The Opera!, a contemporary musical reimagining of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, hits French cinemas on September 2, 2026. Davide Livermore and Paolo Gep Cucco turn the poet’s descent into the Underworld into a fantastical spectacle powered by soaring arias from the operatic repertoire, featuring Vincent Cassel, Fanny Ardant, Rossy de Palma and Caterina Murino.
In this fresh take, Orpheus and Eurydice are about to marry when a gunshot abruptly ends the young woman’s life. Crushed by grief, Orpheus refuses to give up on her and sets off to find her at the Grand Hades Hotel, a contemporary riff on the realm of the dead. His journey brings him face to face with several mythological figures—and his own fears—in a world where storytelling, song, dance, and digital scenery play off one another.
The two lovers are portrayed by Valentino Buzza and Mariam Battistelli. Vincent Cassel lends his features to Charon, the ferryman charged with guiding the dead to the Underworld, while Fanny Ardant embodies Proserpine. Erwin Schrott plays Pluto; Rossy de Palma appears as one of the Parcae, and Caterina Murino takes on the role of the concierge at the Grand Hades Hotel.
This structure allows the film to transcend a simple adaptation of Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice. The love quest threads through varied musical and visual worlds, with the directors drawing on multiple works from the repertoire to craft an autonomous cinematic narrative. The costumes and the spectacular design of Hell thus share equal prominence with the vocal performances.
Davide Livermore, a director accustomed to Europe’s great opera houses, co-directs the film with Paolo Gep Cucco, a specialist in multimedia performances. Their project blends physical sets, virtual environments, choreography and operatic staging to transport Orpheus between a contemporary world and a reinvented mythology.
Before its release in theaters, The Opera! is set for a avant-première française aux Folies Bergère on August 31, 2026, with the directors and a portion of the cast expected to attend.
Our Take:
The Opera! certainly isn’t short on ideas. Perhaps it has too many. For their loose reimagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, Davide Livermore and Paolo Gep Cucco braid opera, cinema, musical theater, and the digital realm into a project with distinctly arty and contemporary ambitions. From the opening frames, the aesthetic stance is clear: meticulously crafted photography, ochre and amber tones, virtual sets, and direction that never aspires to realism. Visually, the film does have a strong identity. The question is whether you can actually enter it.
Because behind this aesthetic excess, The Opera! quickly loses track of its own story. Orpheus’ (Valentino Buzza) quest to find Eurydice (Mariam Battistelli) in a strange Hadès Hotel piles on tableaux, symbols, references, and shifting tonal registers. This visual and narrative abundance ends up muddying the waters: each scene seems eager to add a new idea, risking a disjointed whole. We try to piece the fragments together, and just when the keys finally surface, the journey has already felt long. The film does eventually clarify its point, but the late explanation barely dispels the sense that much of the 1h46 passed while we wondered where it was taking us.
The cast, for its part, promised intrigue: Vincent Cassel, Fanny Ardant, Rossy de Palma, and Caterina Murino hover around the central couple. But beware of buying tickets solely for them. Cassel and de Palma mostly play supporting roles, and their screen time is fairly sporadic. It’s mostly the film’s world and its audacious approach that dominate: a permanent off-kilter mood, bold costumes, idiosyncratic dialogue, and a string of extravagant situations. The overall tone tips toward the theatrical—sometimes deliberately excess—without always making it clear how intentional that effect is.
It’s finally when The Opera! fully returns to conventional opera that it lands its strongest moments. The sung sequences provide real breathers and let emotion reclaim the foreground. Mariam Battistelli’s voice, in particular, lends authenticity and lends certain scenes a intensity the film struggles to conjure elsewhere.
The Opera! is therefore a very singular proposition, not easy to recommend to every audience. Fans of conceptual cinema, hybrid creations, and bold visual experiments will likely be more readily swept up by this UFO that favors detours, imagery, and symbolism over a traditional narrative. For others, the experience may feel more arduous. A visually polished film, but one whose meaning remains buried under the effects for far too long.
To extend the in‑theater experience, check out the September movie releases, the films to watch right now, and our selection of the year’s dramas.
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