2023-07-08 15:11:44
If the evenings in Aix are mobilized by opera performances, the music lover can take advantage of the day to attend meetings and debates with the artists organized by the Festival teams. Just as he is invited to take the path to the Museum of Tapestries, within the Archdiocese, where an exhibition dedicated to So do all of Mozart, from the archives of the Festival since its creation in 1948.
Considerable, of a very diverse nature, from room programs to costumes or set pieces, the Festival archives are the living memory of a story but also a source of inspiration for researchers, creators and the public. “In partnership with the University of Aix-Marseille, the City and the Festival are pooling their funds to give new impetus to this policy of inventorying, digitizing and promoting documents”, explains Timothée Picard, playwright and artistic advisor to the Festival.
A proactive approach on the part of an event dedicated to performing arts which focuses primarily on promoting present and future projects rather than revisiting its past. «While a dive into the archives shows, for example, how Aix has, from its beginnings, cultivated collaborations with painters and visual artists, such as Derain or Balthus”, continues the playwright.
Multiple developments
Helped by researcher Anne Le Berre, who is devoting her thesis to the Festival, but also by Valérie Brotons, head of the Museum of Tapestries, Timothée Picard identifies multiple “outlets” for this unearthing of sometimes ignored or forgotten treasures.
“We come with the review The Opera Front Stage to publish a special issue for the 75th anniversary of the festival. We are planning a beautiful book later, but also mediation tools, such as these videos already available on our site. » Sound walks in the city, digital offers for neophytes to decipher the trades and workings of the opera, but also its place in the contemporary aesthetic universe… “Many other possibilities are available to us, intended for professionals and the general public”, predicts Timothée Picard.
In this 2023 edition, So do all is on view again, in a staging by Dmitri Tcherniakov which is set neither on the Italian coast nor in the 18th century. In a few years, it will surely be fascinating to compare its traces with those of the productions which preceded it and which will have followed it…
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