Paris’s famed Notre Dame cathedral is finally ready to reopen after a 2019 fire, and it’s reopening in style. On Saturday, December 7, the restored cathedral will reopen its doors to the world with a concert, livestreamed on STAGE+. Among the honored guests are French-Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo and American popstar and producer Pharrell Williams. French President Emmanual Macron will also be in attendance. The concert will be livestreamed Saturday at 9:30 pm CET (3:30 pm EST).
The reopening concert will also feature a bevy of talent from the world of classical music, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinists Renaud Capuçon and Daniel Lozakovich, pianists Lang Lang and Khatia Buniatishvili, and organist Olivier Latry. Opera singers Nadine Sierra, Pretty Yende, and Benjamin Bernheim will also perform, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France will be there under the direction of conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Lang will join the orchestra for the finale of Saint-Saëns’s Second Piano Concerto. Performances will take place both inside the cathedral and on the square in front of the building as its facade is bright with a light show.
The fire at Notre-Dame de Paris sparked international outcry and concern in 2019 when the photos and videos circulated around the world. While there was never any doubt that the cathedral would be repaired, it was a long and complicated process to get it completed. In 2020, workers were forced to stop for three months due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Workers weren’t even able to start repairing the inside of Notre-Dame until late 2021. The cathedral’s Grand Organ—potentially a centerpiece of this weekend’s concert—took years to repair, according to Friends Of Notre-Dame de Paris.
The concert is not the only celebration to welcome the public back into the church. On Sunday, December 8, there will be a public mass and a consecration for the new altar. Notre-Dame de Paris will then resume its normal operating schedule as of Monday, December 16, welcoming visitors from all over the world as it has done for hundreds of years.
Find out more on the STAGE+ website now.