Meeting with... Guillaume Gallienne

The brilliant actor and director Guillaume Gallienne was president of the honorary committee at the Gala organised by the Festival d’Aix at the Hôtel de la Monnaie in Paris on 16 February. Over 150 patrons and representatives from public institutions, including the new Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay, were present for the occasion, helping to raise funds for Opera ON – the youth programme of the Festival of Aix. Following a recital by tenor Stanislas Barbeyrac, who was accompanied by the pianist Alphonse Cemin, we met up with Guillaume Gallienne to ask him a few questions about his own discovery of the opera ... and the answers he gave us reflect the person he is: passionate, sensitive and witty.
 

The opera, a little, a lot ... On his own admission, Guillaume Gallienne is not a regular of this art; and when he tells us about his first experience, he sums it up in just one word: “awful”. But fortunately not awful enough to put him off for good! His subsequent experiences must have been more positive, given the emotion and enthusiasm with which he remembers the staging of Robert Carsen (“absolutely crazy summits of silence”) and Patrice Chéreau (“his Tristan und Isolde blew me away), not to mention his mentor, the great Klaus Michael Grüber. This fascination also extends to the stage work of the singers, which has particular resonance for this man of the stage:

 

There is something that fascinates me about the singers: it is their ability to be both horizontal and vertical. This may sound a bit over-the-top ... but to put it another way, these artists manage to project themselves vocally, towards the audience, and at the same time remain firmly anchored on stage, from the boards right up to the flies!

A man of the theatre, soon to be a man of the opera? We learned a short time ago that Guillaume Gallienne will be staging his first opera next season. But is it so different, switching from one stage to another? 
 

I’m always very alive to musicality, to rhythm. What I love most about the theatre is the movement; but at the opera, even though the visual aspect is significant, the most important thing is to enable the performers to find the right place where they can best serve the music. We need to be careful not to create movement for no reason. This doesn’t mean that we need to pull back: I think that in opera, the drama can be seen in a close-up just as well as in the movies.

For the director, the transition to the opera also brings some new freedoms… as well as some new constraints that come with their own concerns.
 

There is a certain permissiveness in opera that is quite fascinating, but it can also be quite dangerous! If we want to have fun and get a canvas painted by a great artist, we can do that; on the other hand, we also need to be aware that we will have to contend with it over two acts, and that this might not always serve the drama. This careful blend of grandeur and subtlety excites me.

Guillaume Gallienne will no doubt soon find his own formula for this alchemy... And now that we’ve met him, there are just two more things we want to do: hurry away to see his work at the opera ... and ask him back to the Festival d’Aix next summer!