Pierre Audi

“Pierre Audi was undoubtedly one of the opera world’s most prominent figures and a cultural icon of the kind few are made today. His approach to opera has inspired a whole generation of stage directors and artistic managers. He is therefore rightly hailed as a visionary who fundamentally renewed the language of opera. Pierre was born in the Lebanese capital Beirut in 1957. His family moved to Europe and in London he founded the Almeida Theatre in 1979. He directed several theatre and opera productions there and then joined De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, which he led in exceptional fashion for 30 years. I consider it a great privilege to have spent 16 years of that flourishing period by his side.

Pierre was like an artistic brother to me, a partner in crime, but also a endless source of inspiration who, together with business director Truze Lodder, allowed me to grow and trustingly offered me every opportunity to learn the job. From our very first contact, we felt a connection, and that stayed until now: we had planned to talk at length this weekend. Such conversations with Pierre were always enlightening, inspiring, supportive and critical. The latter especially when it concerned the geopolitical situation and the growing extremism in the world, but also the incomprehensible decisions in the opera world’s appointment carousel, or the traditionalism of some houses that threaten to put the opera in a museum-like, dusty and ultimately redundant perspective. Pierre invariably resisted these reactionary tendencies, not by jumping on the barricades, but by propagating a hybrid and cross-cultural approach to opera-making himself.

At La Monnaie, Pierre realised a dream he did not dare to pursue in Amsterdam: a staging of Pelléas et Mélisande for which I put him in touch with Anish Kapoor. It became the first in a long series of projects, from the double evening with Gluck's two Iphigénies over Handel’s Orlando and the revivals of his historic Alcina and Tamerlano productions from Drottningholm to the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s Penthesilea and, finally, the completion of our Ring cycle. Götterdämmerung became his last new production. The symbolism is unmissable. The end of the gods. The end of a generation.

Last night, we dedicated the last performance of I Grotteschi to Pierre. After all, it was with Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria that our artistic relationship began. He was the one who introduced me to Monteverdi. Ulisse was also his last stage direction at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, which he led as artistic director since 2019. With Leonardo García-Alarcón, who also conducted that production, the musicians of Cappella Mediterranea and the soloists, we felt it was important to dedicate this Monteverdi performance to him. The performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony under the baton of Alain Altinoglu, his musical partner for the last two parts of the Ring at La Monnaie, is also dedicated to his memory.

Our thoughts are with colleagues in Aix but first and foremost with his wife Marieke and their children Sophia and Alexander. He had just resolved to travel and work less, and spend more time with them. Fate has cruelly not allowed him to do so.

Pierre's death feels like a cycle closing. Far too soon.

– Peter de Caluwe