Songs and dances of scarcity – Culture – Kommersant

The debut of Kirill Serebrennikov, the return of rare operas, the first steps of its own full-time opera troupe, the stake on great classics in ballet and the fight against inflation – these are the main plans of the Paris Opera for the upcoming 23/24 season, announced at a press conference at Studio Opera Bastille. comments Maria Sidelnikova.

At the head of the Paris Opera, a male triumvirate has formed: general director Alexandre Nef, musical artistic director Gustavo Dudamel (this is their third joint season) and ballet artistic director Jose Martinez, who took over last December. For the first time, they gathered in public all together and in a renewed line-up, revealing to the press the new face of the Paris Opera: three foreigners, three men, which somewhat contradicts Mr. Nef’s original gender balance course, but in general, today there are more pressing problems.

The main ones are inflation and an increase in electricity prices, which were superimposed on the consequences of strikes and covid downtime. As a result, there was a €9.6 million deficit in the Opera’s budget.

They are going to fill it with an increase in ticket prices, it will mainly affect the higher categories (up to € 170 prices for such box office ballets as Giselle will reach). However, a five percent increase, according to the CEO, is humane, given the movement of inflation to 10%. As for the lower categories, they will take it by diversification in order to attract even more new audiences.

Another point of replenishment of the budget is the expansion of offers for patrons and affiliate programs. Over the past year, the Opera has not gone to any sponsorship pas de deux – from the opportunity to sleep at the Palais Garnier with airbnb and spend the day with Gustavo Dudamel and Hugo Marchand (in one price category – € 20-30 thousand) to cruises, again in the company of ballet étoiles on board. But in a “fragile economic context,” Alexander Nef still welcomed the return of the public and tourists (visits to the Opera Garnier are a significant part of the theater’s annual income) and was generally optimistic.

By tradition, they began with the announcement of opera plans. In the 2023/2024 season, 20 titles are waiting for us, 8 of them are premieres. Through line – rare works, strong heroines, heroes and anti-heroes in the world repertoire from the 17th century to very recent works, such as, for example, Thomas Ades’ “The Destroying Angel”, an opera in 2016 (based on the film of the same name by Buñuel) in a new reading by Calixto Biyeto . The season will start with two trump cards: the German Klaus Gut will present his version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which has already become a classic after the premiere in Salzburg in 2008 (conductor Alexander Soddy). Next comes the turn of the debutant at the Paris Opera – Kirill Serebrennikov.

“One of the most daring directors of the contemporary stage,” as Mr. Nef described him, will stage Wagner’s Lohengrin, “whose references to war and conquest resonate with today’s situation.”

“We are working on an opera blockbuster. This is a large-scale production with a large number of people on the stage who will have to play in rather difficult, difficult conditions, and the reasons why they do this are also very complex and strong … There are questions of fate, blood, love, of course, madness, betrayal and all this during the war… For me, the main thing in this opera is human nature, how changeable, flexible, and complex it is. Let’s try to dive in and immerse ourselves in this very dark but very exciting world,” Serebrennikov said in a video interview. Maestro Dudamel will be the conductor, the Polish tenor Piotr Bechala will be in the title role, the debutantes at the Opera Johanni van Oostrum and Sinead Campbell-Wallace will share the part of Elsa, Nina Stemme and Ekaterina Gubanova will share the part of Ortrud.

If there are no questions for Serebrennikov, he is in favor in France today (the Paris tour of The Black Monk in the Chatelet has just ended – with unequal criticism, but with a full house, and Tchaikovsky’s Wife was shown in cinemas), then the question of the presence of Russians artists still emerged. In Jules Massenet’s Don Quixote, which after 20 years of absence returns to the Opera’s repertoire in a new production by Damiano Michieletto, music director Mikhail Tatarnikov, Ildar Abdrazakov is featured in the title role. Anna Netrebko, Yusif Eyvazov and Ekaterina Semenchuk are promised in Francesco Cilea’s Adrienne Lecouvreur.

Mr. Nef acknowledged that this topic is very sensitive: it is about the fact that guests should share the values ​​and views of the Paris Opera, and this also applies to artists of other nationalities to the same extent. “You can’t punish the innocent,” he concluded diplomatically.

