Theater Festival in Avignon. Avignon, attractions and theater festival

1. START

In 1947, the famous French actor and director Jean Vilar organized the first "Week of Dramatic Art" in Avignon and, inspired by its success, thought about the annual festival. He dreamed of creating a new theatre, more democratic, free, accessible to all segments of the population (even now the organizers of the Avignon review, mindful of his precepts, do not raise ticket prices above 40 euros) and the appearance of another spectator - smart, modern, with progressive views and stable psyche, able to "digest" any experiments. Vilar was somewhat close to the postmodernists, who brought elitist art to the masses. He dreamed of “renovating the theatre… to open fresh air to art so that it would not suffocate in salons and basements; reunite architecture with drama." Since that time, the festival has been held in the open air, and performances are played in natural scenery (and often then turn out to be unimaginable without them and are not shown anywhere else).

Vilar invited young Gerard Philippe and Maria Cazares, who shone in Jean Cocteau's Orpheus, to the festival and to his troupe of the National Folk Theater, drastically reduced ticket prices, carefully built a repertoire, which, in addition to French classics, included performances by Kleist, Buchner and Brecht, and attracted the best artists and composers to participate in productions. At that moment, France was experiencing a spiritual and intellectual upsurge, and the Avignon Theater Festival became its reflection. Jean Vilar stayed at the head of the company until 1971.

2. PREMIER LABORATORY

Now the Avignon Festival is a large-scale theatrical forum, which art professionals consider as an open creative laboratory. Actual directors from different countries strive here, new trends are born here and the theatrical process is formed. The discovered finds are subsequently replicated around the world. Often, what seems ultra-modern at home no longer fits the format at the Avignon Festival. The official program of the festival includes about 40 performances, the unofficial one - more than 300, and there are also exhibitions, lectures, public discussions and round tables on theater and cultural policy, meetings with actors, readings of plays and scripts. There is no single general line that everyone is obliged to adhere to, among the participants there are people of opposite views and beliefs: politicized and not very politicized, cynics and dreamers, satirists and philosophers, misanthropes and altruists - 3500 professionals in the field of performing arts annually.

During the reign of Vilar, the festival was national, but after 1971 a course of internalization was outlined, and artists from all over the world flocked to medieval Avignon. As a result, the festival brings the city a profit of up to 25 million euros per year.

3. CARNIVAL CULTURE

In addition to the highly artistic, rigorously selected and approved by experts official program, Avignon also has the so-called OFF program: dozens of theater companies organize tours at their own expense, hoping for proceeds from ticket sales, acquiring the status of "participant of the Avignon Festival" and public recognition. Here, no one guarantees the quality, and the audience chooses performances at their own peril and risk - succumbing to the persuasion of barkers or their own curiosity. But it is precisely thanks to the presence of a huge number of motley, unknown, arrogant and intrusive, reckless and talented artists of the unofficial program that Avignon is transformed for three weeks of the festival, like Venice during the carnival, and becomes so attractive for tourists. It is impossible to see the walls of houses because of posters pasted on top of each other, mummers, puppeteers and mimes roam the streets, "musical carts" roam the boulevards - there is no such atmosphere anywhere else, and the amazed audience also becomes part of this theatrical masquerade.

The Avignon Festival has always emphasized its democracy and independence - it has no sponsors, no ratings, no prizes. And even the art director Olivier Pi himself rides around the city in a white shirt on a bicycle - charming, simple and accessible to everyone.

4. OUTDOOR

“The reunion of architecture with drama” Jean Vilar understood literally, and he suggested that the performances be played in the huge courtyard of the Papal Palace, which still remains the main stage of the Avignon Festival. The Roman Catholic Church settled in the south of France at the beginning of the 14th century, and seven legitimate pontiffs ruled here - the so-called Avignon captivity of the popes from 1309 to 1378. All this time, the Papal Palace was being completed, and now it is the largest Gothic building in Europe. Many of the performances that were shown within these walls are unimaginable without them.

In total, the Avignon Festival has about 20 different venues: this is the courtyard of the Carmelite Monastery; and the Boulbon quarry - an abandoned quarry in the mountains, 15 kilometers from the city, where Peter Brook first showed his eight-hour Mahabharata, which ended with a real sunrise; and the Convent of St. Louis, where the headquarters of the festival is located, and the House of Jean Vilar, and the Church of the Celestines, which became a natural backdrop for the painting "Paradise" from Romeo Castellucci's "Divine Comedy". The photo of the flooded temple, in the middle of which there is a burnt piano, has spread all over the theatrical publications of the world. And about 15 years ago, Henrietta Yanovskaya showed The Thunderstorm here, and the aspiration upward, to God of the religious Katerina, who regrets that people do not fly like birds, became understandable, and the performance acquired a different dimension and scale.

