Notre-Dame reopens for Christmas concert

Notre-Dame cathedral will host its first concert since it was gutted by a fire in April 2019. The Notre-Dame Choir will perform a concert on Christmas Eve inside the building.

Only two events have taken place at Notre-Dame since the fire: a mass in June 2019 and an event at Easter in April 2020. The church is expected to reopen until at least 2024 – a deadline imposed by president Emmanuel Macron to coincide with the Paris Olympics.

Now though the 800-year-old church will be filled with sound once more, in a concert that will be broadcast around the world. The archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, said that the concert will feature two soloists, and that an organ will be rented for the event (the church’s organ is in the middle of an extensive cleaning process).

However, there will be no live audience, and the building remains closed to the public. The latest development on the site is that scaffolding that melted during the fire has been removed from the roof.