THE BALLETS RUSSES AND THE FESTIVAL D’AIX: A LONG HISTORY OF MODERN STAGECRAFT
— History of the Festival— At the Festival
Tuesday21March 2023
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The spirit of the Ballets russes — the epitome of interdisciplinarity and modernism — served as a guide for Gabriel Dussurget, the first director of the Festival d’Aix, as he forged the Festival’s artistic identity, favouring in particular the collaboration between painters-set designers and choreographers. In July 2023, an evening event devoted to Stravinsky’s three ballets The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring (works initially commissioned by Diaghilev for his company, the Ballets russes) and illustrated by three world-premiere films (by Rebecca Zlotowski, Bertrand Mandico and Evangelia Kranioti) has been programmed four times — thus reconfirming the Festival d'Aix’s position in this rich artistic tradition.
THE FOUNDING OF THE FESTIVAL BASED ON THE BALLETS RUSSES DANCE COMPANY
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian impresario Serge de Diaghilev created the Ballets russes dance company, which toured Europe, including Paris, between 1909 and 1929. The Rite of Spring, a ballet composed by Stravinsky for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1913), is emblematic of this period of artistic fervour, and of a certain alliance proposed by the company between dance, sets and music.
Before he was even thinking about founding a festival in Aix, Gabriel Dussurget recounted the aesthetic shock he had discovered while attending performances in Paris during the interwar years:
The Ballets russes has revealed dance to me; but thanks to [the company] I have also fallen in love with painting.
Le Magicien d’Aix. Mémoires intimes, p. 48
The ideal of a total work of art conveyed by the Ballets russes would thus be reflected in the Festival’s operas.
STAGING AND CHOREOGRAPHING OPERA
The productions performed at the Festival d’Aix as of 1948 bore witness to this concept, which seeks harmony between the set, the costumes and the staging. Without actually initiating this practice of employing painters–set designers, Gabriel Dussurget transposed the practice to opera — a practice to which ballet directors and producers frequently resorted in the first half of the twentieth century. Having founded the Ballet du Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with Roland Petit and Boris Kochno in 1945, Gabriel Dussurget called upon many artists from this network to ask for their involvement.
By asking André Derain, Antoni Clavé, Georges Wakhévitch, Suzanne Lalique and André Masson to paint the canvases to be used as backdrops for all operas produced at the Festival, Gabriel Dussurget kept the spirit of the Ballets russes alive in Aix-en-Provence several decades after its heyday in Paris.
Gabriel Dussurget also called upon artists from the main discipline of the Ballets russes: i.e. dancers. Special attention was paid to the dance interludes of the various operas that graced the stage of the Archevêché: Monteverdi's L’Orfeo (1965) was choreographed by Clotilde Sakharoff (a figure of early-twentieth-century German expressionist dance), while Georges Skibine (the son of Boris Skibine, a dancer in Diaghilev's troupe) worked on the ballets in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1962) and Idomeneo (1963).
Gabriel Dussurget thus applied the approach of the Ballets russes to the world of opera, thereby injecting that world with new life.
IGOR STRAVINSKY AT THE FESTIVAL
The works composed by Stravinsky for the Ballets russes have often been heard at various editions of the Festival, but mainly as concerts.
Petrushka was performed in 1973 by the Orchestre national de l’ORTF (conducted by Jean Martinon) in Le Tholonet; and The Firebird was performed in 1983 at the Pavillon Vendôme, under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadeus conducting the Orchestre national de Lille. The Rite of Spring entered the Festival’s repertoire in 1958 via a concert devoted to Stravinsky conducted by Hans Rosbaud at the head of the Sinfonieorchester des Südwestrundfunks, and has been performed numerous times since — including in 2016, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, as part of the Festival’s Stravinsky cycle (2015–2017).
Other Stravinsky works have also been performed as stage versions, such as his ‘Russian choreographic scenes for four pianos' entitled Les Noces, performed twice at the Festival, in 1962 and 1972.
