “These are 1,692 municipalities which are equipped with at least one in activity cinema, giving direct access to the 7th art to 48.6 % of the French population,” explains the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations in a report published last September. A record in Europe!

The cost is also an important factor for spectators. France, resident of Palaiseau (Essonne) and follower of the opera on the big screen, sees in the accessibility of places one of the main attractions of the proposal. “The quality of sound and visibility are excellent, insists this former dentist. And even if the place is more expensive than a normal cinema session, it is much less than a good place in an opera. This allows me to see several lyrical shows in the year. The partner cinemas of these operations offer tickets between 20 and 30 euros and reduced rates for young people and students. For comparison, the individual average price to see a show at the Paris Opera is 114 euros.

K-POP and IMAX

Even if they generally represent less than 1 % of attendance in the cinema, these sessions, by the diversity of the shows offered, make it possible to attract and retain new audiences in the dark rooms which participate – more than 500 rooms against a few tens only about fifteen years ago. “To reach the young audience is the Grail!” »Says Thierry Fontaine. The president of Pathé Live remembers the broadcasting in 2019 of a BTS concert in 2019, one of the largest K -POP groups – pop music produced in South Korea meeting immense worldwide. “The rooms, mainly made up of young girls, were fury. The audience rose, sang, danced, howled. This is the first time I saw that. The schoolchildren are not to be outdone and largely benefit from the retransmissions of the productions of the Comédie-Française, which put online a catalog of its captures for teachers.

How is the choice of shows to broadcast? “We are still trying to innovate,” says Thierry Fontaine. With singer Mylène Farmer, we proposed the first concert at the cinema; With the Indochina group, the first show filmed with image quality and its offered by IMAX technology. Other productions are bets. This is the case with Bernadette de Lourdes – The musical show. The president of Pathé Live, from Tarbes, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, one day fell by chance on the poster of the musical at an airport. “I who often went to Lourdes with my grandfather, as a child, I was arrested,” says Thierry Fontaine. For an audience believing, Catholic, there are not many proposals in the cinema, and in shows in general. I went to see the show and I was won over. In addition to the quality of his songs and the play of actors, I was surprised by the fervor of the room where elderly and families mixed with young children. It is a show that can appeal to everyone. The production will be broadcast in the cinema on April 24 and 27, 2025.

Laugh or cry together

To the beginnings of these retransmissions, some were alarmed. Weren’t they going to kill the live performance? Wasn’t the public going to turn away from the scene? Alain Surrans, director of Angers-Nantes Opera, whose free proposals, on giant screens and outdoors seduce an ever more numerous audience, sweeps the question: “The cinema has killed neither the theater nor the opera, the overabundance of screens either. There is an audience for each of these proposals. “Thierry Fontaine adds:” The producers had a little apprehension at the beginning, but they quickly realized that the exploitation was done in stages, in a progressive and harmonious way. In 95 % of cases, we broadcast once the tour is finished and we only very rarely do advertising, before the performing arts is itself complete. There is therefore no real competition. »»

Direct or replay, remains the joy of being together in a performance hall. “The concept of sharing is essential in these experiences. It’s not the same thing to watch a humor show on your sofa as in a movie theater. It is also this collective dimension that people come to seek. They cannot necessarily afford a show or concert place, but they want to laugh or cry together, ”notes Roland Boudraa. Some programmers evoke the applause that punctuates the end of the sessions. The simple pleasure of shared emotion.