Robert Lepage | |
|---|---|
 Lepage at the European première of Cirque du Soleil's Totem in Amsterdam, October 2010 | |
| Born | December 12, 1957 |
| Occupation(s) | Film director Actor Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Awards | Glenn Gould Prize |
Robert Lepage CC OQ (born December 12, 1957) is a Canadian playwright, actor, film director, and stage director.
Lepage was raised in Quebec City. [1] At age five, he was diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia, which caused complete hair loss over his whole body. [2] He also struggled with clinical depression in his teens as he came to terms with being gay. [2]
Between 1975 and 1978, he studied theatre at Quebec City's Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique. He subsequently participated in workshops at Alain Knapp's theatre school in Paris, France.
After coming back to Quebec City, Lepage wrote, directed and played in a few independent productions and joined Théâtre Repère in 1980. With that company, he created Circulations (1984), which was presented across Canada and won an award as best Canadian production during La Quinzaine Internationale de Théâtre de Québec. The following year, he created The Dragons' Trilogy and immediately received international recognition. Vinci (1986), Polygraphe (1987–1990) and Tectonic Plates (1988–1990) followed and were also toured around the world.
Lepage was the artistic director of the National Arts Centre's Théâtre français in Ottawa from 1989 to 1993, and continued to stage plays. His productions of Needles and Opium , Coriolanus , Macbeth , The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream were all created in that period.
In 1994, Lepage founded Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary production company, for which he is artistic director. Lepage and Ex Machina have toured a number of productions internationally to critical and popular acclaim, including The Seven Streams of the River Ota (1994) and Elsinore (1995). Lepage was invited in 1994 to direct August Strindberg's A Dream Play at Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden. It premiered in the fall of 1994 and guest played in the spring of 1995 in Glasgow Scotland. Geometry of Miracles (1998) and The Far Side of the Moon (French: La Face cachée de la lune, 2000), a solo show in which he juxtaposed the Cold War competition of the Americans and the Soviets in the Space Race with the story of two Québécois brothers—one straight, one gay—and their competitive relationship after their mother's death. It won four trophies at le Gala des Masques, a Time Out Award and the Evening Standard Award. In 2003 The Far Side of the Moon was adapted by Lepage—who plays both brothers—into a film of the same name.
Lepage has directed five other feature films: The Confessional (Le Confessionnal) (1995), Polygraph (Le Polygraphe) (1996), Nô (1998), Possible Worlds (2000) and Triptych (Triptyque) (2013) (the latter co-directed by Pedro Pires), and has acted in films by other directors, including Jesus of Montreal (Jésus de Montréal) (1989) and Stardom (2001) by Denys Arcand. He has also been involved in music productions, being the stage director for the Secret World Tour by Peter Gabriel in 1993/1994, and the subsequent Growing Up tour in 2003/2004. He directed a number of operas, including Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung at the Canadian Opera Company, The Damnation of Faust in Japan and Paris, and Lorin Maazel's 1984 at the Royal Opera House in London in 2005. Finally, Cirque du Soleil asked him to create the permanent Las Vegas show named Kà at the MGM Grand in 2005.
The Andersen Project is his last solo play, based on the life and works of Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, and his tale "The Dryad"; it was presented by Lepage himself in ten countries, and later starred Yves Jacques.
Lipsynch, his large-canvas work, premiered in its first version in Newcastle upon Tyne's Northern Stage in February 2007 in its five-hour version; it has since been lengthened to nine hours. Three scenes of Lipsynch were later adapted to create the installation FRAGMENTATION (2011) by Richard Castelli and Volker Kuchelmeister for the stereoscopic system ReACTOR, designed by Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw. Walking around the hexagonal base of the device, the viewer can see the same scenes filmed from different angles.
He also staged Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress , which was presented in Brussels' Opéra de la Monnaie in April 2007 and San Francisco War Memorial Opera House in November 2007.
In 2008, Lepage and Ex Machina created The Image Mill, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Quebec City. For forty nights, a forty-minute show was displayed by the banks of Bassin Louise, using the huge surface of the Bunge grain elevators as a giant screen. [3] It was at the time the biggest outdoor architectural projection in the world.
In November 2008, Lepage directed a staged version of Hector Berlioz' The Damnation of Faust at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. [4] In February, 2009, Lepage premiered a new work entitled Eonnagata at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, UK. For this project he collaborated with the dancers Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant, fashion designer Alexander McQueen, lighting designer Michael Hulls and sound designer Jean-Sébastien Côté.
His production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, conducted by Christopher Hogwood, was re-released at the Teatro Real, Madrid, in January 2009.
In spring 2009, Lepage presented The Blue Dragon (Le Dragon Bleu), a sequel to his Dragons' Trilogy , in which he reprised (more than twenty years later) the role of Pierre Lamontagne, a Québécois artist who lives in China.
