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Director Antoine Gindt gives us his impressions the day after the French premiere of Eurydice, a chamber opera for soprano, piano and electronics by Russian composer Dmitri Kourliandski, and presents his Académie internationale de Mise en scène de Théâtre musical, the first edition of which will take place in Nîmes from May 2 to 13.
Antoine Gindt, how did you feel about this second performance?
I was already less tense than at the first, and better able to judge the details. Even better than on the first evening, there was the quality of time that the show demands, and singer Jeanne Crousaud 's ease in leading the stage movement, with that dimension of interiority that characterizes the role. I was also very touched by the audience's reception and enthusiastic feedback during the post-show meeting.
Had you worked with Jeanne Crousaud before?
No, this was the first time we'd been on the same set. We met in Aix-en-Provence a few years ago, and I had heard her on stage. Eurydice was the perfect opportunity to begin this collaboration. Even if the voice Dmitri Kourliandski had in mind probably didn't have the lyrical scope of Jeanne's, which, I must say, has now found a different color and breadth.
The choice of a 72-year-old Orpheus, embodied by dancer Dominique Mercy, comes as no surprise...
Two things reinforced my choice: firstly, the idea that Eurydice and Orpheus are not in the same time frame. Eurydice, returned to the land of the dead, has not aged and enjoys eternal youth. Orpheus, on the other hand, has suffered many ills at the hands of the Maenads, leaving him scarred and aged. Next, in my gallery of staged characters, I'd like to mention the household of Justine and the Marquis de Sade, two characters with the same age difference in Bussotti's La Passion selon Sade. I'm not far from thinking that the Eurydice-Orphée partnership is the calming epilogue to this sulphurous relationship between the Marquis and his young protégée.
We expected the choreography to be more intense...
I'm not a choreographer, and it would have been foolishly pretentious to measure myself against the great Pina Bausch. Secondly, there was no way I was going to impose an actor's style on someone so accustomed to the stage. Moreover, working with Tanztheater Wuppertal very often called for improvisation, and I let Dominique Mercy appropriate the space as he saw fit.
On the staging side, you remain loyal to your collaborators Daniel Levy, Fanny Brouste and Elise Capdenat.
We've been working together since Ring Saga in 2011. It's important for me to work in a climate of trust with people I know well, and to whom I give the greatest possible autonomy. When it comes to staging, I rely on teamwork and complicity to help us achieve our goals.
Composers, young ones at least, sometimes have painful experiences with their directors. How did your collaboration with Dmitri Kourliandski go?
Wonderfully well, even if the conditions imposed by the pandemic didn't always facilitate progress. I must say that I have immense respect for all the composers who have enabled me to do my job. I'm thinking of Georges Aperghis and Pascal Dusapin, with whom I've worked a lot.
The staging always requires adjustments, even cuts that are sometimes resented by the composer.
On the contrary, I asked Dmitri to expand his score, which only lasted thirty-five minutes. The writing was very compact, superimposing three strata: vocal, electroacoustic and instrumental. I made a number of suggestions to him, looking for other spaces within his writing, which he accepted. The dialogue between us was very fruitful, and whenever it was necessary to change things slightly, we discussed it, and the decisions were always taken jointly. Opera can only be conceived through collective exchange.
On May 2, you and conductor Léo Warynski will be launching an International Academy of Musical Theater Direction in the city of Nîmes, an initiative that has never been seen before in France...
It's an important project that I feel very strongly about; we've been working on this first edition for a year now. It's an ambitious proposal that we want to make permanent in the city of Nîmes, and one that brings together many partners, not only the Théâtre where we've been in residence for some time, but also the École supérieure des Beaux-arts, the Conservatoire, Nîmes' two major museums, Carré d'Art and Musée de la Romanité, the art cinema Le Sémaphore, the Maison du Protestantisme and the Centre social Simone Veil. We have the support of the Fondation d'entreprise "AG2R LA MONDIALE pour la vitalité artistique", which has generously contributed to the financing of this first edition.
Such an initiative is still unheard of in France...
There are no directing schools in France, in fact, and few openings for young people interested in directing musical theater. Our idea, Léo Warynski and myself, is to put our personal experience to good use. I've taken on a lot of trainees for my shows, and I've been able to measure just how helpless these young theater people are when it comes to music; they know very little about the repertoire, and have no practical knowledge of how to approach the singers, the conductor and the score in relation to stage work. The aim of this academy is to give them this culture and the tools to approach musical dramaturgy and staging. I know of no equivalent experience in France. We were very well received in Nîmes, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Sophie Roulle, deputy cultural delegate for the city of Nîmes, who is following and supporting us.
How did you go about recruiting the academicians?
The first level of recruitment concerned the staging teams; we chose three from a dozen proposals. They will be in charge, respectively, of Igor Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat, Hans Werner Henze's El Cimarrón and Aperghis' Récitations; but we're not just recruiting directors; there are also young conductors and representatives of all the performing arts professions: composers, playwrights, authors, scenographers and mediators; all these people will have master-classes, they will be able to follow rehearsals and, of course, exchange ideas with their colleagues. As for the performers, they are all professionals, instrumentalists (the Multilatérale ensemble), singers (Raquel Camarinha, Iván Garcia) and actors(Richard Dubelski, Eric Houzelot, Mathieu Loiseau), to best convey the work of the young directors.
On what criteria were the works chosen?
We thought about this with a view to future editions. We will select three works per year that require three rehearsal rooms where the performances will be given: the petite salle of the Nîmes theater, the Centre social Simone Veil and the Petit temple de Nîmes: we will stick to the same canvas from one edition to the next: one repertory work and two strong works from the end of the XXᵉ century that deserve to be revived. We'll be announcing the 2023 works during the academy, and applications will be open in the wake, from June 15.
I assume that a lot of upstream work was carried out with the candidates...
We brought them together in February at the Paris Opéra, the directors and young conductors selected, to discuss the program, immerse themselves in the scores, and reflect on the scenic and dramaturgical challenges. They have had a month to put their project together, and will be coming to Nîmes with a very precise idea of what they want to achieve. Léo Warynski and I are keen to bring the conductor and director closer together. We also want to introduce this generation to works they know absolutely nothing about because they're never on the bill - I'm thinking in particular of Berio's many operas.
What's on the menu for these twelve days of academy?
The first week is reserved for academicians only. The second takes the form of a mini-festival with four public master-classes (broadcast on various channels) with guest personalities sharing their experience: Laurent Bayle, who started out in musical theater before going on to manage the many institutions we know; Sarah Barbedette, director of dramaturgy, publishing and communications at the Opéra national de Paris; Marie-Louise Bischofberger, co-author of Philippe Boesmans' libretti with Luc Bondy; and Philippe Béziat, who will explain how video fits into the staging or how it extends it.
Could the idea of year-round directing courses be considered in France, where they don't really exist?
The Nîmes initiative may indeed give rise to ideas, but I don't want to be dispossessed of my teaching at the academy, because Léo Warynski and I want to approach this training according to our own conception of the profession. Let's see if this first edition can serve as a start-up, but that obviously implies planning an institution and more powerful means to found a school.
Interview by Michèle Tosi
