Classical music in a “beef” version with friends in “Roman arenas”, which date back to… 1941? This is what awaits Parisians in August. A concept created by a proud Marseillais but with a very discreet accent: “I never wanted to mask it, I have it on the yellows, pinks, delicious”, he laughs. Pierre Mollaret is 34 years old. Singer and pop musician, he improvised as a classical open-air concert producer in June 2018. “For a long time, I wanted to organize concerts, but it was in a more modest setting. Initially, I wanted to do it through Airbnb Experience.”
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Inspiration came to him suddenly as he passed in front of the Jardin des Arènes-de-Montmartre. “I was completely caught up in a passion, and that’s what made me move the whole earth. I did like a grown-up”, simply says Pierre Mollaret. This place little known to the general public has arenas only in appearance: they were built on an apple orchard around the middle of the 20th century to serve as buttresses for the weights of the Sacred Heart. Today the apple trees have been replaced by olive trees and the garden is only open to the public on rare occasions.
Request for authorization from the town hall, promotional clip, posters in the neighborhood, posts on social networks, recruitment of musicians not sure of being paid… “I had no money and they followed me anyway”, is still surprised the improvised producer. In two months, in 2018, everything is then folded and the first performance takes place: “A great success”, fully funded by ticket sales. “And the artists have been paid!”he proudly insists.
It must be said that the concept is quite magical: a summer evening at nightfall, a glass of wine from a castle in the south of France served in an improvised bar in the garden, while waiting for the concert begin.
“I wanted something extremely romantic, very warm, where we play music but in a slightly more relaxed setting. It’s really the whole mythology of summer concerts in Italy.”
Pierre Mollaret, creator of the Lyric Arenasat franceinfo
“I’m a musician, I have friends who are musicians, I’m in a musical environment and when we have evenings between us, we play music and II find that the charm of the music appears then in a completely different way, he confides. It is completely embodied, and these are often really extremely moving moments, like when you discover music by chance, for example, in a subway corridor. And that’s what I want to do in these concerts: to draw inspiration from the private setting with all the unforeseen that that entails, but at the same time, bring a technical setting, high musical standards, high-level musicians, who will come to sublimate all that.”
And the charm undeniably operates. The pieces follow one another, some known, others not. However profane one may be, one is surprised to find such and such a familiar tune. And for good reason, some dress cinema or advertising films. Choosing these pieces that will please everyone is a real work of “DJ”, according to Pierre Mollaret, who says he draws inspiration from his own playlist. It’s necessary “knowing how to program pieces that are both beautiful in themselves, but which will be able to highlight the next piece. If we only have sublime pieces succeed each other, inevitably, they will cancel each other out. So you have to be able to alternate. There is also an implicit frame, these evenings taking place at sunset. It starts during the day and gradually, we are immersed in the night with the garlands that light up. There are clearly some tracks that are more suited to the day and others to the night.”
“And it is also and above all an opportunity, because a concert is not just about music, to meet characters, musicians, instruments.”
Pierre Mollaretat franceinfo
And in fact, before each piece, the musician or the singers introduce it with a short presentation. A proximity to the public that is very unprecedented in the classical world and welcomed with undisguised joy by the artists. It must be said that the applause that resounds with the first notes of the Moonlight by Debussy break with the religious silence that usually accompanies this kind of performance.
This unexpected simplicity is not the only cliché that these “Lyrical Arenas” dismantle. Organize an event in August, “it will never work”, could hear Pierre Mollaret. And yet, from the first year, the arenas are full: 300 seats inside plus all the clandestine spectators crowded into the gates. Another foiled cliché: a demanding public for elitist music. 10% of the public in the first two years were under 26, indicates Pierre Mollaret. The rest were 30-40 years old, a very Parisian and surprisingly young audience, made up mainly of couples and groups of friends.
For this third season, 10 musicians, a singer and a tenor will host eight exceptional nights, from August 5 to 20. On the program, the Concierto de Aranjuez – adagio by Joaquin heard in The Virtuosos by Mark Herman, or the Piano trio No.2 popularized by the Barry Lindon by Stanley Kubrick in 1975.
The full program can be found on the Arènes lyriques website.