The work was premiered in Paris in 1923 by the Ballets russes, with sets and costumes designed by Natalia Gontcharova (1881–1962), one of the main artists who worked under Diaghilev. The scenography, which remained almost untouched for the revival, transformed the Aix production into a direct tribute to the Ballets russes. Georges Skibine choreographed this production of Les Noces for two dancers (Pierre Lacotte and Hélène Sadovska), thus demonstrating the high degree of aesthetic continuity between the events, which occurred more than thirty years apart. The production featured vocalists Mady Mesplé, Christiane Gayraud, Michel Hamel and André Vessières.
Eventually, but only much later, Stravinsky’s operas — and other related works — found their way onto the Festival’s stages, with The Soldier's Tale (1965), followed by The Rake's Progress (1992 and 2017), The Nightingale (2010), Oedipus Rex (2016).
Therefore, the Ballets Russes evening in 2023 represents a return to the very first performances of Stravinsky’s works at the Festival. The talented and masterful Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, will achieve the remarkable feat of performing the three ballets in a single concert.
INNOVATIVE PROJECTS FOR THE STAGE
Many projects from the Festival’s subsequent periods have followed this tradition of creating a dialogue between the arts, and of especially focusing on musical and theatrical research, although they have not claimed to be ‘Ballets russes’. In 1961, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, madrigals by Monteverdi, were staged and choreographed by Janine Charrat.
In more recent years, other a priori non-theatrical works have come to life at the Festival’s different venues: e.g. Winterreise and Trauernacht (2014); and even more recently, under the direction of Pierre Audi, Requiem (2019) and Resurrection (2022). By choosing to broaden the traditional limits of opera, the Festival d’Aix still questions the porosity between artistic disciplines and advocates for new theatrical forms of total works of art.
The Ballets russes evening, programmed at the Stadium de Vitrolles on 8, 10, 11 and 12 July, pays tribute to the modern spirit of the Ballets russes a century after their initial success in Paris, and to the course that the Festival d’Aix has always pursued: the interdisciplinarity that lies at the very heart of opera.
Anne Le Berre
English translation: Donald Stoudt
FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT BALLETS RUSSES
Ballets russes is supported by The Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne
75 YEARS OF HISTORY
THE BALLETS RUSSES AND THE FESTIVAL D’AIX: A LONG HISTORY OF MODERN STAGECRAFT
The spirit of the Ballets Russes — the epitome of interdisciplinarity and modernism — served as a guide for Gabriel Dussurget, the first director of the Festival d’Aix, as he forged the Festival’s artistic identity, favouring in particular the collaboration between painters–set designers and choreographers.
— History of the Festival— At the Festival
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
THE TURANGALÎLA-SYMPHONIE AND INSTRUMENTAL MUSICAL CREATION AT THE FESTIVAL D’AIX
The Festival d’Aix is renowned for its operatic productions, and especially for the many operas that have premiered there. But since its foundation, the Festival has also been a centre for contemporary instrumental creation. Through its generous programme of concerts, the Festival offers its audiences and the international stage a window onto contemporary music and creation.
Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie (1949) — which will be conducted this summer by Esa-Pekka Salonen, leading the Orchestre de Paris — takes us back to the beginnings of the Festival d’Aix: it was there that Roger Désormière conducted the French premiere of the piece in 1950, only a few months after its world premiere in Boston.
Thus, since its early years, the Festival d’Aix has been a central arena for contemporary music, which, like its operatic productions, is one of the Festival’s key components. The following provides an overview of the symphonic and instrumental creations that have made Aix a vibrant space for instrumental composition since 1948.
1950 — OLIVIER MESSIAEN’S TURANGALÎLA-SYMPHONIE
Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the end of 1940s. After two years of work, the piece was performed at Symphony Hall in Boston and conducted by Leonard Bernstein; a few months later, on 25 July 1950, the French premiere took place at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché, as part of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. You can listen to a short programme on France Musique devoted to this high-profile musical event.
The title of the Turangalîla-Symphonie, one of the composer’s iconic works, was taken from Sanskrit and can have many meanings — e.g. love song, elapsing time, or a horse’s gallop. The piece stands out especially for its bright colours and its atypical and varied choice of instrumentation.
Under the baton of Roger Désormière, the Orchestre national de France (known at the time as the Orchestre national de l’ORTF) accompanied the same two soloists who had performed the piano and ondes Martenot parts in Boston: Yvonne Loriod and Ginette Martenot.
