Le Printemps des acteurs, a theater festival to be held in Montpellier from June 1 to 21, is beginning its transformation into a “European city of theatre”, opening with its first major international production entrusted to star director Ivo van Hove
“A very important event is taking shape: the creation of a production unit with a view to the merger of the Printemps des acteurs and the Domaine d’O to make a European City of Theater”, confided to a month from the opening of the 37th edition Jean Varela, director of these two institutions called to become only one at the beginning of 2024. This merger “contributes to consolidating the work undertaken for several years, namely to create a theater sector in Montpellier”, a- he added, citing the collaborations with theater schools and other master classes which will multiply next year.
“At least European directors”, such as the enfant terrible of the Italian theater Romeo Castellucci, as well as “artists trained and living in the territory”, will find their place in the new structure, which is also part of the Montpellier’s candidacy for the title of European Capital of Culture 2028, he underlines.
To mark the beginning of this transition, the Printemps des acteurs therefore entrusted this year its “first major international production” to the Belgian Ivo van Hove, a regular at the festival, who recently caused a sensation with his Broadway revival of West Side Story and with the first version of Molière’s Tartuffe which he staged at the Comédie-Française. This time, Ivo van Hove took on two texts by Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, After the Rehearsal and Persona, for which he called on Charles Berling and Emmanuelle Bercot, among others. After Montpellier from June 1 to 4, the diptych will be performed this winter at the Théâtre de la ville de Paris, then in Luxembourg, Geneva, Toulon, Le Havre and La Rochelle.
“This edition plunges us into very significant questions about the political situation in Europe. It will be a non-didactic theater, but a joyful theater, troupe, which does not provide an answer but which rather helps us to face the uncertainties of time”, underlined Jean Varela.
With De Wij (Le Vij), the Russian director and filmmaker in exile Kirill Serebrennikov author of the film The Woman of Tchaikovsky, who will sign next season at the Paris Opera his first opera production in France with Lohengrin by Wagner will once again denounce the war in Ukraine, inspired by an old Russian myth made famous by Gogol.
Julien Gosselin will present a new 5-hour long piece, Extinction, devoted to Vienna before the First World War, which will then be performed in July at the prestigious Festival d’Avignon. “Seen from the other side of the world, Montpellier, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Arles… It’s the same district. You can see the best of international creation in a tight time, it’s extraordinary”, enthuses Jean Varela, welcoming “a new way of thinking about things, of working in close proximity, in a network with our neighbors” .
Among the other highlights of “Spring”, its boss points in particular to The Aesthetics of Resistance, directed by Sylvain Creuzevault from the work of Peter Weiss, on the rise of Nazism, Ubu by Bob Wilson, from after Alfred Jarry and Joan Miro, Oasis de la Impunidad by the Chilean company Re-Sendidan or Léon Blum, une vie heroique, by Charles Berling, Philippe Collin and Violaine Ballet, on one of the great figures of 20th century socialism .
