2020/2021 season
Desires on the wing
Is love always one-sided? This is the question which the Opéra national du Rhin explores in various productions during its 2020-2021 season. While love can be traitorous—in the case of Samson and Delilah; enchanted—Alcina and Ruggiero; a sacrifice—Antigone and Haemon; convenient—Pinkerton and Madame Butterfly; or fleeting—Peer Gynt and Solveig, what all these ill-matched couples have in common is that their unequal romance leads to tragedy. This asymmetry is taken to the extreme in Death in Venice, where an aging artist’s secret platonic love for an adolescent boy ends in death and indifference.
Opera needs tumultuous love affairs to create drama, while the music expresses that which cannot be put into words: burning desire brutally extinguished by dispassion; illusions that crumble like a sorceress’ castle; or a long, tragi-romantic wait (by Madame Butterfly or Solveig) for spring that also promises the return of a loved one.
While the hopes of our lyrical characters are often dashed, we are confident that yours, dear OnR spectator, will not be. For 2020-2021, Eva Kleinitz had curated a fourth season that was generous, multi-faceted, and beautiful, much like the woman herself. Sadly, Eva died in May 2019 before she had the chance to complete the fourth instalment of her intense but curtailed project in Alsace. After her death, assistant director Bertrand Rossi stepped up as interim managing director to finalize the program. I want to thank Bertrand for steering the OnR so confidently during the difficult months following Eva’s death.
I also want to express my gratitude to everybody at the OnR. From the artistic teams to the technical crew to our administrative staff, everyone showed nothing less than total dedication to their work despite the sense of loss and uncertainty felt by all. This dedication continued during the challenging weeks that came in spring 2020 when an unprecedented public health crisis affected the planet—and the performing arts in particular.
I would like to say a few words about these difficult times, because they will have a significant bearing on the months and years ahead. In mid-March 2020 we had to cancel our upcoming productions to keep our staff, guest artists, and the public safe. At the time of writing, I am hopeful that we will be able to get back to work at the start of the 2020-2021 season. So, with that in mind, this brochure presents the program that has been in the making for several months. We have not spent the 2019-2020 season resting on our laurels. During lockdown, we marched on with curating future seasons and have managed to reschedule most of the productions cancelled in spring. Provided that conditions are safe, our wish remains the same as ever—for the show to go on.
So, as I write my first editorial for a seasonal brochure and continue Eva’s legacy, I am thinking of everyone in the OnR family, and particularly an absent friend.
I have already alluded to the upcoming operas. However, I left out the one I am most excited about: Engelbert Humperdinck’s timeless Hansel and Gretel, a piece whose popularity has far transcended the German borders. All our productions are brought together by dedicated and talented teams. We will welcome back Marie-Eve Signeyrole, Ariane Matiakh, Pierre-Emmanuel Rousseau, Giuliano Carella, and Marko Letonja. We are also pleased to welcome some new faces: directors Jean-Philippe Clarac, Olivier Deloeuil, and Serena Sinigaglia, joined by conductor of baroque operas Christopher Moulds and composer Zad Moultaka, who will be working on a monumental international production that will be the cornerstone of the Arsmondo Festival. Another new arrival—the highly respected Catalan theatre director Calixto Bieito—will be kicking off the festivities with Waiting, an original adaptation of Ibsen and Grieg’s Peer Gynt.
Continuity is an important theme of our 2020-2021 season, and this goes for our dance program too. The director of our ballet, Bruno Bouché, will pursue his exploration of protean, powerful choreography that is intimately connected with our contemporary world. In addition to a new episode in the Specters of Europe series, we are showing a mixed-discipline performance inspired by Mozart with young choreographers from our company offering a fresh perspective. We are also bringing back two hits from previous seasons: the superb Chaplin and the intoxicating María de Buenos Aires. Bruno Bouché has devised a major piece inspired by Wim Wender’s extraordinary Wings of Desire, a film seemingly made with the world of dance and zero gravity in mind. As a kind of response to the frustrated outpourings of love portrayed in the opera program, these Wings of Desire show us that asymmetry can be resolved, when an angel takes human form for the love of a mortal.
As has become customary in recent years, young spectators have lots to look forward to. Two operas inspired by classic fairytales (an adaptation of Hansel and Gretel for families, and a pocket-size version of Rossini’s Cinderella) and a Mozart-influenced ballet will be shown alongside our traditional Cushion Concerts and other special events. Many young artists from our Opéra Studio will perform in these productions. Our program also sees the return of our daytime song recitals (now renamed Lyrical Breaks), as well as a variety of concerts and other events.
Another season highlight is the Arsmondo Festival, an opportunity to explore a multicultural country—Lebanon—in fresh and fascinating ways. This interdisciplinary event, which the OnR has staged since 2018, is a wonderful tribute to Eva Kleinitz. The country of honor this year is one of the most culturally rich in the world. Influenced by the mosaic of religions, languages, and cultures that has shaped its history, Lebanon is a living testament to our multicultural age and the art of cultural discovery that is so particular to opera. Of course, Lebanon’s diversity has not come without its trials and tensions, including a history bloodied by a long civil war. Which is why it is vital that we continue to support dialog in all its forms—between the arts as much as between nations, cultures, and religions—in our constant quest for openness. Openness was the foundation of Eva Kleinitz’ arts policy and will remain at our core, an invaluable legacy that we will celebrate at every opportunity in our 2020-2021 season and continue to embrace in future seasons. A desire for openness also prompted us to strengthen our relations with local institutions in Alsace, starting with our two permanent partners, the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg and the Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse, as well as the theaters that host a large number of our productions and events: La Filature and La Sinne in Mulhouse, and the Théâtre Municipal and the Comédie in Colmar. Likewise, we are collaborating more closely with Festival Musica and all the Arsmondo partners.
We remain steadfast in our conviction of the value and necessity of our crafts. The Covid-19 crisis has cast a light on various aspects of our society, both its strengths and weaknesses. The pandemic has especially highlighted the vital importance of socializing for our democratic societies. The performing arts require an audience, and so we look forward to the days—soon, we hope—when the simple pleasure of enjoying a cultural experience with others outside the home is no longer a risk. Our venues are places where people can come to feel welcome and spend unforgettable moments together, which is why we wish all of you, our dear spectators, a fantastic 2020-2021 season packed with exciting discoveries, lively discussions, and reawakened emotions.