Ginette Martenot was the sister of Maurice Martenot (1898-1980), who invented the ondes Martenot at the beginning of the twentieth century; as a performer, she played an important role in popularising the instrument. The ondes Martenot is a keyboard with an electromagnetic ribbon, which produces novel sounds and possesses a flexibility that is similar to that of the human voice. With a metal ring, you can also modulate the notes it plays.
Olivier Messiaen was not the first person to utilize this instrument, although his symphony helped spread its renown more quickly. The ondes Martenot had also been employed by other composers, like Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud, for some of their orchestral pieces. The two composers were members of “Les Six”, a group of avant-garde musicians who spent time with Jean Cocteau shortly after World War I and met frequently at the Festival d’Aix in the 1950s — either as simple festivalgoers, or as artists invited to present their work. Thus, an entire avant-garde musical network converged at Aix-en-Provence every summer, and the Turangalîla-Symphonie was but one manifestation of their talent.
However, the Festival’s relationship with this piece did not stop in 1950: in 2008, the Turangalîla-Symphonie was performed at Aix once again to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen’s birth. The Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sylvain Cambreling, accompanied Roger Muraro and Valérie Hartmann-Claverie on the ondes Martenot, this time at the Grand Théâtre de Provence.
On each occasion, the orchestra performing the symphony has been on the cutting edge of contemporary music: the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, for example, has often spearheaded world premieres at Aix-en-Provence. Founded in Baden-Baden in 1946, the orchestra first achieved success under the baton of Hans Rosbaud and then Ernst Bour, performing lyrical works by Mozart as well as of contemporary pieces.
This year, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Olivier Messiaen’s passing, the Festival will be presenting, for the third time, what is undoubtedly the composer’s most famous orchestral piece.
1970 — HENRI DUTILLEUX’S TOUT UN MONDE LOINTAIN…, CONCERTO FOR CELLO & ORCHESTRA
In the summer of 1970, another major work of contemporary music made its premiere at the Festival — and this time, it was a world premiere. Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013) composed the piece specifically for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch (1927–2007), a great twentieth-century performer, remembered notably for playing a Bach cello suite next the fallen Berlin wall in November 1989.
Gabriel Dussurget, founder and first director of the Festival, introduced the two artists to each other, as well as to Serge Baudo, a young conductor from Marseille. Rostropovitch learned the concerto in record time, just a few days before the premiere. The performance was a huge success — so much so that the artists played the entire concerto twice, in response to the audience’s sustained applause at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché.
[[{"fid":"42391","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Mstislav Rostropovich au violoncelle et Serge Baudo à la direction – répétition du Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, au Théâtre de l’Archevêché (juillet 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Mstislav Rostropovich au violoncelle et Serge Baudo à la direction – répétition du Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, au Théâtre de l’Archevêché (juillet 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"photographie Philippe Coqueux, Ville d’Aix-en-Provence, Musée des Tapisseries."},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Mstislav Rostropovich au violoncelle et Serge Baudo à la direction – répétition du Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, au Théâtre de l’Archevêché (juillet 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Mstislav Rostropovich au violoncelle et Serge Baudo à la direction – répétition du Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, au Théâtre de l’Archevêché (juillet 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"photographie Philippe Coqueux, Ville d’Aix-en-Provence, Musée des Tapisseries."}},"attributes":{"alt":"Mstislav Rostropovich au violoncelle et Serge Baudo à la direction – répétition du Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, au Théâtre de l’Archevêché (juillet 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique","title":"Mstislav Rostropovich au violoncelle et Serge Baudo à la direction – répétition du Concerto pour violoncelle n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, au Théâtre de l’Archevêché (juillet 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique","class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"1"}}]]Mstislav Rostropovich at the cello and Serge Baudo in the conductor's pit – rehearsal of Henri Dutilleux's Concerto for Cello n°1 d’Henri Dutilleux, at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché (July 1970), Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique, photographie Philippe Coqueux, Ville d’Aix-en-Provence, Musée des Tapisseries.
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The work was based on Charles Baudelaire’s “La Chevelure”, a poem in five movements that evokes a world of magical reverie. The sounds of the marimba, the glockenspiel and the celesta enhance this harmonic journey composed by Henri Dutilleux.
