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“Le Diable au Corps” depicted the passionate affair between a young woman, played by Ms. Presle, whose husband was away fighting in the trenches in World War I, and a teenage schoolboy, played by the very young Gérard Philipe, who during his brief career was both France’s leading heartthrob and its greatest actor.

“Hamlet” premiered at Salle Le Peletier, the same theater that mounted such works as Giacomo Meyerbeer’s “Robert le Diable” and Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” before Palais Garnier opened in 1875.

The main course was game hens crapaudine à la diable — spatchcocked birds coated with mustard, inspired by the way Fernand Point did them at his legendary French restaurant, La Pyramide.

“The woman there wouldn’t even sell them to me, she just told me to take them away, get them out of her shop. Devil cards, she called them. Cartes du Diable.”

The scruffy acoustics didn’t mar soprano Lisette Oropesa’s soaring rendition of “Idole de Ma Vie” from Meyerbeer’s “Robert le Diable,” accompanied by pianist Michael Borowitz on a screen behind her.