The Comédie-Française will sing next summer. The prestigious theater troupe is invited for the first time to the Festival d’art lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence in July 2023. The company will perform ” The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill which will open the festival on July 4 on the occasion of its 75th anniversary.
Peter Audi: A historic collaboration with the house of Molière »
The opening of the next edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence on July 4, 2023 is an event for two reasons. For the first time, the troupe of the Comédie-Française will perform there, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, whose very first foray into the lyrical repertoire will be with The Threepenny Opera by Bertold Brecht to music by Kurt Weill. The show will be given in its original version (but in French), the one created in 1928 in Berlin before being banned by the Nazis. Although titled « opéra »the show is more like a musical.
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The artistic director of the festival, Pierre Audi, evokes ” a historic collaboration with the house of Molière » which is not his first attempt at singing, since his “aactors-singers performed songs by Boris Vian and Serge Gainsbourg in two shows. This will be an opportunity during the 10 performances (from July 4 to 24 at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché) to see great French names play and sing, including Benjamin Lavernhe, Christian Hecq, Elsa Lepoivre and Véronique Vella, accompanied by the balcony orchestra.
Lisette Oropesa and Jonas Kaufmann headlining the 2023 Aix-en-Provence Festival
The festival also invited two heavyweights of staging: the Russian Dmitri Tcherniakov who will revisit So do all Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Briton Simon McBurney for a new version of Wozzeck d’Alban Berg. An evening Ballets Russes with the Orchester de Paris, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, will offer 3 masterpieces ofIgor Stravinsky (Fire Bird, Petrouchka et The Rite of Spring). Personalities from the lyrical scene will also take part in operas in concert version, including the American soprano Lisette Oropesa in Lucia of Lammermoor of Gaetano Donizetti and the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann in Otello by Giuseppe Verdi.
Philippe Gault (With AFP)
