Festival d`Aix-en-Provence 2021
Festival d`Aix-en-Provence 2021
The big news for opera-lovers is that Aix will stage Wagner's Tristan and Isolde for the first time. Sir Simon Rattle conducts the London Symphony Orchestra, which continues a three-year residency at the Festival. The director is Australia's Simon Stone and the soloists are Stuart Skelton and Nina Stemme.
Two productions from last year's programme put in a welcome appearance. The first is the world premiere of Innocence, a new multi-lingual piece by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.
A thriller about ghosts from the past which come back to haunt a marriage celebration, it's being sung in nine languages.
The second is Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockeral, directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Daniele Rustioni. Dmitry Ulyanov, Nina Minasyan, Andrei Popov, Vasily Efimov, Mischa Schelomianski and Margarita Nekrasova are in the cast.
Kosky has a second opera at the festival, Verdi's Falstaff. Verdi's I Due Foscari is being presented in a concert version.
Aix traditionally features a work by Mozart, pictured above, and this year it is Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), with soloists Gyula Orendt, Jacquelyn Wagner, Julie Fuchs and Andrè Schuen. Lotte de Beer directs and Thomas Hengelbrock conducts.
Another world premiere is L'Apocalypse arabe, based on a collection of poems by Etel Adnan. Pierre Audi directs and the composer is Samir Odeh-Tamimi.
As usual, the Festival also includes a strong programme of concerts, some of which will be held the previous month during the curtain-raising Aix en Juin.
About the Festival d`Aix-en-Provence
International Opera and Classical Festival in Aix-en-Provence is one of the most significant musical events in Europe. It was first held in July 1948 and since then every summer has passed. He founded the festival Gabriel Dussiurges with the participation of Countess Lily Pastre, wanting to encourage the development of musical life in Marseille and the surrounding area. Dussurge himself led the festival until 1973.
Initially, all the performances took place in the open air, on the territory of the former Archbishop's Palace. Today, the festival occupies several venues, the main of which - the Grand Provence Theater (Grand Théâtre de Provence), the Jeu de Paume Theater and the Hotel Meunier (Maynier d’Oppède).
The festival traditionally pays special attention to Mozart’s operas, starting with the staging of the opera “Everybody Does It”, which opened the very first festival in Aix-en-Provence in 1948. Mozart’s works made up the bulk
festival programs until the early 1970s, when his repertoire replenished the operas of V. Bellini, G. Donizetti, J. Rossini. Since the early 1980s more and more baroque comes to Aix-en-Provence: the emphasis shifts towards the operas of K. Monteverdi, G. Purcell, J. B. Lully, A. Campra, F. Cavalli, J. F. Rameau, G. F. Handel and other composers.
In the XXI century, a significant part of the programs of the Aix-en-Provence festival is reserved for concerts of cantata-oratorio, orchestral, chamber instrumental and vocal music. In addition, since the late 1990s, sometimes
appearing operas by contemporary composers. So, in 2002, in Aix-en-Provence, P. Etvoche's opera Le Balcon was first presented to the public.
Among the directors of opera performances in Aix-en-Provence are Peter Brook, Peter Sellars, Luke Bondi, Dmitry Chernyakov. As the musical leaders of the festival in Claudio Abbado (since 1998), Daniel Harding, Simon Rattle, Esa Pekka Salonen have performed at various times.
Today, the festival is annually visited by tens of thousands of connoisseurs of opera and classical music. According to the official website, in 2009 the number of viewers almost reached 65 thousand. In 2014, the Aix-en-Provence Festival received the International Operas Awards in the nomination for Best Opera Festival. Every year festival events covered by several media at once: operas and concerts are broadcast by Arte, Mezzo, France 3 and NHK.
