AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — Last Monday afternoon, a few hours before the concert performance of Monteverdi’s opera “Orfeo”, the Grantheatold Provence here was almost empty.
The organ was tuned on stage and wheezing like a flute. In the wings, someone was warming up with a dashing brass fanfare at the start of the score.
And Pierre Audi, the general director of the Aix-en-Provence Festival, which was held from this year to Saturday and introduced Monteverdi, carefully adjusted the lighting.
“Warmer, very dead,” he told members of the festival’s technical staff, staring at the glow of the wall behind the stage. The first act of “L’Orfeo” takes place in the meadow, with a tree-like green blur behind the musician suggesting a performance. Audi wanted the colors to be more subtle, paler and more delicate than ever.
As the ensemble began rehearsals, he stood and watched, with his hands entwined across his belly. The performance was fine, but some of the singer’s performance felt a little awkward.
“I’m not staging,” said 64-year-old Audi, breathtakingly shrugging his sly laughter and apology with a non-British and non-French accent. “I’m just lighting.”
Shining light for a mere concert was not out of Audi’s personality. He was the artistic director of Park Avenue Armory in New York, the founder of the Almeida Theater in London, and the head of the Dutch for decades. He is the National Opera House in Amsterdam and one of the most prominent behind-the-scenes figures in the world’s performing arts scene.
An experienced stage director and well-known manager, Audi does more than just work on grand strategies and collaborate with donors. He also oversees the rehearsals and touches on the details of the craft. (This summer’s chatter was that Satoshi Miyagi needed to help shape the vague Kabuki production of Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”) The director respects him because he is one of them. increase.
Audi was able to hold this annual festival only once, after taking over Bernard Fokroll, who resigned after 11 years of success at Aix, and before the pandemic. But last summer, and this summer, he provided a coup that defines the retention period.
In 2020, Audi, whose all Audi performances were canceled due to a pandemic, was able to rehearse Kaija Saariaho’s new work “Innocence” only on the piano. And when he was hailed as one of the best operas of the 21st century, he was able to seamlessly transition the premiere to 2021.
This year he started the season at a new venue. This was also an old venue. A huge black concrete box built in the 1990s, the Stadium de Vitrolles has been abandoned on a hill outside Aix for over 20 years.
“When I arrived as a director, I told the technician,’I want to see it,'” Audi recalled. “They said it was impossible — for a year and a half. And I had to be really tough:” If you don’t show it to me, I’ll be the director I’m quitting. ”On the last day of the first festival in 2019, I brought a lamp. “
The graffiti-studded building was sad, but Audi, who was accustomed to programming the vast living space of New York by turning the former Salvation Army hall into Almeida in 1980, realized that possibility. rice field.
“I saw the height of it, and I soon saw the real estate very much like an arsenal,” he said.
He held a court in Vitrol’s municipality for two years. This has to bear most of the cost of the refurbishment. Audi has begun planning a bold premiere of the stadium. “Resurrection” is a 90-minute excavation of Mahler’s symphony by Romeo Castelucci in a shallow mass grave, an acoustic test in space without knowing if it is ready for refurbishment.
“He called me,” said conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. A half-destroyed old building. And I just said, “Yes, I’m in.” I think he was disappointed because it was so easy. “
Vitrolles officially approved the project in July last year. But Audi’s bet paid off. Work was completed on time and the “revival” was generally praised, although the Castellucci concept was discussed. This is a testament to the starting concept of a series of productions exploring the possibilities of a memorable malleable space.
“The stadium is the signature of Pierre Audi’s words,” said Timote Picard, the festival’s dramaturge. “And it’s absolutely related to everything he’s done from the beginning of his career. Imagine a new relationship between the work, the space, the stage director, and the audience. A project that wasn’t possible at a traditional venue.”
“I never saw opera as having to deal with my trauma and origin,” Audi told a small group of young artists at this year’s festival.However He is linking His interest in diverting unusual structures to grow up in Lebanon, a country without theaters.
“It was natural for me to open the stadium,” he said. “You need to take any building and make it a space.”
Born into a wealthy family in Beirut, Audi grew up there, grew up in Paris, and was educated at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. He founded Almeida in his early twenties, turning Almeida into an experimental theater and musical center. He was a leader of the Dutch National Opera for 30 years from 1988, during which he was also in charge of the Holland Festival for 10 years.
“About Pierre was that it never became a traditional old-fashioned opera,” said Matthew Epstein, manager and coach who advised Audi during its early days. “It was an expansion of the repertoire. Backward towards both Handel and Monteverdi, what he directed and became famous, and forward, towards so many contemporary operas. He is true. This is Impresario. “
As the era of Foccroulle goes further into the past, Audi’s Aix is becoming unique. He added more to his three-week schedule, expanded the concert lineup and maintained staff size, while raising the budget from € 21.4 million in 2018 to € 27.5 million ($ 28.1 million) this year. Enlarged. The increase is heading towards art making.
He is performing more Italian operas than here — “Tosca” in 2019. Rossini’s “Moise and Pharaon” and this year’s concert “Norma”. “Madame Butterfly” will appear. There will also be more French works such as Meyerbeer’s “Prophet” next year. Aix’s vibrant test-run program continues, setting it apart from the most spectacular Salzburg Festival of European summer opera events. The Salzburg Festival has recently focused on the revival of rarely seen 20th century works, not new.
The lasting relationship between Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra begins in the summer. And Audi wants to turn the Château du Grand Saint Jean, just outside Aix, into a theater and home for the festival’s Young Artist Program. However, the project, unlike Vitrol Stadium, requires huge funding. In particular, public subsidies are a gradual decrease in the budget, so make an effort.
The stadium will be used for another ambitious project next summer, but it’s completely different from the “revival”. Three films that accompany Stravinsky’s groundbreaking early ballet, performed live by the Orchester de Paris under Klaus Mäkela.
“The important thing is not to imitate what we did this year,” Audi said.
This is in line with his general resistance to resting in his glory and doing what he expects. Another veteran artistic leader, Nikolaus Bachler, said, “What I have the most respect for Pierre is his endless curiosity.” “The assembly” by Audi at Armory earlier this year was “totally different from what seemed interesting to him,” said Rebecca Robertson, president of Armory.
But with curiosity, there is a commitment to seeing the practical aspects, those visions. “He’s always fixed to some sort of technical reality,” Salonen added, adding about the “revival.”
“Honestly, this idea came from most people and would have said,’You’re crazy,'” Salonen said. “But when it came from him, I listened.”
