A mythical opera at the Bastille, Alain Souchon revisited by the Comédie Française, the Hors Pistes festival… Our 5 cultural highlights

Tristan and Isoldalegendary revival at the Opéra Bastille

Seventeen years after its creation in 2005, theOpera national de Paris resumes Tristan and Isolda by Richard Wagner in the uncluttered staging by Peter Sellars, a pioneer in his use of video. the film of four hours of Bill Viola takes place of decoration and symbolic evocation of the poem oflove and death. The universes of both artists are independent of each other, the image freeing itself from the music and vice versa. Bill Viola’s videos, archetypal, hypnotic, of great formal beauty, sculpt time. Installed like an altarpiece above the stage, they appeal to the emotions and the universality of tears. Another event: the conductor Gustavo Dudamel seizes for the first time this opera which revolutionized the history of music. The whole gives a Tristan and Isolda zen and universal. The spectators do not sulk their happiness.

Tristan and IsoldaRichard Wagner, Musical Direction Gustavo Dudamel, Director Peter Sellars, Video Creation Bill Viola, until February 4, 2023. operadeparis.fr

Zanele Muholi, first retrospective at the European House of Photography

Born a woman 50 years ago in a township in Durban, South Africa, Zanele Muholi defines herself as a non-binary personality and a “visual activist”, using the device Photo as a weapon against injustice. His work gives visibility to the black community LGBTQUIA+, including marginalized lesbians who are victims of violence, in particular through the practice of corrective, that is to say punitive, rape. His series Faces and Phases Follow up, initiated in 2006 and listing 500 images, illustrates his approach. His practice is intended to be collaborative, the people photographed being force of proposals and contributing to give the place, the clothes and the pose chosen for the shooting. By documenting communities queer black South Africans, the photographs of Zanele Muholi invite the viewer to revisit received ideas. A plea for difference.

Zanele Muholi, from 1^er February to May 21, 2023, mep-fr.org

The Ballad of Souchon at the Studio-Theatre

In 2023, Alain Souchon celebrates fifty years of career, marked by 9 Victories of the music. So many hits for which his accomplice Laurent Voulzy composed the music: I’m ten years old, Hello mom bobo, Under girls’ skirts, Sentimental Crowd, And if there’s no one besides… We all have something of Souchon in us. The actress and director Françoise Gillard thinks so. And she concocted, with the help of Amélie Wendling, a Ballad of Souchon, like a walk through his repertoire, for the Cabarets of the Comédie-Française. After Serge GainsbourgGeorges Brassens, Barbara or Léo Ferré, it’s Alain Souchon’s turn to be played by six women from the troupe.

The Ballad of Souchonfrom January 26 to March 5, 2023, comedy-francaise.fr

Read alsoSix of the most prominent female artists on the contemporary scene

The Hors Pistes festival at the Center Pompidou

For his 18^e edition, the Hors Pistes festival has as its theme “Seeing the war and make peace. This annual event, dedicated to moving images, revolves around a exposure, screenings, performances. The exhibition, through works by Thibault Brunet, Orianne Ciantar Olive, Arnaud Dezoteux and Celsian Langlois, Kapwani Kiwanga or Hélène Mutter, questions the metamorphosis of war images. On the sidelines, the journalist Pierre Haski has designed a program of meetings in touch with current events in the war in Ukraine. Nikita Kadan, a major figure on the Ukrainian scene, presents a collection of war images. “My job is not to close my eyes,” he says.

“Hors-Pistes Festival”, until February 19, centrepompidou.fr

Read alsoIn theater management, women take center stage

Caroline Guiela Nguyen: a cardiac theater forever

Caroline Guiela Nguyen is a woman from theaterat a time author, director and director of the company “Les Hommes Approximatifs”. Its particularity is to have represented different faces and bodies, whole sections of the world absent from the sets. She has just published an artistic manifesto, A cardiac theater, on his work, his sources of inspiration, which essentially revolves around diversity. She has just been appointed, at the age of 41, at the head of the National Theater of Strasbourg, where she will take office in September 2023. And thus becomes the only woman director of a national theater.

A heart theaterin collaboration with Aurélie Charon, Actes-Sud-Papiers