It is not that it was purposely designed in the programming, but the Paris Opéra is these days at the service of parity, betting on female artists. While the premiere of a new production of 'The Makropulos Affair', by Léos Janácek, directed from the Bastille podium by Susanna Mälkki, was held this weekend at the Bastille, the ballet season began at the Palais Garnier with a 'triple bill' of new choreographers such as the French hip-hop artist Marione Motin and the ultra-sensitive Chinese Xie Xin, in addition to the already established Crystal Pite showing her danced version of Max Richter's Seasons. On both opening nights, the Parisian public reacted warmly… and not without reason. Who misses Gustavo Dudamel?
The fright of the fabulous Venezuelan conductor shortly after beginning his time as musical director of the Paris Opéra suggested a certain languor of spirit among the operatic fans of the City of Lights. But that was not at all the tone at the premiere of this new montage of the title by Janácek. A composer sensitive to female psychologies, the Czech creator could not avoid adapting to opera a century ago this play by his contemporary Karel Capek, which addresses in a very philosophical way a case of a woman's immortality.
This intriguing plot about an opera singer who calls herself Emilia Marty and who has been living for 300 years is approached by the author of 'Jenufa' and 'Kátia Kabanová' with advanced morals. A tremendously humanistic vision of the farce that has often been life for a woman throughout these last centuries, to the point that she herself stops pursuing the formula against aging. She reconsiders, after all, she is not interested in continuing to live another three hundred years.
Janácek's score advances a daring but powerful staging by Krzysztof Warlikoski. In a suggestive video montage, the Polish theater director evokes the figure of the eternal celluloid star, the sex symbol that survives through the ages, the myth called Marilyn Monroe. Just like King Kong she falls in love with damsels. And that world of celluloid fits at times with those flashes of Hollywood music that the piece points to.
“Yes, in Janácek you hear influences from his past and his time, all those Hollywood and musical theater elements, but also echoes of the minimalism that will come. Because he clearly represents the 20th century, but in his own way, he goes on his own, he does not stick to schools. His music has tonality but does not follow the rules of tonality. And his rhythm is very dynamic, modern, something that became more common later,” says Mälkki in conversation with this newspaper.
The operatic final epilogue of the main character earned soprano Karita Mattila a standing ovation from the audience at the Bastille. And Mälkki herself took another one, which she convinced with an anguished and dramatic reading, in the manner of Janácek, but reconnecting with the feeling of the soundtracks of the celluloid classics of the last century.
“I wanted to show off those sweet moments, yes, those moments of musical theater, operetta, Hollywood, because there is like a flirtation on their part. And it is fantastic to do a piece like this with the Paris Opéra Orchestra: this opera is lyrical, it is a mistake to think that it is basically rhythmic, and this formation always naturally seeks melody, phrases. However - adds the main guest conductor of this orchestra - you have to be careful with the details, because this is music for the theater, it follows the text meticulously... And to all this we must add that Janácek renewed the musical language and his notation did not It is always logical. It doesn't always make sense at first glance, but it does make sense once it's put into practice and correctly.”
The next day, Saturday, it was the Opéra Garnier that was bustling amid its dim baroque lighting. Aurelie Dupont, the predecessor of the current director of the Paris Opéra Ballet, the Spaniard José Carlos Martínez, had tied this program with female choreographers. She had met Xie This is how this 'Horizon' arises, for which Xie Xin only needed 15 of those figures. Her piece plays on illusions and mirages between elements of nature and which represent a discovery for the repertoire halfway between Western techniques and Chinese culture.
Dupont also invited the Frenchwoman Marion Motin, a thirty-year-old well-known in the hip-hop scene in France who has also worked with Maddona and Jean Paul Gaultier. If her universe is more fashionable and television culture, the work did not detract from the triplet in any way. His piece, 'The last call', turns the ringing of the telephone in a booth in the middle of nowhere, into the call of death: a minute ago you were here, now you are somewhere else.
Although it was the great piece that Benjamin Millepiede requested from Crystal Pite on Max Richter's version of the Four Seasons that really grabbed the audience, once again. 'The seasons' canon' has fifty dancers behave like a crowd of insects or a flock of birds. Always highlighting the fragility of identity. A corpus of dancers who, far from responding to the stereotypes of bodies for the classic that can weigh on this company, demonstrated the vital ability to put themselves in the shoes of every creator.
It's a nice stage ahead for Martínez, who a year ago took charge of this helm, putting aside a period as a freelance choreographer that he was enjoying especially after his time as director of the National Dance Company. This return to Paris, to the institution where he was once named étoile, represents a return home for him.
