We start in the south in the city of Montpellier, the birthplace of the Napoleonic Code and Emilie Simon. While the code is famous among the world’s lawmakers, Simon’s notoriety comes from a film about flightless birds that don’t live anywhere near the place of her birth. Simon is often hailed as ‘the French Bjork’ by critics and her self-titled debut in 2003 won her Best Electronic Album in the Victoires de la musique (the annual music awards in France). But a greater triumph came with the film Emperor’s Journey, for which she composed the soundtrack. An unexpected hit, the movie follows an annual 20-day march across the ice by Emperor penguins to the most desolate of breeding places – the music is mesmerising. If you haven’t seen the movie, you’ll no doubt hear its sounds at Emilie Simon’s concert on May 8.

Our next stop is Paris – which is truly not as gruesome as the Eating Frogs Tour sounds. Those who experienced the Tour last year surely could not forget this overt display of French street culture, back again to jolt us out of middle class complacency: key Parisian hip hop players strutting their French stuff will include graffiti artists, DJs and break-dancers. Paris is not only the cheesy, romantic, head-over-heels city Carrie Bradshaw got lost in. It can get really nasty too – see how much on May 12.

Still in Paris we move to… suburbia. Where one could hardly call a blend of new wave and post punk bossa nova vague, but that’s what Nouvelle Vague will be importing on May 13. French producers Marc Colin and Olivier Libaux have transformed dark and obscure tunes like Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart, New Order’s Blue Monday and Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode into oh, so silky, sassy, poppy tunes we might just have to sing along to.

We can’t even pretend the Hong Kong Ballet is from the continent but the French connection is made with Franz Lehár’s operetta-turned-ballet The Merry Widow on stage from May 18-20. It’s a love story set in Paris 1905 between the rich and beautiful widow Hanna Glawari and the handsome and irresistible Prince Danilo. As an operetta, it was a success from its opening curtain and quickly became one of the most popular musicals in the western world. Then in 1975, Sir Robert Helpmann turned it into a ballet for the Australian Ballet Company. At the world premiere at Melbourne’s Palais Theatre, John Meehan danced the role of Danilo and still regards it as the most exciting memory of his career: “First of all [the role] fits you like a glove. The steps and the character work on your body and your personality as you have had so much involvement and responsibility in the creation of the role.” And then he goes on, “We were all stunned by the reaction of the audience. First there was a silence and then tumultuous applause the likes of which we had never heard.” Meehan, currently artistic director of the Hong Kong Ballet, has recreated the production for Le French May with choreographer Ronald Hynd – it sounds unmissable.

And just to prove how difficult it is to escape Paris in the spring, we linger yet a little longer to catch Thierry Miroglio in collaboration with a couple of Hong Kong’s starring composers. With a name like that (and a roll or two of the ‘r’s), the man must be a percussionist – one of the world’s best, as it happens. Although Professor of Percussion at the Conservatory Darius Milhaud in Paris, he regularly gives concerts all over the globe and in the free Solo Percussion More on May 26 he will be performing the world premiere of a piece by Keith Leung, a master’s degree student at HKAPA and producer of such luminaries as Anthony Wong and Faye Wong, and Al Aknawakhth by Clara Maida. Joyce Wai-Chung’s Between Memory and Reality for percussion and electronics is also on
the programme.

Leaving Paris we go south again and a little east, until we hear the faint strains of France’s martial national anthem. The city of the anthem, Marseille, is France’s second largest and home to a diversity of nationalities (particularly Mediterranean European and North African) – as you may have seen in Luc Besson’s action comedy Taxi. From out of the mix comes Poum Tchack, a musical collection of violin, accordion, guitar, bass and drums, which has made an international name for itself with unfailing humour and virtuoso playing. Will we swing to a gypsy-style La Marseillaise on May 25 and 26? No doubt!

We started in the south and we bid adieu to Le French May for another year from the south. Nice, with its beaches, resorts and hundreds of tourists, is a happy coastal city even though it is sending us the ‘tragedy of all tragedies’. From May 31 to June 4, Opera de Nice of France’s presentation of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet will be the first time an opera about Shakespeare’s fated families will be seen locally. Which must be some kind of coup for Warren Mok, artistic director of Opera Hong Kong, who both chose the programme and will sing the role of Romeo.

Kau Ng, Opera Hong Kong’s executive director, says it will be a huge production with the cast, crew and extravagant set all flown in from Nice – and he is particularly delighted that the cast will be supplemented with a selection of local performers. Paolo Olmi will conduct the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera Hong Kong Chorus.

Tenor Dominique Moralez will share the role of Romeo with Warren Mok, but says this year’s festival will be un petite fou for him. Apart from riding the vocal and emotional stresses of Romeo’s love life, he will be performing French Melodies of the 19th and 20th Century with pianist Arièle Zanini on May 27. Their programme will showcase songs by Hahn, Duparc, Ravel, Fauré, and Poulenc.

Le French May will run from May 1 to June 30 with more than 300 events, including opera, music, dance, performance, exhibition and film screenings. For a full schedule, visit www.frenchmay.com.