Alfredo Arias (theatre producer)

Last updated

Alfredo Arias (born 4 March 1944) is a theatre producer, actor and playwright. Born in a Buenos Aires suburb, he has subsequently acquired French nationality and, since 1969 or 1970, been based in Paris. [1]

Contents

Life

Early years

Arias was born in Lanús, [2] an industrial city contiguous with Buenos Aires. His father was a factory worker: output included espadrilles and tarpaulins. His relationship with his mother was troubled and Arias joined the Péronist youth organisation. His parents planned that he should become a lawyer, although Arias himself developed an early determination to work in the arts. Aged 11 he was enrolled in a military school after which he was required to pass a legal qualification. [3]

He participated in the theatrical courses provided by the Alliance Française, but was quickly discouraged by its outdated and classical approach. [4]

Theatrical career

With like minded friends Alfredo Arias founded a theatrical group in Buenos Aires called "TSE" in 1968, [5] and presented a series of original productions blending fantasy, magic and humour, "Dracula", "Aventuras" and "Aventuras". However, identified as both a communist and a homosexual he began to targeted by official repression from proxies for the military dictatorship which then held sway in Argentina. He decided to leave Argentina at the end of 1968, settling briefly in New York City before moving on to Paris. [5]

His first piece in Paris, "History of the Theatre" ("Histoire du Théâtre"), and his production of a play about Eva Perón, written by his fellow exile, Copi, were both commended for their originality of tone, elements of fantasy, and above all for their radically new theatrical approach. They were followed by "Police Comedy de luxe" ("Comédie policière ; Luxe"), a music hall parody, and by "Heartbreak of an English she-cat" ("Peines de cœur d'une chatte anglaise"), based on the novel of Balzac and the illustrations of Grandville, in which the characters wear masks, which ran for more than 300 performances in France and enjoyed commensurate success internationally, especially in Italy.

His "TSE group" having been successfully translated from South America, staged productions in a range of Paris theatres, presenting new creations including "The North Star" ("L'Étoile du Nord"), "The Venetian Twins" ("Les Jumeaux vénitiens") by Goldoni, "The Jungle Beast" ("La Bête dans la jungle") based by Marguerite Duras on a novel by Henry James, and "The seated woman" ("La Femme assise") by Copi.

In 1985 Arias was appointed to direct the Commune Theatre at Aubervilliers on the north side of Paris. Here he spent six years working on the classical repertoire, on contemporary productions and on ironic music hall reinterpretations, ranging across Marivaux, Maeterlinck, Mérimée, Goldoni and others. His musical production "Family of Artists" underwent a reprise in Argentina. He also collaborated again with his compatriot, Copi, for "The steps of the Sacré-Cœur" ("Les Escaliers du Sacré-Cœur").

He was invited to produce The Tempest in the Palais des Papes for the Avignon Festival, and the Comédie-Française invited him to stage Schnitzler's La Ronde at the Paris Odéon Theatre. In 1992 he began a series of original creations that enabled him to invent a new theatrical language blending dance and music with poetic dialogues. Examples include the award winning review "Mortadela" (written in collaboration with René de Ceccatty, with whom he has subsequently written regularly), Folies Bergères reviews Fous des Folies and Faust Argentin and a new staging of "Heartbreak of an English she-cat" ("Peines de cœur d'une chatte anglaise") which won Molière awards for its staging and costumes.

Opera

Alfredo Arias has also brought his very personal touch to opera, in France (Opéra Bastille, Théâtre du Châtelet, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and the Caen Opera), in Italy (Milan, Turin and Spoleto) in Spain and Argentina (Teatro Colón). Operas staged by Alfredo Arias include the following:

* Les Indes galantes by Rameau
* The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky
* The Merry Widow by Lehár
* The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach (two different productions)
* The Breasts of Tiresias by Apollinaire
* The Barber of Seville by Rossini
* A Midsummer Night's Dream by Britten
* Carmen by Bizet (included in the repertoire of the Opéra Bastille)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teatro Colón</span> Opera house in Buenos Aires

The Teatro Colón is a historic opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world by National Geographic. According to a survey carried out by the acoustics expert Leo Beranek among leading international opera and orchestra directors, the Teatro Colón has the room with the best acoustics for opera and the second best for concerts in the world.

<i>The English Cat</i> 1983 opera by Hans Werner Henze

The English Cat is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise by Honoré de Balzac. The opera was first performed in a German translation by the Stuttgart Opera at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen at the Schwetzingen Festival on 2 June 1983. The French premiere was at the Opéra-Comique, Paris in 1984. The first performance using the original English text was at Santa Fe on 13 July 1985. The UK premiere was at the Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, on 19 August 1987. A revised version was performed at Montepulciano in 1990 and this was given in London in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcelo Álvarez</span> Argentine lyric tenor (born 1962)

Marcelo Raúl Álvarez is an Argentine lyric tenor who achieved international success starting in the mid-1990s.

<i>La Périchole</i> Opera by Jacques Offenbach, premiered in 1868

La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. It was first seen in a two-act version on 6 October 1868 at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, with Hortense Schneider in the title role, José Dupuis as Piquillo and Pierre-Eugène Grenier as the Viceroy. A revised three-act version premiered at the same theatre on 25 April 1874, with the same three stars. The work was staged throughout Europe and the Americas, and is frequently revived, particularly in France.

