portrait of an artist “neither trendy nor old-fashioned, but above all eclectic”

A director and actor whose eclecticism we knew and who surprised us by staging Alban Berg’s opera at the Capitole in Toulouse, Wozzeck, black work taken from a sordid 19th century news item. Far from the divas that he tries to resuscitate (What happened to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford?), fed that they are on this excessive side that he claims… Portrait of a man more a clown sad than extravagant.

We saw him arrive by the entrance of the artists, without anything flamboyant, discreet, the mask wise, anonymous among others. His dressing room looks like an old sleeping car, the same narrowness of the bed, a mirror, a table, a chair, barely room for two. But that’s fine with him: he leaves the chair with you, sits on the bed, wisely looks at you, no doubt wonders what we’re going to get out of him, obviously about his taste for dressing as a woman, an old diva who makes you twist of laughing, until the laughter chokes, which happens, in front of the unfathomable sadness that sometimes pierces under the incarnation.

“But in the history of the theater we have always disguised ourselves, the Greeks, the Romans already… And in Shakespeare’s time. Men played women, in the 19th century it was women who played men. “ An answer in the form of a history of the theater… We look at him, we look for signs of this extravagance in his outfit, the pink tie perhaps; or the yellow socks on moccasins that look like Cordoba leather. “Italian moccasins. No, not Spanish…”

We are also looking for the relationship between this man peacefully seated, his back a little arched, and the dimension he gives to these divas characters who appear incredibly wide and tall. Art of the actor, which he learned from Michel Bouquet, his teacher, but also from Gérard Desarthe, sorry. The lyric therefore (we came for that): we shout with him Chives, The postilion of Longjumeau, operettas, normal. Dardanus of Rameau but it’s baroque, Rameau, and in the baroque he can put excess, a delirium. Corn Wozzeck ?

“Wozzeck, like Elektra (by Richard Strauss) which I also staged in Toulouse, these are tragedies. That’s what inspires me, can inspire me, this exaggeration. It’s not the drama . Tragedy ends badly but it’s not sad, it’s crazy. It’s victorious, not sordid. “It is objected that if Elektra, it’s a greek tragedy, bloody and all, Wozzeck, it’s a small provincial news item. “Yes but Wozzeck is mad. He is mad, hallucinated. Wozzeck, Büchner’s play, Berg’s opera (and I want to bring the play and the opera together in this show), these are grotesque, tragic, poetic works and metaphysical, not realistic at all. Wozzeck, it’s not a reasonable opera, it’s not a reasonable piece. It’s expressionism. There is this excess, which I adore, which is a little my DNA “

“You see the difference … I am a man of the theater. The opera, the operetta, they come to offer them to me, it is not me who solicits them, the directors. But obviously, I love it. C ‘is my first memory, at the opera house in Agen (where he was born), The pearl fishermen (by Bizet) The artifice of the stage. I was nine years old. “ A vocation was born …

“I’m obviously looking for what I can bring to this universe. I was offered Norma; I refused, in Norma I don’t have much to say. In bel canto in general.” We guess it’s because the music is so melodic, Chopin in the voice. “Yes, or else the singer would have to bring me the missing madness. Possibly… Lucrèce Borgia (from Donizetti) We would have guessed. But he still answers: Because of Victor Hugo. “

We talk about Verdi. He smiles, almost sees it. “Ah! Yes, Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff… Falstaff, that’s wonderful.” We could almost have cited them in his place: works inspired by the ogre Shakespeare, the Shakespearean dimension …

So we come to the theater, to these forgotten authors of the good boulevard, Roussin, Barillet and Grédy (Cactus flower with Catherine Frot) “But it is also a whole part of our theater that we neglect. I also edited Montherlant, an unknown piece, ‘The Director of the Opera’. From an author so famous in his time and that we no longer play either. Even those who laughed about it (you go up Montherlant?) Were surprised by the quality of the writing. These people who are in purgatory, Mauriac, Marcel Aymé, Anouilh even… “

We ask him if he feels apart in this profession, we imagine a negative response, that is to say consensual. “Ah! yes, totally marginal. And yet I am neither one of those directors who want to modernize at all costs, twist their necks at work, tell something other than what is written; nor someone who sets up actors and wisely plays the text. Yes, neither trendy nor out of date. But above all eclectic and I fight for this eclecticism. I try to surprise myself first. “

The proof? An author he would like to set up? Samuel Beckett. We really didn’t expect that either. “I was having trouble with Beckett. It was Michel Bouquet who converted me. Beckett’s poems, admirable. “ But which room? We take the opportunity to be surprised that the rights holders block at this point the evolution of the staging, with always the eternal tree ofWaiting for Godot, the Winnie in whiteOh ! the good days with his umbrella and his sand prison. Where would the madness nestle in there?

A gesture of helplessness shared on these rights holders who block the creativity of people in the theater (“Guitry, same problem“) And back, it’s better, at this Wozzeck that we are going to find out. How did the singers, Degout and Koch, knowing him, react? “They figured it wasn’t going to be lukewarm. But no clash. It was also a step for them in their work. I’m an actor. First of all, I try to get them to embody their character even more deeply… And then there are theater directors who know nothing about music. I know her. I’m not going to blackmail them upside down or down stairs. I also spoke a lot, it is with us, of the rhythm “. We think of this death of Carmen of the Opéra-Comique whose notes he really sang, as extravagant tragedian as a real musician …

He returns, one last time, to his influences for this Wozzeck (Kubrick, Tim Burton, David Lynch too) and on his working methods: “I generally need to know everything that has been done before me on a work, or to know as much as possible. “ To go elsewhere, no doubt. And print its own brand. What he did so well in this Wozzeck.

The next adventure? “Georges Dandin. Molière’s piece but with music by Lully. “The opera and the theater reunited. And who will be Dandin, this rich country man marrying a noble girl who, with her parents, wants only his fortune, leaving him in the end stripped and beaten? “Me, of course. I will do the actor again.” And the victim ridiculed. Michel Fau, the sad clown, does he really love himself?

Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck”
Toulouse Capitol
Next performances on November 23 and 24 at 8:30 p.m.