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"The rooms are closed, so let's get out of the walls": the appeal of the new director of the Dijon Opera

2021-01-25T10:40:58.709Z


"The situation is both distressing and very exciting," explains Dominique Pitoiset. Since his arrival in early January, the director has canceled, postponed and postponed shows rather than scheduling new ones.


"

We must not close but readjust

" cultural places: faced with Covid-19, the new director of the Dijon Opera Dominique Pitoiset calls to "

get out of the walls

" to keep "

the link

" with a suffering public.

"

It is an unusual exercise to arrive in post to deconstruct what has been done before

": since his arrival at the Dijon Opera at the beginning of January, the director Dominique Pitoiset cancels, postpones and postpones shows instead. than to program new ones.

But "

the situation is both distressing and very exciting

", reassures the former director of the National Theater of Bordeaux in Aquitaine (from 2004 to 2013).

Because it completely reshapes all the functionalities of places of art and culture in the community

”.

For the director, "

by dint of being in marked missions

", cultural spaces have taken the risk of finding themselves "

above ground

", disconnected from the populations.

The primary mission of a place of art is to be inscribed in a geography

”, he believes.

However, this mission has never been more relevant than in these times of "

full absurdity

": "

we are social animals and closing cultural spaces is to accept forms of regression

".

"

We could be useful in the proximity: after free streaming, which has preserved artistic activity, art and culture have their role to play: a role of link

".

Thus, the new director "

does not resolve to cancel everything

".

We must not close cultural places but readjust them.

The rooms are closed, so let's get out of the walls.

Let's go elsewhere, let's reinvest the urban space

”, he says, only waiting“

for sunny days to plan everything outside

”.

New circus and dance

“We

will have to react.

And the opera cannot escape being resolutely in its time

”.

Already, the health crisis has sounded the death knell for the subscription formula, "

totally unsuitable

" for a public which now takes its tickets at the last minute.

In addition to the drop "

of about 50% in attendance

" in 2020, the Dijon Opera thus sees its faithful cancel their subscriptions for this season and not take any for the next.

For the first time, we are no longer selling.

We reimburse

”.

And it is not the capture that will bring this audience back, believes Mr. Pitoiset.

Capturing is all well and good, but these are archives.

Me, I am never moved

”.

In Dijon, the city where he was born 62 years ago, the director admits an additional difficulty: filling an auditorium with 1,600 seats, twice the capacity of the Parisian Odeon theater, for example.

"

It is a difficult model to keep,

" he confesses.

Thus, even if the finances are "

in balance

" and that the subsidies which form 80% of the budget are "

not called into question

", the Dijon Opera must "

develop audiences for different projects

".

Renowned for his eclecticism, the former director of the Dijon-Bourgogne National Theater (1996-2000) therefore intends to practice an all-out opening: to dance, and a call was made to the dancers Boris Charmatz and François Chaignaud;

at the new circus, with a proposal made to choreographer Yoann Bourgeois;

but also to singing thanks to a partnership with the City of the voice of Vézelay (Yonne).

A successful theater and opera director, both with the classic Cyrano de Bergerac, titled by Molière, as well as with the very contemporary

Un été à Osage County

by Tracy Letts, Mr. Pitoiset will mount a

Cosi fan tutte at the

start of 2022.

, by Mozart, while

"opening the repertoire on other titles

", such as Offenbach, "

lighter titles

", and of course contemporary, an obligation made in Dijon by its status of lyric theater of national interest.

The director thus intends not only to "

keep

" this label, of which it was feared that Dijon would lose it, but also to "

relaunch

" it.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-01-25

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