Death at 67: The opera was a celebration each night – Pierre Audi died surprisingly | EUROtoday

I met ólafur Elíasson in Berlin (for the Armory), later then Kirill Serebrennikov, and in between “Akhnaten” within the Schiller Theater, every thing yesterday in six hours … very environment friendly for a Good Friday. Smiley. ” That was one of the last text messages from Pierre Audi.

At 12 p.m. on Saturday he was flown back to Pisa to spend three days off in Tuscany with his family. Then Amsterdam, where he lived, then his artistic workplace in Aix-en-Provence. And finally Beijing, where he wanted to prepare the takeover of a staging. And there Pierre Audi suddenly passed away on May 3. He was only 67 years old.

Pierre Audi, of course, cut this 67 years out to the full vigor. As a maniac and connoisseur, as a Mover & Shaker, as a maker and trendsetter. He was a gourmet and a gourmand at the same time. And always good for news and gossip. But also a deeper thinker for the opera of today and tomorrow. Rarely was he about himself, he burned for the company, for his future, this olivous, sometimes a little sleepy, sphinx from Beirut, grew up in Europe, perfectly French and English. Which of course was always wide awake, had a pointed tongue, but also a lot of love for the matter. Audi himself also directed, but he preferred to make things possible.

And that from the early youth. During his time at the French Lyzeum in Beirut, this son of a banker and politician Pier Paolo Pasolini and Jacques Tati, born in November 1957, invited to his film club. He studied in Paris, later in Oxford. There the history student sat there for the first time in 1977. His text book: Shakespeare’s “Timon von Athens”. Two years later, he founded the off-stage Almeida Theater, which was still very hot and whose artistic director he remained until 1989, two years later with the Chuzpip of the Youth in London. A year earlier, this artistic whirlwind had been appointed director in a decision that seems absurd today, which is courageous today, today, dutch National Opera.

This had only moved to her great house on Amsterdam Waterloo Plein two years earlier two years earlier, where big opera was possible for the first time in this country. And Pierre Audi took his chance. Grandiosis for 30 years until 2018. It made it possible for it early to set with a Monteverdi cycle and later a “Ring des Nibelungen” on site, also because he was looking for the best employees. Today’s Baroque Guru Christophe Rousetet was sitting with his Les Talens Lyriques in the Graben, Michael Simon, who just grew up as a forsythe stage designer, designed, Jean Kalman, who otherwise shone for Chéreau, made the light.

Pierre Audi brought the Netherlands to the world map of the opera, and the Nederlandse Opera shone worldwide. Queen Beatrix was his biggest fan, and she came into his productions again and again as a later princess. They were seen worldwide in Paris, Vienna, New York, Munich, Salzburg, where Herzog & de Meuron, Miuccia Prada, Karel Appel, Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor were his artistic partners.

He also granted the modern age

Similar to Rolf Liebermann and August Everding, later for the Gerard Mortier, which is working in Brussels and Salzburg in parallel and Salzburg, was also a festival for Pierre Audi Oper – for the heart and mind, sensual and sensible. He was a culinary artist, but one who always loved Schönberg, Stockhausen shipped to an old gas factory, Peter Sellars and Simon McBurney invited to Amsterdam, again started with a younger generation with Monteverdi, Peter Greenaway and Romeo Castellucci brought to the music theater, compositional orders to Tan, Kaija, Kaija, Kaija Saariaho, Pascal Dusapin, Louis Andriessen, Alfred Schnittke, Manfred Trojahn, John Adams and György Kurtág, took care of the youth.

With Hartmut Haenchen, Ingo Metzmacher and at the end of Marc Albrecht, Pierre Audi worked in Amsterdam with three German chief conductors, and his German dramaturge Klaus Bertisch always remained loyal to him. You couldn’t afford expensive singers here, so you discovered the stars of tomorrow. He also appreciated the administrative director of the opera, Truze Lodder, because Audi knew: Without her too, he is only half an director. Peter de Caluwe, once his communication, then Casting boss, today himself director in Brussels, said recently: “Truze and Pierre, they actually beloved one another, as totally different as they’re. It was like a very good marriage.”

Pierre Audi could also be a diva, but very quickly he was back down, rolled up his sleeves, snapped with his tongue and turned to the next opera construction site. And there were large quantities in his busy life. From 2005 to 2014 he was also the artistic director of the Holland Festival. And in 2018 he consequently took over France’s top music festival, the Festival of Aix-en-Provence. Now Simon Rattle and Simon Stone, Nina Stemme and Barbara Hannigan, Dmitri Tcherniakov and Tobias Kratzer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Klaus Mäkelä, William Kentridge and Barrie Kosky in their hands.

There was always too little money, but it became very great art – which made the Salzburg top dog look a bit Ältic. Also because Pierre Audi recently discovered magical places in Provence, a rotten hall building sin near the airport or the Luma terrain from Maja Hoffmann in Arles in the evening, where he projected exciting premieres. And at the same time, Audi has also been running the Park Avenue Armoy in New York since 2017, where Marina Abramovich, Igor Levit, Jonas Kaufmann, Claus Guth and just Anne Imhof opened in the old military uphill hall. And in Brussels he had stepped in this season to take over the last two “ring” parts for the Castelucci run over the budget and plan.

He had just released Handel’s “Alcina” in Rome in March. “Big chaos,” was an SMS. He spoke of today and thought about tomorrow. The Pierre-Audi candle also burned at both ends, even though his wife and young children were soil. In 14 days an important price will be announced, which he also deserves. It is now becoming a legacy, for this opera visionary and music theater worker. Just as the AIX edition with Mozart and Cavalli, Britten, Bizet, Verdi and Charpentier, which starts on 4 July.

In the foreword of the festival borsche, he wrote: “Calistos Metamorphosis, Buddha’s reincarnation, Louise transformation, Don Giovanni as Proteus … there may be nothing fixed within the universe; every thing is handed, all varieties are solely there to come back and go ‘, so Ovid in his” Metamorphos “, which in Cavallis, La Calisto’ a captivating Continuum between nature, people and gods describes ”. Now Pierre Audi has gone. It hurts.