It is a musician, the conductor Louis Langrée, who was chosen to take the head of the Opéra Comique for five years, succeeding Olivier Mantei, who left to lead the Philharmonie de Paris, the ministry announced on October 21. of the culture.
Mulhousien by origin, Louis Langrée began his career as musical director of the Picardy orchestra, then of the Opéra de Lyon, before becoming a regular in American theaters.
60 years old, Louis Langrée is indeed one of the French conductors who shine around the world, and in particular in the United States where he is the musical director of the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in New York since 2003 and especially of the prestigious Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since 2013. Louis Langrée has also conducted the philharmonic orchestras of Berlin, Vienna, London, New York and Tokyo, and “is invited by the greatest opera houses such as the Staatsoper in Vienna, La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House-Covent Garden in London, the Opéra national de Paris, the Glyndebourne and Aix-en festivals -Provence”, recalled the Ministry of Culture in a press release.
During his tenure at the head of the three-hundred-year-old Parisian institution, he proposed to mix repertoire works and creations, and to develop tours, particularly international ones. “He also proposes to open wide the doors of the National Theater of the Opéra Comique, thanks to the popular Maîtrise, but also with participatory opera projects and operations dedicated to young audiences”, the statement continued.
The Opéra Comique, one of the main lyrical stages in Paris and the birthplace of legendary operas such as Carmen, has been completely renovated, and over the past few years, under the leadership of Jérôme Deschamps and Olivier Mantei, has strived to bring out of oblivion an enormous repertoire and a genre in itself, “comic opera”, an art mixing pieces sung in spoken theater.