Among the music lovers’ rarities of the upcoming season is “Beatrice di Tenda” by Vincenzo Bellini. Peter Sellars will fulfill his long-standing dream of staging this wonderful example of bel canto, American soprano Tamara Wilson will perform the title role, Briton Mark Wigglesworth will take the conductor’s stand. The Vestal Virgin by Gaspare Spontini will return to the Paris stage for the first time since 1857 (which saw the premiere of this opera in 1807) with the duet of the director Lydia Steyer and the South African soprano Elsa van den Heever, who have established themselves this season in Salome. In the historical rivalry between the Italian and French repertoire, the Italians are still in great demand among the French, Alexandre Nef admitted (Italian premieres will be supplemented by the renewal of hits that uninterruptedly provide the box office – “La Traviata”, “Simon Boccanegra”, “Turandot”, “Don Pasquale”) .

But the CEO is also working on popularizing French opera. “Medea” by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, released at the Royal Academy of Music already in 1693, three centuries later will return to the Garnier stage with the main experts in French baroque Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. Scottish director David McVicar will take the action of the Greek tragedy during World War II to make it even scarier. And for the role of Medea, Maestro Christie chose his pet, the young mezzo-soprano Leah Desandre, to offer a different perspective on the image of the child-killing mother.

The debut season will also be for the new troupe of full-time singers, created on the basis of the Paris Opera. This was one of Alexander Nef’s key campaign promises. 15 artists (half have already been selected in October 2022, the next round of auditions is about to take place) will be involved in all repertory performances.

The ballet program 2023/24 was planned out by Aurélie Dupont (about her resignation Kommersant wrote on June 17, 2022), but Jose Martinez, who took the baton, made adjustments “to indicate an important balance for me between tradition and modernity,” explained the artistic director, who has repeatedly expressed his commitment to the classics. As a result, the latter outweighed.

At the end of the season, Martinez added Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the best way to fight any inflation. But there are creative and reasonable arguments for this. In February, the troupe is taking the Nureyev ballet on tour to Japan, as part of the optimization of creative forces – the performance is still ready and rehearsed – Martinez and included it in the Paris season. In addition, Etoile Martinez, who himself grew up on the white classics from the Opera’s repertoire, believes that this is a great opportunity for the troupe’s artists to hone their ballet skills and grow. It’s up to their will.

Together with “Swan” in the upcoming season, as many as five large classical ballets – this has not happened for a long time.

The festive December will be held under the “Nutcracker”: the last time the favorite ballet fairy tale of all peoples was given at the Paris Opera in 2014. Ashton’s “Vain Precaution” and Nureyev’s “Don Quixote” are programmed one after the other for March-April. Martinez assured that he would continue to breed big ballets so as not to experience a shortage of personnel, which we have seen this season. Giselle will be resumed again, and here the argument was the desire of étoile Miriam Ould-Braham to say goodbye to the stage in this particular part.

There are only two world premieres and they fit in one evening, which opens the season. Three women, three continents, three different stories – the handwriting is instantly recognizable as the hand of Aurélie Dupont. The French hip-hop dancer Marion Motan, whom the general public could see in the videos of Robbie Williams or Stromae, will make her debut at the Opera with a narrative composition to the music of self-taught guitarist and composer Mika Luna, an avid fan of both classic rock and classical music. The plot of The Last Call begins with a phone call announcing the death of a loved one. Around this sudden disappearance, a performance for 15 artists develops.

The second debutante is the Chinese Xie Xin, “the first in the history of the Opera”, as Aurelie Dupont assured. Modern dance in China began to take shape only in the late 1980s, and Xie Xin is one of the active participants in the scene there. Horizon is an abstract ballet, the fruit of her observations of sunrises and sunsets, movement up and down, real and illusory; “it’s something we can’t define exactly,” the choreographer explains, not quite exhaustively. We have already seen at least two such productions, generously commissioned by DuPont for recruits, this season. The finale of this women’s program is the absolute hit of The Season’s Canon Opera, Crystal Pite.

In the new season, the ballets of Jiri Kilian, forgotten since the reign of Brigitte Lefevre, will return to the stage of the Opera. “Six Dances” (1986) and “Little Death” (1991) to the music of Mozart, the inseparable masterpieces of the Czech master will finally enter the repertoire of the Parisians. The evening will be complemented by “Gods and Dogs” (2009) and “Stepping Stones” (1991) to the music of Cage and Webern. José Martinez chose Kilian as the inspiration for his future directorial plans, namely, for ordering pointe ballets on contemporary themes and contemporary choreographers. The Parisian ballet premieres of the season “Sadeh 21” by Ohad Naharin and “Bluebeard” by Pina Bausch will complete the picture. According to Martinez, the castings have just been announced, and there are already 90 people who want to go through them. It remains to wish that there were no fewer queues for Swan and Giselle.