In fall 2009, Lepage directed The Nightingale and Other Short Fables, an operatic staging of short works by Stravinsky blending hand shadow puppetry, Kabuki theatre, Chinese opera and Vietnamese Water puppetry. The Canadian Opera Company in Toronto premiered the work. [5]
Lepage then wrote and directed Totem , Cirque du Soleil's next touring show, [6] and began work on a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner for the Metropolitan Opera of New York. The series was presented in installments during the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 seasons – Das Rheingold and Die Walküre were premiered during the 2010/2011 season, Siegfried premiered on October 27, 2011, and Götterdämmerung premiered on January 27, 2012. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Lepage's complete Ring cycle premiered in April 2012. [12] [13] The Metropolitan Opera had to install steel reinforcements under the stage in order to support LePage's roughly 45 tonne set. [14] Lepage was featured in a 2012 documentary about the Met Ring production, Wagner's Dream . [15] [16]
In 2012, Lepage appeared as a hologram in Martin Villeneuve's Mars et Avril , a science fiction film based on the graphic novels of the same name. [17] [18] [19]
Lepage's autobiographical "memory play" 887 played in New York City (as "New York Critics Pick") and Toronto in 2017 and 2019. [20] [21] In an associated interview, he calls himself a "lukewarm separatist". [22]
In 2018, Lepage launched SLĀV at the Montreal Jazz Festival; Betty Bonifassi's creation was so controversial that it was cancelled due to public protest - with the charge that white people singing the songs of black 19th-century slaves constituted cultural appropriation. [23] The show caused public protest on the basis of this accusation. [23] [24] Lepage's next production, Kanata, planned for Paris in December 2018, presenting Europeans' first settlement of Canada, was cancelled in July, 2018, after complaints from members of the Indigenous community led to his financial backers' withdrawal. [25] Although the show was initially canceled, it was finally presented in December 2018 and received support from Indigenous communities. [26]
Lepage's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute was presented in Quebec in July and August 2018 and there are plans to bring it to the Metropolitan Opera. [27]
At the International Shakespeare Festival 2022 in Craiova, praising him for his innovative spirit and unique creativity, theatre scholar Octavian Saiu described Lepage as one of the true masters of contemporary theatre. [28]
In 2022, Robert Lepage came back to the big screen in Martin Villeneuve's The 12 Tasks of Imelda , co-starring Ginette Reno and Michel Barrette, in which he plays Martin and Denis Villeneuve's father Jean, a notary. [29]
The same year, Lepage announced the creation of a new play based on the work of painter Jean-Paul Riopelle. [30] The show is set to be presented in 2023 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the artist. [31]
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In 1994, Lepage was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his particularly imaginative and innovative work". In 1999, he was made an Officer of the National Order of Quebec. In 2001, he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. [33] He was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 2009 "for his international contributions to the performing arts, particularly in film, theatre and opera, as an actor, producer and director". [34]
In 1994, he also received the National Arts Centre Award, a companion award to the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards. [35] In 2009, Lepage received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. [36] He could not attend the ceremony but accepted the award via a pre-recorded speech.
On April 29, 2007, Lepage was awarded the European Commission's Europe Theatre Prize for 2007. The honours were to be shared between Lepage and German stage director Peter Zadek. [37]
He has been nominated for the Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction for his films Polygraph (Le Polygraphe), Possible Worlds , and Far Side of the Moon . He won the award for his film The Confessional (Le Confessionnal).
He was nominated for the Jutra Award for Best Direction for his film Nô . He won the Special Jutra Award for his film Possible Worlds.
In 2013, Lepage won the tenth Glenn Gould Prize. [38]
In 2007, he was awarded the XI Europe Theatre Prize, in Thessaloniki. The prize organization stated:
The Quebec director Robert Lepage, although not from Europe, continues to exert a considerable influence on the theatre of the Old World, renewing its means of expression and working very often with European actors and with a repertoire, sensibilities and viewpoint which can be seen as European. The choice of Lepage, like that of America's Robert Wilson in his time, has to be seen primarily in the context of a cultural policy which, as provided for in the rules of the Prize laid down in 1986 in agreement with the European Commission, has as its objective the presentation of prizes to "a theatre personality or institution that has contributed by the creation of cultural events of significance to mutual understanding and knowledge among nations". [39]
Der Ring des Nibelungen, WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel", structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend. It is often referred to as the Ring cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply The Ring.
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he teaches Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action. He has been described as a key figure of theatre and opera for the last 50 years.
François Girard is a French Canadian director and screenwriter from Montreal. Born in Saint-Félicien, Quebec, Girard's career began on the Montreal art video circuit. In 1990, he produced his first feature film, Cargo; he attained international recognition following his 1993 Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, a series of vignettes about the life of piano prodigy Glenn Gould. In 1998, he wrote and directed The Red Violin, which follows the ownership of a red violin over several centuries. The Red Violin won an Academy Award for Best Original Score, thirteen Genie Awards and nine Jutra Awards.