1977-1986 : THE CENTRE ACANTHES AT AIX: CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AT THE HEART OF THE FESTIVAL
This creative momentum was perpetuated thanks to the bond formed at the end of the 1970s between the Festival and the brand-new Centre Acanthes — originally the Centre Sirius, named for a piece of electroacoustic music by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The world premiere of Sirius, coproduced by the Festival d’Aix, marked the beginning of a decade-long collaboration and an exploration of contemporary music at the Festival.
[[{"fid":"42392","view_mode":"wysiwyg","fields":{"format":"wysiwyg","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Extrait du programme de salle 1977 : annonce de la création mondiale de Sirius (Karlheinz Stockhausen), le 8 août 1977","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Extrait du programme de salle 1977 : annonce de la création mondiale de Sirius (Karlheinz Stockhausen), le 8 août 1977","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, programme de salle 1977, Association pour le Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence."},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"7":{"format":"wysiwyg","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Extrait du programme de salle 1977 : annonce de la création mondiale de Sirius (Karlheinz Stockhausen), le 8 août 1977","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Extrait du programme de salle 1977 : annonce de la création mondiale de Sirius (Karlheinz Stockhausen), le 8 août 1977","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, programme de salle 1977, Association pour le Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence."}},"attributes":{"alt":"Extrait du programme de salle 1977 : annonce de la création mondiale de Sirius (Karlheinz Stockhausen), le 8 août 1977","title":"Extrait du programme de salle 1977 : annonce de la création mondiale de Sirius (Karlheinz Stockhausen), le 8 août 1977","class":"media-element file-wysiwyg","data-delta":"7"}}]]Extract of the concert programme dating back to 1977 : notice of Sirius' world premiere (Karlheinz Stockhausen), on 8 August 1977. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, programme de salle 1977, Association pour le Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence.
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Every year, the Centre Acanthes would invite a major figure of contemporary music to Aix in order to introduce various trends to audiences, and instruct “trainees” (100–150 people per edition) in the cultivation of contemporary music. In the period from 1977 to 1986, Iannis Xenakis (1978 and 1983), György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen (1977), and Maurice Béjart (1982) came to Aix, where they taught masterclasses and supported the creation of innovative works. Sessions devoted to percussion instruments (1984) and musical theatre (1986) were also interspersed among the other courses at the Centre Acanthes.
The Festival would thus coproduce one or two of the Centre Acanthes’s concerts per edition and include them in the Festival programme; these concerts would generally be held at the Cloître Saint-Louis.
With the arrival of the first sessions of the Centre Acanthes — which would later become affiliated with the Festival d’Avignon (in 1987), and then Metz (in 2004), and finally IRCAM (since 2011) — many works by contemporary composers made their world premiere at the Festival d’Aix in the 1970s and 1980s, and helped solidify the Festival’s role in the propagation of contemporary music.
THE ACADÉMIE EUROPÉENNE DE MUSIQUE: A CRUCIBLE FOR MUSICAL CREATION SINCE 1998
When it was re-founded by Stéphane Lissner in 1998, the Festival added the Académie Européenne de Musique to its structure: this training centre for young artists focused primarily on singing and vocal instruction through residencies and masterclasses for not only singers, but for instrumentalists as well.
A lesser known, but equally important, aspect of the Académie is its residencies for composition, opera making, and chamber music. With these additional tools to support young musicians, the Académie has served as a crucible for musical creation for nearly a quarter of a century now.
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Ana Sokolović, a resident of the first Académie in 1998, thus returned to the Festival in 2015 for the European premiere of her Concerto for Orchestra at the Grand Théâtre de Provence. During its 2015 session, the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Rizzi, was coached by musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra. Another artist who attended the composition residency was Alexandros Markéas, whose Rondo notturno premiered in 1998.
The composition residencies are not the only places where new works are created, since the Académie as a whole serves as a setting for encounters between young artists, like a veritable incubator for talent.
