In my youth I listened many classical music

Under its air of student timid, Stéphane Braunschweig is published his forty-two years. His modesty had to suffer, it boasts a journey without fault, that led him four years at the head of the Théâtre national de Strasbourg. At the beginning of June, after months of reflection, it is coupled to an ambitious task: implement stage, at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, and a period of four years, the "Ring", the "tetralogy" of Richard Wagner. The project given by Stéphane Lissner, which binds a longstanding professional companionship. As in 1992, while it ruled the Châtelet, the current Director of the festival he had done his first not in the lyrical, with "The Knight" imaginary world of Philippe Fénelon. A required passage "Opera is not to you but suggested you, contrary to the theatre, that one always has the opportunity to be with his friends." Stéphane Lissner gave me my chance. Since then, the lyrical art became a substantial part of my activities, but it's always as if I open a parenthesis.

Following several productions, including "Fidelio", "The Château de Barbe - Bleue", a memorable "Jenufa" and Aix, "The magic flute", "Wozzeck", "the case Makropulos." Are staged to the cord, elegant and refined, not dismissing the technology, but avoiding the gadget (and the walls of televisions that ingeniously increase action in "The flute"). The choice of these operas is not random. It confirms an attraction to a culture and a time. "In my youth, I listened many classical music." But I do not consider myself as a lover. I am germanist and much worked the authors Germans, Kleist, Brecht, Wedekind, Schnitzler; they are the ones that, for me, created the modern theatre. Opera, the Germanic repertoire is unavoidable, I like Wagner, Berg, Janacek, but I also mounted the Verdi's "Rigoletto". I feel close to the creators that revolve around the modernity of the period where Freud developed psychoanalysis. "According to him, a real change occurs, the passage from one world to another. "I can't tell how the world changes, but how people live the change".

Clarity first

The idea of mounting a "tetralogy", Stéphane Braunschweig the door by several years, and due in part to Simon Rattle. It took him tame the book, listen, superimpose his dreams, listen tirelessly this monument that lasts more than 15 hours. It took him, too, develop a design that takes into account the constraints of place: "The gold of the Rhine" will be played at the Archdiocese, but the three following days will be presented in the new hall which will open its doors the summer 2007. Performances will be then resumed at the Salzburg Easter Festival, which is co-producer. "I'm looking for in my stage work, above all clarity." Accumulate a heap of things shelf does me like not. We have developed a scenographic concept is evolving but remains unifying.

Is the interpretation, that can give these four operas out of standards. Rattle defends musically very human, intimate design, an orchestral vision close to Chamber music. Braunschweig is the same. "" I tried to see what was the report of Wagner in the world, the real, to understand how, at one point, an artist could produce a work of this magnitude. ".""The Ring" is of unprecedented wealth, should not be reducing it to a development in Biographical scene, but when we live with in and of itself such a business in the half of his life, tells necessarily something necessary. Therefore, I went in the work of subjectively. Wagner was possessed by a huge appetite for life; at the same time, it was an anguished, however its anxieties join those of many people, they relate to aging, death, permanent loss of life. "Several weeks of rehearsals will be passed, with singers which many decision-making role, until the curtain rises on 2 July on what looks like the musical summer event. Attention: 4 performances only!