Laurent Pelly is a French opera and theatre director. He is sought after by the world's most prestigious houses. With a natural affinity for Italian and French repertoire, his creative curiosity has also led him towards other composers, including Russian and Czech. He brings theatrical insight to his work with singers and his concepts often contain surreal invention and a dark sense of humour. A master of detail, he underlines his interpretation of characters through skilful and inspired costume designs.

Raúl Damonte Botana, better known by the nom de plume Copi, was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.

Jérôme Savary was an Argentinian-French theater director and actor. His work has democratized and widened the appeal of musical theater in France, drawing together and blending such genres as opera, operetta, and musical comedy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Reinhart</span> American bass opera singer (born 1951)

Gregory Reinhart is an American bass opera singer. He is noted for an extremely wide repertory which ranges from early music to the world premieres of several contemporary operas including Lowell Liebermann's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Philippe Manoury's K..., and Pascal Dusapin's Perelà, uomo di fumo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Ott</span> Uruguayan-Canadian architect (born 1946)

Carlos Adolfo Ott is a Uruguayan-Canadian architect. He became famous when he won the international design competition in 1983 for the construction of the Opéra Bastille in Paris, which was inaugurated on July 14, 1989. Starting from an office in Toronto, Canada, Ott has since expanded his practice internationally. Ott's practice is headquartered in Montevideo, Uruguay, with offices in Dubai, Montreal, Shanghai and Toronto. Ott has designed buildings in Argentina, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Paraguay, The Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Uruguay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar Strasnoy</span> French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist

Oscar Strasnoy is a French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist. Although primarily known for his stage works, the first of which Midea (2) premiered in Spoleto in 2000, his principal compositions also include two secular cantatas and several song cycles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juliette Simon-Girard</span> French opera singer

Juliette-Joséphine Simon-Girard was a French soprano, principally in operetta. Her father, Philippe Lockroy, was an actor at the Comédie Française, and her mother was Caroline Girard, of the Opéra-Comique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge Lavelli</span> French theatre and opera director (1932–2023)

Jorge Lavelli was an Argentine-born French theatre and opera director. He staged first plays and then opera, and in both fields, he was open to contemporary pieces without neglecting the classic repertoire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles-Antoine Cambon</span> French painter

Charles-Antoine Cambon was a French scenographer, theatrical production designer, who acquired international renown in the Romantic Era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dumanoir</span> French playwright and librettist

Philippe François Pinel, known as Dumanoir, was a French playwright and librettist.

<i>Les cadeaux de Noël</i>

Les cadeaux de Noël is an opera in one act composed by Xavier Leroux to a French-language libretto by Émile Fabre. Described as a conte héroïque, it was premiered by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart Theatre in Paris on Christmas Day 1915. Its story of four children, whose parents had been killed by German soldiers but who nevertheless found hope in a seemingly bleak Christmas, had a particular resonance with French audiences in the midst of World War I. The opera was a great success in Paris, and subsequently performed in Italy, Monte Carlo and Latin America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Duru</span> French playwright and operetta librettist

Henri Alfred Duru was a 19th-century French playwright and operetta librettist who collaborated on more than 40 librettos for the leading French composers of operetta: Hervé, Offenbach, Lecocq and Audran.

Émile Étienne Charles Gabet was a 19th-century French playwright and librettist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurent Bàn</span> Musical artist

Laurent Bàn is a French singer-songwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oreste Cortazzo</span> Italian painter

Oreste Cortazzo was an Italian-born French painter, graphic artist and illustrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rostislav Doboujinsky</span> Russian designer (1903–2000)

Rostislav Doboujinsky was a Russian designer of costumes, masks, sets and interiors, and a painter and illustrator. He belonged to the second generation of Russian artists who developed the tradition of the 'Ballets Russes' in Western Europe. He was noted for his work on Louis Jouvet's Ondine by Jean Giraudoux in the 1930s and Max Ophul's film Le Plaisir in 1951, for the mouse masks and costumes he created for Rudolf Nureyev's The Nutcracker (1967), the costumes for The Sleeping Beauty ballet at London's Covent Garden (1968) and the animal masks for The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971). He achieved international success with his masks for Alfredo Arias's adaption of Balzac's Peines de Coeur d'une Chatte Anglaise (1977).

References

  1. Grau, Donatien; Arias, Alfredo (5 August 2014). "An Interview with Alfredo Arias .... one of the world's most celebrated theatre directors". AnOther Magazine, London. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  2. Martin Fossati (August 2015). "Alfredo Arias: 'Parisian landscapes as cathedrals of words'". Aéroports de Paris. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  3. Alfredo Arias (1997). Folies-fantômes : mémoires imaginaires. Seuil. p. 205.
  4. Pascal Ory (2013). Dictionnaire des étrangers qui ont fait la France. Robert Laffont. p. 57.
  5. 1 2 "Accueil › Biographie". Alfredo Arias groupe TSE. Retrieved 24 August 2015.