Marianne Letitia Ackerman is a Canadian novelist, playwright, and journalist. Mankind and Other Stories of Women, her fifth work of prose fiction, was published by Guernica Editions in 2016. Her play Triplex Nervosa premiered at Centaur Theatre in April 2015. Triplex Nervosa Trilogy was published by Guernica in 2020.
Deborah Joy Voigt is an American dramatic soprano who has sung roles in operas by Wagner and Richard Strauss.
L'Amour de loin is an opera in five acts with music by Kaija Saariaho and a French-language libretto by Amin Maalouf. The opera received its world premiere performance on 15 August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival.
Jonas Kaufmann is a German-Austrian tenor opera singer. He is best known for the versatility of his repertoire, performing a variety of opera roles in multiple languages in recital and concert each season. Some of his standout roles include Don José in Carmen, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, Siegmund in Die Walküre, and the title roles in Parsifal, Werther, Don Carlos, and Lohengrin. In 2014 The New York Times described Kaufmann as "a box-office draw, and... the most important, versatile tenor of his generation."
Robert Caux is a musician, composer, sound designer and sound engineer based in Quebec City.
Michael Mackenzie works in film, theatre and technology policy. He has directed two feature films, both theatrically released in Canada. His plays have been staged in Europe and North America and variously published in English, French, German and Hungarian. He has a Ph.D from L’Institut d'Histoire et Sociopolitique de Science, Université de Montréal. Past academic appointments include Visiting Fellow at Princeton University Professor of Humanities at Vanier College, and consultant at the United Nations.
Marie Brassard is a Canadian actress, theatrical writer and director. She is known for her work with playwright and actor Robert Lepage and later for her own French and English theatrical pieces, which have been presented in many countries in the Americas, Europe and in Australia.
Mars & Avril is a 2012 Canadian science fiction film starring Jacques Languirand, Caroline Dhavernas, Paul Ahmarani and Robert Lepage. The movie, based on the photo-novels of the same name published by Sid Lee & la Pastèque, is written, produced and directed by Martin Villeneuve.
Wagner's Dream is a documentary film directed by Susan Froemke. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, 2012, and was shown in high definition in theaters across the United States and Canada on May 7, 2012. The subject of the film is the staging of a new production of Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Metropolitan Opera beginning in 2010.
Robert Carsen O.C. is a Canadian opera director. He was born in Toronto and is the son of philanthropist Walter Carsen.
Serge Lamothe is a French-Canadian writer.
Karen Fricker is a professor at Brock University and a professional theatre critic, focusing her research in contemporary theatre and globalization, contemporary Québec theatre, popular performances of nation and cultural identities, and Irish theatre. Fricker is the founding editor-in-chief of Irish Theatre Magazine, an online cultural journal that provided coverage of theatre and the performing arts in Ireland. She has also reviewed and broadcast for outlets such as The Guardian, Variety, The New York Times, the BBC, and the CBC. She is currently the theatre critic for the Toronto Star.
Michael Levine is a Canadian set designer. He is best known for his work in opera, including the scenic design for the Canadian Opera Company's 2006 production of Wagner's Ring Cycle, directed by Atom Egoyan. Levine has also designed productions for Theatre Passe Muraille, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Vienna State Opera, English National Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Dutch National Opera, Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House, and the National Theatre.
The Far Side of the Moon is a 2000 play by Quebec playwright Robert Lepage. Written in collaboration with Adam Nashman and Peder Bjurman, the play features an original score by Laurie Anderson, and marionettes by Pierre Robitaille and Sylvie Courbron. The play has been staged in many cities around the world to wide acclaim, and has received numerous awards. Lepage wrote, directed, and starred in a film adaptation of the play, which was released in 2003.
Günther Groissböck is an Austrian operatic bass. Anthony Tommasini, chief classical music critic for The New York Times, described Groissböck's "imposing and good-looking" portrayal of Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as "a revelation". James Jorden of the New York Observer praised Groissböck's "innovative take" on the role and his "big, virile sound". A 2018 recording of the Met performance was nominated for Grammy Award in the Best Opera Recording.
Guillaume Côté is a Canadian ballet dancer, choreographer, composer and artistic director. He is a principal dancer and a Choreographic Associate at the National Ballet of Canada. In February 2024, he announced that the 2024/2025 season will be his last season before retirement. He has been the Artistic Director of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur since 2014 and is the Artistic Director of Côté Danse.
Jeffrey Hall is a Canadian dancer, choreographer, director and stage artist with close to 40 years of experience. His work ranges from dance, theatre, film, television to circus arts and large-scale live entertainment productions.
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