5. riots

The history of the festival is by no means cloudless - several times in its history it was in jeopardy. In the rebellious year 1968, rebellious youth from all over France gathered in Avignon. The students kicked the great mime Jean-Louis Barrault out of the theater, nearly gave Jean Vilar a heart attack with unfounded accusations, and disrupted Maurice Béjart's performance by pouring it onto the stage right during the performance. At the same time, the festival program included the rebels Godard and Truffaut, as well as performances by the cult American Living Theatre.

The second big scandal came in 2003, when French theater workers rebelled against the government's wage reform. Festival director Bernard Favre d'Arcier supported the strikers and personally tried to resolve the conflict with the Ministry of Culture. The state did not make concessions, the show was canceled, and the director lost his post. During a press conference, Bernard Favre d'Arcier's voice trembled and his listeners cried . And Avignon again suffered losses in 2014, when a new bill confirmed the terms of the 2003 labor agreements. A wave of protests swept through France: in La Rochelle, Arles, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier. However, Olivier Pi, who just then took over the reins of the review, although he sacrificed six performances of the first week, refused to cancel it entirely.

6 DOWN SYNDROME DANCERS AND THE MASTURBATION CHAMPIONSHIP

The audience of the Avignon Festival is hardy, educated and not too aggressive: no one writes denunciations to the Ministry of Culture and does not put pig heads at the gates of the theater. Shouts of "boo" and demonstrative departures are a fairly civilized expression of discontent. And they often provoke the audience: then Thomas Ostermeier makes his puffy Hamlet with a beer belly exude curses and eat the earth; then Olivier Pi will bring on stage a stinking motorbike, Cordelia in a tutu, her mouth covered with black tape, naked Lear and Gloucester, whose eyes have been gouged out with a tablespoon; then Angelica Liddell will show women cutting their knees with a blade; then Jerome Belle will stage a ballet on people with Down syndrome, causing the audience to have an uncomfortable conversation, then Alain Platel will arrange a transvestite cabaret with elderly men in ladies' outfits, exploring the features of sexual identity, then Jan Fabre in "Orgy of Tolerance" will test the audience for strength with the help of physiologically credible and depressingly long masturbation championship. The directors of the Avignon Festival are not shy about raising difficult topics, studying phobias and perversions under a magnifying glass, and turning European values ​​inside out.

7. MAIN NAMES

According to the headliners of the Avignon Festival, one can study the history of European and world theater. In the 1960s, there were performances by Jean Vilar, in which Gerard Philippe and Maria Cazares shone, and progressive opuses by young directors created under the influence of the French new wave. In 1967, Maurice Béjart, who turned our idea of ​​classical ballet upside down, showed Mass for the Present Days in Avignon. In the mid-1970s, the American Robert Wilson came to the fore with his ability to masterfully shuffle different styles and genres and stunning visual imagery (“Einstein on the Seashore”). In 1980, John Neumeier stirred up the public with the "blasphemous" ballet "St. Matthew Passion" to the music of Bach, in which he himself appeared on the stage - and only an impeccable philological education, including from the priests of the Jesuit order, saved him. Pina Bausch brought her incomprehensible, absurd, revolutionary Carnations to Avignon, which shocked the public. In 1988, Luke Bondi staged his beloved Shakespeare here, in the 2000s Peter Brook discovered the possibilities of the Boulbon quarry, and Thomas Ostermeier turned the site of the majestic Papal Palace into a backyard of a metropolis littered with garbage (“Woyzeck”), in 2010 Christoph Marthaler evoked religious ecstasy with the help of ordinary welding in "Papperlapapp" - the saga of the Avignon "capture of the popes", based on real events.

8. RUSSIAN THEME

Performances based on Russian classics - from Dostoevsky to Bulgakov - constantly appear on the poster of the Avignon Festival, but Russian directors are not favored in the south of France. "Russian Seasons" happened in Avignon only once: in 1997, Pyotr Fomenko, Anatoly Vasilyev, Sergey Zhenovach, Evgeny Kamenkovich, Valery Fokin, Kama Ginkas, Ivan Popovsky and Rezo Gabriadze were invited there to form their own idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe modern Russian theater. Only Anatoly Vasiliev "got accustomed" to the festival as a permanent guest. In 2006, when, due to disagreements with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, he was asked to vacate the post of artistic director of the School of Dramatic Art, Vasiliev brought Canto 23rd to Avignon. Burial of Patroclus. Games "and" Mozart and Salieri ", and never returned to Russia. All the more interesting now is the fact that after almost a decade of absence of Russians in Avignon, Kirill Serebrennikov has been going there for the second year in a row. In 2015, his “Idiots” based on the script of the film of the same name by Lars von Trier, the action of which was transferred to modern Moscow, were shown with great success at the review. And for the current, anniversary, 70th festival, the creator of the Gogol Center is taking Gogol's Dead Souls, where Chichikov is played by the American Odin Byron and the Jew Semyon Steinberg. If one time can still be regarded as an accident, then two times is already a trend, and this means that Serebrennikov is "in the cage", and is recognized as one of the leaders of the European theatrical avant-garde.

