A Cell In La Conciergerie De Paris in Do You Hear The People Sing Concert in Taipei

Posted by: RicardMN Photography

Photo by RicardMN Photography chosen to use as part of the scenic design for the Asia Pacific tour of the production \"Do You Hear The People Sing?\", a concert celebrating the work of Boublil & Schönberg (the creators of Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and others).

This image is for the song called \'Au Petit Matin\' and it\'s from Boublil & Schonberg\'s first musical, \"La Révolution Française\" (which preceded \"Les Misérables\") and is sung in the original musical by Marie Antoinette as she was imprisoned at La Conciergerie de Paris.

- The first show was in Shanghai Grand Theatre, China, from 27 November to 1 December 2013. Featuring the Shanghai Opera Orchestra and Choir.

- Special performance of \"Do You Hear The People Sing?\" at the Newport Performing Arts Theater in Manila on 29 & 30 January, in support of the Yolanda Rebuilding Progam. The event hopes to raise funds with the goal of building 200 homes in areas ravaged by the typhoon, through \'Habitat for Humanity Philippines\'.

- 29 March 2014 the show is in the TICC (Taipei International Convention Center), Taipei, Taiwan.

La Conciergerie is a former royal palace and prison in Paris, France, located on the west of the Ile de la Cite (literally island of the city), near the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. It is part of the larger complex known as the Palais de Justice, which is still used for judicial purposes. Hundreds of prisoners during the French Revolution were taken from La Conciergerie to be executed on the guillotine at a number of locations around Paris.

The Conciergerie prison, also known as the \"antechamber to the guillotine\", became the central penitentiary of a network of prisons throughout Paris, and was the final stop of over 2,700 people who were summarily executed by guillotine. The dank dungeons were a stark contrast to the beautiful architecture of the palace above. The quality of life of the prisoners was based mainly on their personal wealth, and the whims of the jailers who watched over them.

The revolutionary period continued the prison\\\'s tradition of interning prisoners based on wealth, where the wealthier prisoners could rent a bed for 27 livres 12 sous for the first month, then down to 22 livres 10 sous for the subsequent months. Even when the price was lowered to 15 livres, the commanders of the prison made a fortune: as the Terror escalated, a prisoner could pay for a bed and be executed a few days later, opening the bed for a new inmate who would pay in turn. One memoirist called the Conciergerie \\\"the most lucrative furnished lodgings in Paris\\\". Only celebrity prisoners got cells to themselves. Most of the pistole inmates were stuffed into a single room which abutted a local hospital, making disease an inevitability. The cramped cells were infested with rats, and the stench of urine permeated every room.

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