Claude Lelouch to film next Stéphane Rolland show in his next feature movie

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 8, 2023

Lights, camera, couture! Claude Lelouch will film the next Stéphane Rolland haute couture show as part of the opening sequence of his next feature movie.

The show and shoot will be staged inside the Opera Garnier on July 4, the second day of the four-day Paris haute couture shows for the Autumn/Winter 2023 collections, staged in the first week of July.
 
Rolland’s next couture collection outing will be a homage to Maria Callas, hence its location, the couturier revealed to FashionNetwork.com.

The movie will be the 50th by the veteran 85-year-old director, best known for A Man and A Woman, which won the 1966 Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes in 1966.
 
“The National Opera of Paris, the Palais Garnier, will shine with its gold to pay homage to the diva assoluta Maria Callas, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth,” said Rolland.

“Claude Lelouch's cinema rocked my childhood but also my first emotions. There is no director more sensitive and romantic. His way of talking about love is unique. To meet him is a privilege, to listen to him, to understand him and above all to be seduced,” added the couturier.
 
Lelouch plans to film his cast at the show, to be used in the opening sequence of what may be his final film. According to the authoritative film platform IMDB, Lelouch is currently preparing a film entitled Finalement… It is expected to star Sandrine Bonnaire, Michel Boujenah, Kad Merad and Elsa Zylberstein.
 
The opening scene and the credits will have Rolland’s next haute couture as its backdrop, according to the Paris-based house. Boasting a ceiling by Marc Chagall, seven-ton bronze and crystal chandelier, legendary marble staircase and neo-classical baroque Napoleon III architecture, the Palais Garnier was the original setting of The Phantom of the Opera.

“Setting up that scene, the start of his movie is endless creative sharing, but I can't say more, his biggest secret that he's ever taught me is the value of spontaneity in portraying truth on screen,” confided Rolland.
 
Rolland is hailing the next show as “a real meeting of three poets, for moments out of time. An exceptional audience with artists, actors, where each will play his own extra or starring role for a film whose only lie is that it will not be the last!”
 
Rolland is no stranger to opera house shows. He recently built his couture catwalk in Chatelet Theatre, where Les Ballets Russes first performed, and where Stravinsky debuted Petrushka. Now he wil focus on Palais Garnier, the setting for some of Callas' greatest performances.
 
“We are conscious of this privilege and prepare in secret this major responsibility of paying tribute to an extraordinarily lyrical personality, and an icon of the social life of a Paris that we want to reinvent. We also want to celebrate a director with infinite sensitivity, in love with Paris and with life. Isn't it also the mission of Haute Couture?” mused Rolland.