[[{"fid":"42394","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpe) et Dorian Selmi (percussions), création mondiale de Lyrae (Camille Pépin) le 10 juillet 2017 dans la cour de l’Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède.","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpe) et Dorian Selmi (percussions), création mondiale de Lyrae (Camille Pépin) le 10 juillet 2017 dans la cour de l’Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède.","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Vincent Beaume"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"5":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpe) et Dorian Selmi (percussions), création mondiale de Lyrae (Camille Pépin) le 10 juillet 2017 dans la cour de l’Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède.","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpe) et Dorian Selmi (percussions), création mondiale de Lyrae (Camille Pépin) le 10 juillet 2017 dans la cour de l’Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède.","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Vincent Beaume"}},"attributes":{"alt":"Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpe) et Dorian Selmi (percussions), création mondiale de Lyrae (Camille Pépin) le 10 juillet 2017 dans la cour de l’Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède.","title":"Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpe) et Dorian Selmi (percussions), création mondiale de Lyrae (Camille Pépin) le 10 juillet 2017 dans la cour de l’Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède.","class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"5"}}]]Quatuor Gerhard, Anaëlle Tourret (harpsichord) and Dorian Selmi (percussions), world premiere of Lyrae (Camille Pépin) on 10 July 2017 in the Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède Courtyard. Photographie Vincent Beaume.
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Hence, for the 2011 contemporary vocal residency, Karol Beffa composed Mes heures de fièvre to offer Académiciens a piece of music they could work to hone their skills. In 2017, as part of the chamber music residency, Camille Pépin (recipient of the 2020 Victoire de la musique classique award for composition) presented the world premiere of her piece Lyrae, performed by the Gerhard string quartet, Anaëlle Tourret (harp), and Dorian Selmi (percussion).
Lastly, former students of the Académie contribute to the vast movement of musical creation in the Festival’s programme. Two years after she participated in the 2012 Académie, Sabine Devieilhe premiered three works by Manfred Trojahn at the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud: L’Éternité à Lourmarin (based on a poem by René Char dedicated to Albert Camus), the prologue to Contrevenir, and L’Allégresse, all composed specifically for the soprano and for a chamber music ensemble.
[[{"fid":"42395","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) et l’Ensemble Modern dirigés par Franck Ollu à l’Auditorium Darius Milhaud pour un concert Manfred Trojahn le 13 juillet 2014.","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) et l’Ensemble Modern dirigés par Franck Ollu à l’Auditorium Darius Milhaud pour un concert Manfred Trojahn le 13 juillet 2014.","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Jean-Claude Carbonne"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"6":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) et l’Ensemble Modern dirigés par Franck Ollu à l’Auditorium Darius Milhaud pour un concert Manfred Trojahn le 13 juillet 2014.","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) et l’Ensemble Modern dirigés par Franck Ollu à l’Auditorium Darius Milhaud pour un concert Manfred Trojahn le 13 juillet 2014.","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Jean-Claude Carbonne"}},"attributes":{"alt":"Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) et l’Ensemble Modern dirigés par Franck Ollu à l’Auditorium Darius Milhaud pour un concert Manfred Trojahn le 13 juillet 2014.","title":"Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) et l’Ensemble Modern dirigés par Franck Ollu à l’Auditorium Darius Milhaud pour un concert Manfred Trojahn le 13 juillet 2014.","class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"6"}}]]Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) and the Ensemble Modern conducted by Franck Ollu at the Auditorium Darius Milhaud for a Manfred Trojahn Concert on 13 July 2014. Photographie Jean-Claude Carbonne.
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Often a meeting place for musical innovators, and always a centre for the creation of orchestral and chamber music works, the Festival has, since its inception, been a major space for contemporary musical creation.
— History of the Festival— At the Festival
Monday, May 2, 2022
MONTEVERDI AT THE FESTIVAL
From L’Orfeo to L’Incoronazione and via Monteverdi’s madrigals and religious music, the Festival has helped give the Italian composer his rightful place in the history of opera while still affirming his profound modernness.
— History of the Festival
Monday, April 4, 2022
THE MANY FACES OF ROSSINI AT AIX
Rossini’s Moses and Pharaoh (1827) is being performed for the first time this summer at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. This rare work, and grand opera, corresponds to a long-standing tradition of the Festival, which has introduced and brought to life Rossini’s operas and religious music.
After the opera buffa (Il barbiere di Siviglia), the opera seria (with productions of Semiramide and Tancredi in the early 1980s), and the composer’s religious music during the 1990s, the Festival is starting a new Rossinian chapter in 2022 with Moses and Pharaoh.
IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: A SINGLE ROSSINIAN GEM IN A WORLD OF MOZART
Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) is one of the Festival’s “founding” productions. It premiered in 1953, was reprised five times by 1969, and is deeply connected to the period during which Gabriel Dussurget served as director of the Festival. Alongside Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro, Il barbiere di Siviglia completed Mozart’s operas and became part of the canon of works for the early years of the Festival.
Although it is quite different from early music and from Mozart’s oeuvre, Rossini’s opera found its place at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence thanks to its subject matter. The libretto of Barbiere, like that of Le nozze di Figaro, is based on Beaumarchais’s plays Le Barbier de Séville (1775) and Le Mariage de Figaro (1784).
Hence, the two operas make up a diptych that justified including Barbiere, a nineteenth-century opera buffa, as part of the Festival. Critics at the time proclaimed Rossini as “the other tutelary deity of Mediterranean Aix”, and saw in his approach the same spirit and the same lightness as in Mozart’s.
[[{"fid":"41789","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia de Gioacchino Rossini - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia de Gioacchino Rossini - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967. Roger Soyer dans le rôle de Basilio, devant le clavecin et le paravent peints par André Derain. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Bouville, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries."},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia de Gioacchino Rossini - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia de Gioacchino Rossini - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967. Roger Soyer dans le rôle de Basilio, devant le clavecin et le paravent peints par André Derain. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Bouville, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries."}},"attributes":{"alt":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia de Gioacchino Rossini - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967","title":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia de Gioacchino Rossini - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967","class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"1"}}]]
Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1967. Roger Soyer in the role of Basilio, in front of André Derain's harpsichord and folding screen. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Bouville, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries.
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At a time when Barbiere was practically the only work by Rossini being performed, the opera was appreciated for its rhythm, its lightness, and its theatricality. The sets by André Derain, the joyful staging by Maurice Sarazzin, the conducting by Italian conductor Carlo Maria Giulini (who had just been named director of La Scala in Milan the year Barbiere premiered at Aix), and the performances by Teresa Berganza, Luigi Alva, Marcello Cortis and Roger Soyer, beginning in the late 1950s, ensured its popularity.
THE FESTIVAL D’AIX AND THE “PURE PLEASURE” OF ROSSINI
At the beginning of the 1970s, another one of Rossini’s opera buffa entered the Festival repertoire: L’italiana in Algeri (1970). It was followed by Il turco in Italia (1982) and La Cenerentola (1983). These works were seen as an extension of Barbiere and were appreciated for the same aesthetic qualities: freshness, humour, and exoticism. The productions of these turquerie-themed operas were warmly received by audiences.
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This repertoire has maintained a place of honour at the Festival d’Aix, and has been the subject of frequent productions up through even recent years.
[[{"fid":"41791","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984 (mise en scène de Roberto de Simone, décors de Mauro Carosi et costumes d’Odette Nicoletti). Au centre, Magali Damonte. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Ville d’Aix-en-Provence."},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"3":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984 (mise en scène de Roberto de Simone, décors de Mauro Carosi et costumes d’Odette Nicoletti). Au centre, Magali Damonte. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Ville d’Aix-en-Provence."}},"attributes":{"alt":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984","title":"Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984","class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"3"}}]]
Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 1984 (staging by Roberto de Simone, set design by de Mauro Carosi and costumes by Odette Nicoletti). At centre stage, Magali Damonte. Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Ville d’Aix-en-Provence.
—
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Il Turco in Italia, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2014 (staging by Christopher Alden, set design by Andrew Lieberman). Fonds du Festival international d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, photographie Pascal Victor / ArtcomPress.
—
A (RE-)PREMIERE: BRINGING NEW LIFE TO ROSSINI’S OPERA SERIA
Former opera singer Bernard Lefort took over as director of the Festival in 1974 and greatly modified the orientation of its repertoire. Following the revival of Mozart, it was now time to revive another portion of Rossini’s oeuvre: the opera seria.
The Pesaro Festival (Italy), held in Rossini’s birthplace, was founded in 1980 and aimed to restore the prestige of the composer’s entire operatic oeuvre. Yet it was at Aix-en-Provence that Rossini’s “serious” works soon found new life, with Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra (1975); Semiramide (1980); and Tancredi (1981).
