While the Croisette is experiencing its last hours of festival, a "New Wave" is about to sweep across Cap Bénat. Tonight, the town of Six-Fours-les-Plages will welcome star violinist Renaud Capuçon and several of the young talents he produces through his company Beau Soir (violist Paul Zientara, violinist Stéphanie Huang and pianist Guillaume Bellom), for the launch of the Nuits du Cygne. "More than three weeks of chamber music concerts, where the biggest names on the French scene can rub shoulders with up-and-coming talents," says programmer Gerald Lerda.
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For the past three years, he has been orchestrating, at the request of Mayor Jean-Sébastien Vialatte, the Classic Wave. Much more than just a festival, the prefiguration of a season of classical music in its own right, which takes place each year in three stages. "A first meeting around chamber music, in the setting of the courtyard of the Maison du Cygne, lulled by the song of cicadas, between May and June, he explains. The festival La Collégiale, centered on the baroque, and whose tenth anniversary will be celebrated this year, in July. And finally the Concerts de la Lagune: three free concerts, offered to the Six-Fournais, and which will take place this year at the Maison du Patrimoine, on the Corniche des Îles, facing the sea. »
Coming out of confinement, the mayor wanted to offer the Six-Fournais several totally free concerts. That's how Gautier Capuçon ended up coming to play at Six-Fours. Love at first sight was immediate.
Gerald Lerda, programmer of the Classic Wave.
A musical hub project
A long-standing dream for Jean-Sébastien Vialatte, mayor of Six-Fours for almost three decades, and who ultimately wishes to offer his municipality a real "musical hub", with the creation of a 400-seat auditorium and a relocated site of the conservatory of the Toulon Provence Méditerranée metropolis. "After the restoration of the Collegiate Church in 2013, the City launched the La Collégiale festival, which allowed it to forge extremely strong and privileged relationships with certain classical artists. Especially Jean-Christophe Spinosi, whose radiant and energetic personality has this unique ability to awaken the scenes," continues Gerald Lerda.
Jean-Christophe Spinosi (left) and Philippe Jaroussky last year at the Collegiate Church of Six-Fours-les-Plages. Marie-Diane TASSY
Magical duo
But it is in 2020 that a second decisive meeting takes place. That of the cellist Gautier Capuçon. "When coming out of confinement, the mayor wanted to offer the Six-Fournais several totally free concerts. That's how Gautier Capuçon ended up coming to play at Six-Fours. Love at first sight was immediate. To the point that he now spends part of his holidays there. And that he even organized last year the closing concert of his tour A Summer in France. " A particularly moving moment, which saw him perform on July 24 in the magical enclosure of the Mediterranean Park, surrounded by eleven young instrumentalists and dancers, and even his daughter Fairy, for a duet between dance and cello that was a moment of suspended grace.
The musician will close this year's Nuits du Cygne, with a recital with his faithful friend and pianist Jérôme Ducros (June 17), then three young talents from his foundation: Anastasia Rizikov, Sarah Jégou and Lisa Strauss (June 18). The first laureate of the foundation, Kim Bernard, will also perform at the lagoon concerts in September, for a piano recital. Meanwhile, the electric Spinosi has also blown a breath of fresh air over the ten years of the La Collégiale festival, between exceptional guests (Rolando Villazon, who will notably cover Monteverdi's The Fight of Tancred), and great voices in the making, like the contralto Maria Sala, grand prize of the Cesti competition in Innsbruck in 2020.
