Aurélie Dupont resigns.
It was the Paris National Opera who announced it, Thursday, June 16, in a press release.
His departure will be effective on July 31.
The dancer decided to devote herself to personal projects, a book, a film and a musical, and her family.
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The star had been at the head of the company since February 4, 2016. Stéphane Lissner, director of the Paris Opera, had appointed her in disaster, following the departure of Benjamin Millepied.
The six years of the dancer at the head of the Paris Opera ballet will have been eventful.
The star was just leaving the stage.
She had no kind of preparation for the position that awaited her and governing 154 dancers cannot be improvised.
A year after her appointment, a bronca in the ballet broke out: the dancers reproached their director in an absolutely terrifying internal report for her silences and her absences, interrupted only by relations that they considered brutal.
Read alsoAurélie Dupont, a management star at the Paris Opera
Serene atmosphere and interesting programming
Despite these difficult beginnings, the director left the company with her head held high.
In the current landscape of the Paris Opera, the ballet is in an enviable position.
Its dancers are extremely brilliant, partly thanks to the school providing excellent elements.
And it benefits from a loyal and passionate audience that fills each performance, unlike the lyrical where the spectators seriously desert certain productions.
In addition, the programming which for a time seemed fanciful, embodying the rebellion of a star against the great classical ballets to which it had had to submit, took on a better direction under the influence of Alexander Neef, Stéphane Lissner's successor.
Read alsoParis Opera: the very timid reform of Alexander Neef
In the opinion of the ballet, Aurélie Dupont was very efficient when she entered the studio.
She knew how to give the right directions and we can judge from the
Giselle
by Alice Renavand and Mathieu Ganio for which she directed the rehearsals.
However, she remained very absent and distant.
But she had ended up setting up an effective team, around Sabrina Mallem, formerly subject in the ballet of the Paris Opera and promoted, a few days ago, ballet master associated with the direction of the dance.
Aurélie Dupont leaves a company where the atmosphere has become serene again and where the interesting programming strikes a fairly good balance between classic and contemporary.
Who to succeed him?
A commission chaired by Bernard Stirn will have to make its choice among the projects presented.
Bernard Stirn, long president of the litigation section at the Council of State, was also president of the board of directors of the Paris Opera from 2001 to 2018.