This movement began in 1975 with a brand new production of Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra at the Arles Amphitheatre. Montserrat Caballé took on the title role. The production led to a recording that was long considered the definitive version, until the end of the 1990s.
In 1980 and 1981, Bernard Lefort ended his time as Festival director with two crowning achievements — and two huge successes —before assuming his new duties at the helm of the Opéra de Paris. The productions of Semiramide (staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi) and Tancredi (staged by Jean-Claude Auvray) proved that Rossini was more than just the composer of the light opera Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Their success can be attributed especially to the two pairs of singers who embodied the protagonists of these operas. Very demanding in terms of both vocal virtuosity and dramatic expression, these pairs of women performers (with mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne playing the male characters in both productions) portrayed the painful separation of couples wrenched apart by political stakes. The brilliant execution of the arias within the innovative staging transformed these productions into great moments in the history of the Festival.
VIDEO REPORT (IN FRENCH): MONTSERRAT CABALLÉ (SEMIRAMIS) & MARYLIN HORNE (ARSACE)
Louis Erlo, the Festival director from 1982 to 1996, furthered Bernard Lefort’s momentum. In 1988, he programmed Armida, which was a more mitigated success despite its top-level cast, including the American soprano June Anderson in the role of Armida.
This summer, the grand opera Moses and Pharaoh will also feature great singers, and will pursue the Festival’s commitment to excellence when staging Rossini’s works: Michele Pertusi, Pene Pati and Jeanine De Bique will all be participating in this new production.
PERFORMING ROSSINI: FROM THE OPERA STAGE TO THE CONCERT HALL
As the 1990s were being ushered in, Rossini’s repertoire found a new place at the Festival. In 1992, the world celebrated the bicentenary of the composer’s birth. This event intensified research around his oeuvre and brought out another aspect of the musician — as a composer of religious music.
Rossini had finally lost his label as a composer of light opera, and was lauded for the rich musical diversity of his oeuvre.
Beginning in 1990, the Festival presented concerts of Messa di Gloria (1820), Stabat Mater (1842) and Petite messe solennelle (1864) at the Aix Cathedral.
In 1992, the Festival d’Aix marked the bicentenary of Rossini’s birth in its own way, by offering a tribute concert by Samuel Ramey at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché. This master of bel canto had participated in the 1980 production of Semiramide. In 1992, he sang excerpts from Barbiere, Semiramide and Tancredi — Rossini’s most noteworthy operas at the Festival.
For Parade[s] in 2014, the orchestra and soloists of the production of Il turco in Italia celebrated the composer once again, this time on the Cours Mirabeau during a large free concert.
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—
Now, in 2022, Florian Sempey and Karine Deshayes will be exploring yet another facet of Rossini at the Festival by performing a concert of art songs by the composer.
— History of the Festival— At the Festival
Monday, March 21, 2022
MOZART’S IDOMENEO: A [RE-]PREMIERE
This year, the Festival is offering a new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, Re di Creta (1781). It is being staged by Satoshi Miyagi — an internationally renowned Japanese stage director, who combines Eastern and Western theatrical traditions, and whose Idomeneo is the first opera he has staged in Europe — and conducted by Raphaël Pichon — director of the Pygmalion ensemble, a loyal friend of the Festival, and a conductor who is celebrated for his interpretations of ancient and classical music. This is only the fourth production of this rare work offered by the Festival d’Aix since the Festival was founded in 1948.
Aix-en-Provence is the French arena of choice for re-introducing Mozart to the general public. Some of the Austrian composer’s works had already been rediscovered by audiences a first time during the interwar period, but were often performed in an abridged or partial form, in French instead of German or Italian. The Festival carried on this musical resurrection after World War II. Quickly forgotten after its premiere, rediscovered at the turn of the twentieth century — notably by Strauss — and then again at the beginning of the 1950s at Salzburg and Glyndebourne, Idomeneo became a part of the Festival’s Mozartian canon in 1963. The Festival d’Aix then became a musical laboratory for work on Idomeneo, and more broadly on Mozart’s entire operatic oeuvre, in particular by entrusting the musical direction to orchestras or ensembles specialised in the interpretation of music from the Classical period.
