Disappearance – The director and opera director suddenly died on the night of May 2 to 3. He was 67 years old.
It is the most sinister drafts and unfortunately it is not the theater: Pierre Audi died last night, at 67, in Pekin where he went up one of his staging. He leaves behind two young adolescents and an important work. Director, we owe him many productions. For the Paris Opera, he signed in particular The Jew et Tosca resumed next season but also End of game from Kurtag. Since 2018, he has run the Aix en Provence Lyric Art Festival.
Pierre Audi had a vision. He heard that a festival surprises, and had succeeded, despite the financial difficulties unveiled last year, to print his brand in Aix en Provence. Let us judge: we know that in Aix, originally created around Mozart’s work, an opera of this composer should be scheduled each year. Audi had created the surprise by presenting the Requiemin a staging by Castelluci. To which Resurrection In a new place in Vitrolles had echoed. Another audacity: he had brought in Puccini, so far shunned by the festival, and Monteverdi. And for this summer, he had planned Louise carpenter, Don Giovanni, The Calisto, The story of Billy Budd, Pearl fishermen, The strength of fate… « Calisto metamorphosis, reincarnation of Buddha, Louise’s transformation, Don Giovanni Motement… “There is nothing stable in the universe; Everything goes, all forms are only done to come and go”Ovid advance in his Metamorphosesdepicting through the Calisto of Cavalli a fascinating continuum between nature, men and gods »he stated in his latest editorial.
The ultimate NEC of singers, directors and chefs
when completing his first mandate at the head of the festival, he had stated how crucial he was for the demonstration to also defend contemporary creation. He had also insisted that editions follow each other and are not alike, to keep the surprise of each edition intact. It was like, it didn’t please but we couldn’t say anything before we saw.
Audi shone, Audi charmait. In the community, he had the reputation of succeeding in attracting to Aix – and the 2025 edition still proves it – the ultimate NEC of lyric singers, directors and chiefs. It was difficult to resist him. Born in Beirut, in 1957, in a family of bankers, he had a passion for theater very early on. At the French Lycée, he created a film club where he invites Pasolini or Jacques Tati to come and present their films. His parents moved to France where he completed his schooling in Stanislas, then left for London: he studied history in Oxford and again, digs his way in the theater. He stages Shakespeare, and created at 22, the Almeida Theater, marked for his experimental research. The opera joins him: we can carry out all the staging experiences and with more means. In addition, experimental music had quickly invited itself to his work at the Almeida. In 1988, he took over the management of the National Opera of the Netherlands. He will stay there for 30 years, overlooking the house of the biggest: he had the ring gave for the first time, but also plays Schnittke, or Peter Greenaway and Louis Andriessen for Writing to Vermeer.
Audi is a worker as tireless as his curiosity is insatiable. Under his posed air, he asks more because he is never short of ideas. In 2008, he cumulates with the Holland Festival, in 2015 with the Park avenue Armory in New York whose management he will keep during his Aix mandate. This banker’s son, who had led the opera management of the Netherlands with the rigorous honorary honorary of the country, had been very injured in the financial hole in the budget of the Aix festival last year. Caught by his enthusiasm and ambition, he had hoped for more patrons than they had come. Unlike some captains who leave the ship when he sink, he wanted to stay on board to straighten the house. To which he discreetly had without wanting to publish him, donated money from his pocket. The world of opera loses a lord.
