The closest my own Parisian friends have come to the Louvre in recent years is the luminous restaurant at its center, Le Saut du Loup (The Leap of the Wolf). Sitting in the courtyard, with the ghostly glass pyramid glowing to the left and the giant Ferris wheel of the Tuileries spinning to the right, the Musée d'Orsay across the river, and the Eiffel Tower just beyond, it has one of the most astonishing views of the city.

Possibly the most astonishing view of all, however, is mine in Montmartre. On one side of my little hotel patio—almost close enough to touch!—is the resplendent white dome of Sacré-Coeur. On the other is all of Paris, spread like a lover's body before my outstretched hand. All the numberless dips and curves and crannies and projections. It is midnight and the Eiffel Tower is shivering into action for the second to last time of the night. I watch it spew glittering star fluid into the darkness, and I am transported.

Two midnights ago, I came home with Eurydice from a performance of Orphée et Eurydice. Infants are not, as a rule, welcome at operas. But this was a small production, by a young group, in an intimate theater on the curving, cobbled rue Mouffetard. I had been before with my neighbors and, indeed, my visiting parents. I knew the show was spectacular, my favorite in Paris—and not just because of its name. But because of its name—and its terrifically affecting music and myth—I wanted my little daughter to witness it.

I offer this as proof of how much Paris has changed since the olden days of high noses and withheld hospitality: They let me in. They let in an American with a seven-month-old. I'd contacted the opera company—called Manque Pas d'Airs (Lack No Airs), with airs meaning both artistic pretension and melodies. I'd told them Eurydice wished to see Eurydice. "Make yourself at home," said the usher, as I settled into the back of the theater with my girl on my knee.

The performance was utterly arresting. A single piano echoing in the darkness replaces the orchestra. The curtain rises and a fluorescent-lit black-and-white set emerges. Orpheus, a straitlaced young man with a striped shirt, is mourning the death of his bride as a wedding camera continues to flash meaninglessly and drunken guests loiter over bottles. Soon, the striped-shirt is fighting the four guardians of Hell: They are spitting and barking at him (spitting and barking never sounded so good). Ultimately, they allow him to pass in search of his beloved.

He arrives in the bowels of the Underworld, where the atmosphere, shockingly, is sensual, misty, ecstatic. The four Furies (here, exquisite long-haired narcissists) are gazing at themselves in mirrors and fondling Eurydice's bridal veil. She refuses to leave with Orpheus—on the surface because she is hurt by his failure to look at her, but actually (one senses) because the Underworld is more beautiful than her earthly home, the inhabitants of Hades more appealing than her bridegroom.

Orpheus breaks the Love God's command not to look at Eurydice as he leads her away. He rightfully fears losing Eurydice—and therefore does. The main license Gluck took with the Greek myth comes at the end, when the Love God declares that "Orpheus has proven himself a loyal lover so he will have his girl regardless." A paean to the power of love closes the opera.

Eurydice in arm after the performance, I asked the cast whether I might interview them. To my delight, Orpheus agreed. "I am so glad." He smiled at Dice and quoted his signature song, "that I have not lost my Eurydice."

The following afternoon, various cast members met me at a café and explained their goal: to wrest opera from the clutches of the elite. "People used to break out and sing on the street," said Cecil Gallois, one of the Furies. "They don't do that any longer. Since the song isn't coming back to the street, we want to bring the street back to the song."

I picked my child up at day care in the company of the Orpheus group that evening (at six-thirty, not nine). And under the wooden beams of my tiny Marais apartment, Cecil sang to her a great part of the opera. A countertenor, he can do all the voices. Eurydice smiled, transfixed. Life had become art again. We were in Paris.