1963–1966: GIVING NEW LIFE TO IDOMENEO
Gabriel Dussurget, founder and artistic director of the Festival from 1948 to 1972, wanted to give new life to Mozart’s opera seria in Provence. The production was a great success, and was reprised in 1966. Each time, Peter Maag conducted the Concerts Colonne orchestra. The Swiss conductor, who was at the beginning of his career as a great conductor of Mozartian operas, revived Mozart’s score for the Aix audience, in a version that was nevertheless slightly abridged. Suzanne Lalique designed the sets for this first production of Idomeneo at the Festival. The large articulated dragon that emerges from the waves during the second act was without a doubt the emblematic object for the work. The young artist had made a name for herself in painting and in set design in the interwar period; in particular, she had designed the set for productions staged by Jean Meyer at the Comédie Française. At the Festival d’Aix, Gabriel Dussurget asked her to work on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1960), Monteverdi’s Il combatimento and L’incoronazione di Poppea (1961), and then Idomeneo.
In Idomeneo, Mozart composed two moments of ballet: an intermezzo and a final ballet. In 1963, George Skibine, ballet master at the Opéra de Paris and former dancer for Ballets Russes, choreographed the intermezzo of Act 1. It wasn’t the only time heirs to the Ballets Russes participated in the Festival: Gabriel Dussurget had a decided taste for dance styles and companies he had discovered through his work at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. He wanted to make Aix a melting pot for artistic modernity and recreate this intermingling of plastic arts, music and dance.
1986: IDOMENEO’S FIRST FORAY INTO THE FAR EAST
In 1986, Louis Erlo —director of the Festival from 1982 to 1996, and concomitantly director of the Opéra de Lyon and the Opéra Studio of the Opéra de Paris — put on a new version of the work. It was conducted by Hans Graf, an expert in Mozart and head of the Mozarteum in Salzburg at the time. The stage director was Pierre Strosser, who offered a streamlined set design loosely based on the Noh theatre. On a long inclined plane that represented the shores of Crete, the characters slowly marched. The dramatic tension of Mozart’s music was echoed in the nearly immobile stage direction.
[[{"fid":"41768","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":false,"field_caption[fr][0][value]":"DR"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"4":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":false,"field_caption[fr][0][value]":"DR"}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"4"}}]]Idomeneo, produced in 1986. Act II, n°11, « Se il padre perdei », Sylvia Greenberg and Philip Langridge.
Patrice Cauchetier designed costumes inspired by Korean styles, and thereby extended the Asian universe evoked by Pierre Strosser. Patrice Cauchetier is one of the leading costume designers of his generation, and has a special talent for creating theatrical costumes that are credible, rooted in their era, and historically informed. His work for Idomeneo is an excellent example of his talent. This year, with Satoshi Miyagi’s stage direction, Idomeneo will join the imaginary dimension of the Far East for a second time, with influences from Korea in 1986 and from Japan in 2022.
[[{"fid":"41775","view_mode":"newsletter","fields":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"7":{"format":"newsletter","field_file_image_alt_text[fr][0][value]":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste","field_file_image_title_text[fr][0][value]":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste","field_caption[fr][0][value]":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste"}},"attributes":{"alt":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste","title":"Patrice Cauchetier, maquettes de costumes pour Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, don de l’artiste","class":"media-element file-newsletter","data-delta":"7"}}]]
Patrice Cauchetier, costumes model for Idomeneo, 1986. Fonds du Festival international d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, Ville d'Aix-en-Provence - Musée des Tapisseries, donation of the artist.
2009: IDOMENEO BY OLIVIER PY
In 2009, Bernard Foccroulle was the next person to programme Idomeneo: he entrusted the musical direction to the Musiciens du Louvre, under the baton of Marc Minkowski.
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In an impressive set designed by Pierre-André Weitz — a veritable “cosmogony on three levels” — Olivier Py treated Idomeneo’s mythological theme as a social issue. The conflict between Idamante and his father echoed the subconscious malaise of the post-1968 generation, who were bewildered by the arbitrary orders of their elders. The chorus, who performed under large scaffolding, amplified the familial tragedy that was unfolding above them.
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— History of the Festival— At the Festival
Tuesday, March 8, 2022