The longtime director of the Avignon theatre festival, Olivier Py, has been named the new artistic director of Paris’s historical Châtelet theatre, over the objections of Greens in the city council who would have liked to see a woman named.
The actor and director is tasked with providing a strong artistic identity for the historic theatre, which has been without an artistic director since British artistic director Ruth Mackenzie was fired in 2020 due to managerial and financial concerns.
“I want to transform the Châtelet into an exceptional place,” Py told the AFP news agency. “I want it to be international, with a focus on French singing – multidisciplinary, popular and of high level.”
The theatre was inaugurated in 1862, and became known at the turn of the 20th century for premiering groundbreaking works including Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka ballet and Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography of Afternoon of a Faun.
The theatre has staged music and dance performances as well as operettas and musical theatre.
Py, who directed the Odeon theatre from 2007 to 2012, then ran the Avignon Festival from 2013 to 2022, will have to revive the Châtelet while addressing a €6 million deficit, which has persisted even with nearly sold-out shows since September with a popular staging of the musical 42 Street.
He said he is used to finding solutions “even when mathematically there are none”.
While Py’s nomination was welcomed by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who said it brought “a promise of audacity, joy, surprises and impertinence”, others would have liked to see someone else named.
The head of Hidalgo’s Green coalition partner in the city council, Alice Coffin, who also sits on the theatre’s board and was part of the selection committee, said two women “with excellent dossiers” had been retained – Valérie Chevalier, the current director of the Carreau du Temple cultural centre, and Sandrina Martins, director of the Montpellier Opera.
"But it’s Olivier Py who was fished out, at the cost of dossiers that were considered better,” she wrote, adding that the choice “reveals the arbitrariness as well as the particular sexism in the cultural and political world”.
Py brought in record numbers to the Avignon festival, inviting artists who addressed diverse issues, including LGBT+ rights, feminism or immigration.
He takes over the Châtelet for its 2024-2025 season.
(with AFP)
