THE FESTIVAL D’AIX-EN-PROVENCE MEETS THE BEIJING MUSIC FESTIVAL
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On behalf of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and the Beijing Music Festival, Bernard Foccroulle and Long Yu announced today an agreement about a five-year collaboration between the two festivals, from 2016 until 2020.
The partnership will be inaugurated in October 2016 with a series of performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream by Benjamin Britten, a revival of the Festival d’Aix 1991 and 2015 productions directed by Robert Carsen, at the Poly Theatre in Beijing.
In 2017, for its 20th anniversary, the BMF will present the revival of Written on Skin, an opera written by George Benjamin on a text by Martin Crimp (stage direction: Katie Mitchell), commissioned and created in Aix-en-Provence in 2012.
Followed in 2018, by the co-production of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (directed by Katie Mitchell) and created in 2016 in Aix.
The two Festivals will also co-commission two new operas. One will be written by a Chinese composer to be chosen; it will be created in Aix in July 2019 or 2020 under the baton of Yu Long, before being performed in Beijing.
Both festivals share the same values of openness and creativity, and want develop new projects, including co-productions, co-commissions, education and participatory projects. Both institutions will benefit from this intercultural dialogue. Together, they will be able to reach out to new audiences and to accompany the work of young artists, creators and performers.
I am sure the partnership will benefit both institutions, their audiences and their countries, and will enrich the intercultural dialogue between East and West.
Bernard Foccroulle, General Director of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
I am very proud with great honor while our collaborations can be starting this year in 2016, which is extending the BMF's vision to another level of the future opera production development in China and in the world.
Long Yu, Artistic Director of the Beijing Music Festival
The partnership between the Beijing Music Festival and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence is a wonderful project. I am so proud that our production of A Midsummer Night's Dream has been chosen to mark the starting point of this cooperation. (...) There is a new silk road now between Beijing and Aix-en-Provence!
Robert Carsen, Stage Director
