That “Gypsy” is finally making its debut in France would be noteworthy enough: It took 66 years for one of the most acclaimed works in the musical-theater canon to get there.
But there is an extra twist.
The production running Thursday through Saturday at the Philharmonie de Paris stars the soprano Natalie Dessay and her daughter, Neïma Naouri, as Rose, the stage mother to end all stage mothers, and Louise, Rose’s long-suffering older child.
“Well, that’s acting,” Dessay, 59, said when asked if there was baggage involved with bringing the show’s psychodrama to life with her daughter. “I can play the evil witch and she can play Snow White — it’s theater.”
“Yes,” Naouri, 26, interjected, “but sometimes you lose yourself in the character, and I can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction.”
They laughed before Dessay jumped back in. “It’s not any more complicated than anything else,” she said. “But above all it’s more pleasant since we know each other very well and we already have this mother-daughter relationship, so we don’t have to create it. We actually have fun with it.”
Their bond was clear in a joint video conversation from France as the pair huddled over a phone — Naouri had helped her mother turn on the camera — keeping an animated banter going the entire time.
Their close relationship extends to music making. Naouri’s father, Laurent, is a bass-baritone, and members of the family often perform together, in various configurations. (A brother, Tom, is a saxophonist.) Dessay and Laurent Naouri have occasionally teamed up, including in Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld”; their “Fly Duet” remains one of the funniest scenes to grace a stage, classical or otherwise.
That “Orpheus” production was directed by Laurent Pelly, a longtime collaborator who is also behind the new “Gypsy.” He was keen to do a musical with Dessay, who has broadened her repertoire since retiring from the opera stage, where she had been an international V.I.P., in 2013. At first he wanted “Hello, Dolly!,” but when the rights proved unavailable, he turned to “Gypsy” and Rose.
“I thought it’d be great for Natalie,” Pelly said. “The part is brilliant, moving, pathetic, terrible, monstrous.”
Dessay echoed that description, adding: “She is monstrous, of course, but at the same time I understand her — she wants her daughters to have a better life than hers and she wants to give them what she thinks of as a dream.”
Pelly and Dessay saw the Broadway version starring Patti LuPone in 2008 when they were in New York doing Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment” at the Metropolitan Opera. “I loved the score but thought the subject matter was thoroughly American and it’d never work in France,” Pelly said, alluding to the show’s vaudeville setting and Rose’s obsession with making her children stars. “But things have changed since then: You have social media, the frenzied race to easy celebrity, TV-reality shows like ‘The Voice.’ The story of ‘Gypsy’ has become relevant all over the world.”
Dessay was on board, and suggested her daughter to play Louise, first because it felt obvious but also because Neïma is, as Dessay put it, “the real musical-theater expert in the family.” (Her credits include Tzeitel in the Opéra National du Rhin’s production of the Barrie Kosky “Fiddler on the Roof.”)
All agreed that a particular challenge for American-style musicals in France was that local audiences are not used to their often ample narratives.
“What we have that’s similar is operetta and those have a teeny-tiny book,” Dessay said. “The plot is minuscule — it’s just an excuse for songs and hanky-panky.”
That is definitely not the case with the psychologically complex story Arthur Laurents wrote for “Gypsy,” whose main character’s trajectory leads to a number, “Rose’s Turn,” that Dessay described as “a full-on mad scene.”
“And I know something about those,” she added dryly, referring to one of her operatic specialties. She has even released a classical album titled “Mad Scenes.”
A bigger challenge was technical: The Pelly production (which premiered at the Opéra National de Lorraine in February and will travel again after the Paris run) has book scenes in French and musical numbers in English, which means switching back and forth between two languages with distinct rhythms and sonorities. “I have to find a spoken voice that puts me in the right tone to sing in English,” Dessay said.
Dessay said that she did not want to use her operatic voice, mentioning such Rose interpreters as Ethel Merman, Bette Midler (in a made-for-TV movie from 1993) and LuPone as inspirations. “I wanted to find my musical-theater belt,” Dessay said.
Her daughter pointed out another reason to stick with a Broadway style of singing: A classical style tends to have specific connotations. “It’d be a little odd here to have a Mama Rose with a bit of an operatic voice,” Naouri said, “because for us it’s associated with the bourgeoisie, a fairly high social class, which isn’t the case for the character.”
For now, it feels as if the mother-daughter duo is just getting started. “I dream of ‘Funny Girl’ for Neïma,” Dessay said. “I could play her mom once again — it’s a small part but that’s OK, I like it,” she added as her daughter shook her head, laughing.
Dessay was not done. “We could also do ‘Light in the Piazza’ together. I’d love that.” She started peppering Naouri with questions: What did she think of “Hamilton”?” (“Musically it’s not really my style.”) What about “Dear Evan Hansen”? (“A good show but the music’s too pop for my taste.”)
“We’re pretty old school,” Dessay said.
Then it was back to Sondheim, whom both love. Dessay is playing Mrs. Lovett in a Kosky staging of “Sweeney Todd” at the Opéra National du Rhin this summer. “They’re doing ‘Follies’ in Strasbourg next year and I warned them that it’s going to be a tough sell for a French-speaking audience but they won’t listen,” Dessay said of that production, which will be in English and directed by Pelly. “At the same time, the score is beautiful.”
“I so would love to do ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’” Naouri chimed in.
Dessay had a counteroffer: “‘Into the Woods’ — that would work in France because everybody knows fairy tales. I want to do the Witch and she’ll do Cinderella. There you go, we’ve just cast ourselves!”
