Death at 97 of great theater man Peter Brook, director of Moderato Cantabile

He will have been one of the greatest directors of Shakespeare's plays.

Peter Brook, the "

" died on July 2 in Paris.

The French capital was dear to his heart since it was there that he had decided in the mid-1970s to set up his company, at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.

To discover

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: a breathtaking fairyland

Peter Brook was born on March 25, 1925 in London.

He attended Westminster School and then studied comparative literature at Magdalen College as a teenager.

Very early attracted by the art of writing, he submitted his first texts to the BBC.

Its first adaptation will be a novel by Laurence Sterne,

.

Read alsoPeter Brook: “

”

But it is the theater that is his real passion.

The legend says that at five years old he had adapted some scenes from Hamlet for his little puppet theatre.

In 1942, he staged

by Christopher Marlowe.

Then between a few stagings of Shakespeare's work, he practiced playing contemporary authors: Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Roussin, Jean Genet, Peter Weiss...

A man steeped in world culture

Always keen on innovation like Jean Vilar in France, in 1949 he staged

by Richard Strauss.

In 1953, he met Orson Welles during the adaptation of

for American television.

For him, he now knows, the seventh art and the theater are one.

In 1960, he directed

inspired by the eponymous novel by Marguerite Duras.

He directs Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

And this deep film has now become a nugget for the most demanding moviegoers.

From 1962, he can finally develop his theory of empty space on the occasion of the creation of King Lear in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In 1968, at the instigation of Jean-Louis Barrault, he participated in a major theatrical workshop for cultural exchange.

This association forms the beginnings of an intense research on the art of representation.

In 1971, with the production Micheline Rozan, he founded a company at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.

He innovates, works, so that the spectators are even more in symbiosis with the actors.

In the 1980s, he found in Jean-Claude Carrière a theater brother.

They will edit three versions of

together .

In 1985, Peter Brook created

, a play inspired by Hindu mythology, a sort of culmination for this man steeped in oriental culture and the world who, to the end of his strength, knew how to infuse his innovative theories of theatrical adaptation with genius.

Moderato Cantabile