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Review: With ‘The Paris Opera,’ a Peek Behind the Curtain

A scene from the documentary “The Paris Opera.”Credit...Film Movement
The Paris Opera
Directed by Jean-Stéphane Bron
Documentary
1h 50m

The documentary “The Paris Opera” risks redundancy. After all, Frederick Wiseman, one of nonfiction cinema’s masters, already explored the institution’s ballet company in “La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet” (2009). “The Paris Opera,” which employs similar observational methods, demonstrates the invisibility of Mr. Wiseman’s technique — his genius for drawing out his themes from long scenes of meetings and performances.

Covering a wider swatch of the institution more swiftly, “The Paris Opera” feels at once sprawling and insufficiently patient. Even so, it spans a pivotal stretch: The filmmaker, Jean-Stéphane Bron, captured the Paris Opera while it adjusted to the leadership of a new director, Stéphane Lissner, who took over in 2014 and is shown presiding over a period that included the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.

The film primarily deals with the institution’s daily challenges, from labor issues to the appropriate cost of a ticket. Mr. Lissner expresses frustration as Benjamin Millepied decides whether to resign as the director of dance after a little more than a year in that position. (Mr. Millepied ultimately left, although the causes of his departure receive superficial treatment.)

At its most fun, “The Paris Opera” functions as a stealth backstage chronicle, notably when the man singing the part of Hans Sachs in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” calls in sick, setting off a scramble to find a last-minute understudy somewhere in Europe. The baritone Michael Kupfer-Radecky assumes the task with humor as bountiful as his voice.

The Paris Opera
Not rated. In French and English, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Generous Peek Behind the Curtain. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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