Shattered on the foundations when a deficit of several million euros was revealed in May by the Festival de la Aix-en-Provence? Pierre Audithe director of the lyrical event that presents, on Friday, December 6, the following version, states: the 77e edition, which will take place between July 4-21, 2025, “camps more than ever on its four pillars, namely a Mozart, a Baroque title, a great 19th-century opera.e century (or the beginning of the 20th centurye century), and a creation ». However, it was necessary to cut back: two productions cancelled, replaced by musical theater projects, of which Aix became the model. But honor is certain. That in 2024, no less than seven performances are offered to the public. “There are solutions already implemented in the three years of the post-Covid period”tempers Pierre Audi, whose resistance pleads for method “Turn pain into pleasure”.
The programmer heard the voices of disappointed Mozartians why La Clemenza di Tito had to settle for a concert version in July. It is therefore a Don Giovanni appropriately mounted that will open the ball – the eighth in the history of the festival. On the podium, a regular, Sir Simon Rattle, this time with his Munich orchestra from Bavarian Radio. At the helm, a virtual unknown in France, a star in the Anglo-Saxon world, the British Robert Icke (the youngest laureate in 2016 of the Laurence Olivier Award), who will make his operatic debut. Starring baritone Andrè Schuen, alongside Magdalena Kozena, Golda Schultz, Krzysztof Baczyk, Amitai Pati, Madison Nonoa and Pawel Horodyski.
Anchored in the penchant for French opera, the festival will follow with a masterpiece that has become rare, Louise, by Gustave Charpentier, produced in partnership with Palazzetto Bru Zane. “The project was born around the French-Danish singer Elsa Dreisigwhom the director Christof Loy wanted to make the heroine”explains Pierre Audi, who in passing confirms his priority of “puts the song back in the center of the festival” – mission accomplished with Adam Smith, Sophie Koch, Nicolas Courjal. Conductor Giacomo Sagripanti will make his festival debut leading the musical forces of the Lyon Opera.
Musical theatre
Another soprano, this time French-Catalan, Lauranne Oliva, is behind the programming of another masterpiece, Callistoby Francesco Cavalli, inspired by metamorphosis by Ovid. Led by actors from the Dutch Jetske Mijnssen (making her Aix debut), the luminous young woman will play the role of the libertine nymph with a cruel fate while Sébastien Daucé will direct his Correspondence Ensembles and a Jupiterian vocal areopagus, from Alex. Rosen to Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, via Giuseppina Bridelli and Anna Bonitatibus.
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