Louise

Louise (2025)

Music

A huge success when it premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1900, Gustave Charpentier’s (1860-1956) “musical novel in four acts and five scenes” was panned by the critics, who considered its depiction of female desire and its heroine’s rebellion against her family to be scandalous. In this new reading, Christof Loy (Salomé) – famous for his meticulous productions, precise direction and refined aesthetic – has detected beneath the innovative theme of female emancipation an unspoken aspect of Charpentier’s libretto: the toxic family relationship in which Louise finds herself trapped, and the hold that her possessive – even abusive – father exerts over her with the complicity of her mother. Keen to tell the story without judging the characters, the director draws the audience into Louise’s subconscious, highlighting the darker side of a society that, far from emancipating its daughters, only offers them cheap romance as a deflection from the frustrations of their limited prospects.

Director: Christof Loy

Casts

	Elsa Dreisig as Louise
	Adam Smith as Julien / Le Noctambule
	Sophie Koch as La Mère / La Première d’atelier
	Nicolas Courjal as Le Père, Le Chiffonnier
	Grégoire Mour as Un Marchand d’habits / Le Pape des fous
	Annick Massis as La Balayeuse
	Marianne Croux as Irma
	Carol Garcia as Gertrude
	Karolina Bengtsson as Camille
	Marie-Thérèse Keller as Madeleine
	Julie Pasturaud as Élise / La petite Chiffonnière
	Marion Lebègue as Suzanne / La Glaneuse de charbon
	Jennifer Courcier as Blanche, La Plieuse de journaux
	Céleste Pinel as L’Apprentie, Le Gavroche
	Frédéric Caton as Le Bricoleur

Crew