Until the curtain went up on The Madwoman of Chaillot in December 1945, Louis Jouvet, the producer and Giraudoux’ close collaborator since the production of Siegfried (1928), was tortured by uncertainty as to its reception. It was his opening play after a prolonged five-year absence from Paris. There were almost insuperable material difficulties, during this immediately post-war winter, in staging a play which requires some fifty highly fantastic characters to appear on stage. More serious, still, Jouvet suffered from the absence of Giraudoux who had unobtrusively died the year before, leaving his friend alone to select which of the two and sometimes three or more versions of scenes in the play was definitely to be adopted.

But most serious of all, the mood of The Madwoman of Chaillot, its lightness of touch, its colorful fantasy and ease seemed alien to the atmosphere of the day.