9. FASHION FOR RESPECTABILITY

There was also a creative crisis in the history of the Avignon Festival, not related to the events of Red May or wars for the opportunity to live on welfare for 11 months a year. After the resignation of Bernard Faivre d "Arcier, Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudrillet became directors, heading for a non-verbal and rigidly social theater. The poster has more modern dance (Josef Naj, Jan Fabre), which you can’t even call dance: provocations, plastic sketches about violence, aggression, the apocalyptic state of the world. Critics talked about how experiments with movement as such and electronic visuality are replacing the theater of words and big ideas. The audience craved depth and metaphysics, and they were offered gloomy performances with naked bodies rolling on the floor. Directors , sensitively responding to discontent, began to invite new artistic directors every year to form the program of the festival.First it was the No. 1 German theatrical newsmaker Thomas Ostermeier, then the "grand style" actress, Comédie-Française prima Valerie Drevil and director Romeo Castellucci, post-avant-garde in spirit , but not alienated by sensuality, emotionality and bewitching beauty.The current director Ol Ivie Pi forms the poster on his own, but also prefers classical training and meaningful work with the word to radical plastic experiments. With his arrival, there were more stars on the playbill (Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Hanna Shigula), and now respectability is pushing contemporary art out of the stage.

10. AVIGNON FESTIVAL - 70!

This year, the most prestigious theater festival in the world is celebrating its 70th anniversary. At the end of March, Olivier Pi made a policy statement (“How to live when politics continually proves its treachery?”, “When revolution is impossible, the theater remains”) and presented the main performances of the review, which will be held in Avignon from 6 to 24 July. Among the main themes are politics, the rise of nationalism, the Middle East and women artists. The festival will open with a stage version of the epoch-making Visconti's Death of the Gods, interpreted by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove. Also on the program are a series about the history of the Avignon Festival from the Italian traveling troupe La Piccola Familia, a 12-hour marathon "2666" by Julien Gosselin, famous for his production of "Elementary Particles" by Michel Houellebecq, "The Karamazovs" by Jean Bellorini, "The Raft of the Medusa" by Thomas Jolly, “Chronicles of the Assassination of Rabin” by Amos Gitai with “Fasbinder’s muse” Hanna Shigula and the famous Palestinian actress, “Heroes’ Square”, for which Christian Lupa - the national hero of Poland - has already received all possible prizes, a new performance by Angelica Liddell and a ballet by Sidi Laby Sherkaoui " Bible 7.16" and much more. Olivier Pi himself is working on Aeschylus' tragedy Prometheus Bound. In total, the official program includes 26 dramatic performances, 7 dance performances and 14 interdisciplinary ones. French and foreigners - equally. And the symbol of the festival will be the Turin horse (the one over whose suffering, according to legend, Nietzsche wept before falling into madness), depicted on the poster by the artist Adel Abdessemed, which either kicks off offenders, or overcomes an obstacle with one jump.

The Avignon Theater Festival can be called without exaggeration the main cultural event in France, which is held in the summer. It was organized over fifty years ago by the world famous director Jean Vilar. Being the oldest theater festival in Europe, it still surprises its grateful fans with avant-garde ideas, new talented actors and high art of acting. During this event, sightseeing tours to Avignon are snapped up, because every self-respecting tourist traveling around France dreams of getting at least some of the performances of famous theater troupes. Especially since places are strictly limited. One-time art - the site can accommodate no more than two thousand people. Traditionally, the festival takes place on the open stage Courdonaire in the courtyard of the Papal Palace. During the period of the event, theatrical performances manage to demonstrate more than twenty art groups from around the world. All types of this skill are presented here - drama, comedy, musical, pantomime and puppet shows. A separate part of the Avignon Festival is the Festival du Off theater fair, where young, little-known groups perform. Basically, their actors demonstrate experimental productions. Fair performances are held everywhere: in parks, shops, nightclubs, church squares and just on the streets.

It could not have been better to find something that united the subsequent parade of moral and mental deviations, in the mirror of which a person was dismantled to the darkest corners of the soul. The glorification of physical or spiritual death, as the only possible way out, in the prologue of the theatrical holiday in itself made us think about the non-randomness of the choice of plot

Part I Avignon IN

On Wednesday, February 6, the director of the famous Avignon Festival, Olivier Pi, received the Legion of Honor for services to culture. The awarding took place in the presence of the "first lady" of the French state, Brigitte Macron, and other members of the elite. Minister of Culture Frank Riester greeted the new member of the order on Twitter with the words: “Dear Olivier Pi, thank you for the light you bring with every curtain rise. Thank you for your tireless efforts in fulfilling the ambitious task that we share with you: the desire to open the doors of culture to everyone, both artists and spectators..

Belonging to the Order of the Legion of Honor is the highest honorary distinction of the French Republic, which is given for outstanding services. What reflects the light brought by Olivier Py, what are his outstanding services to France, and what has become of a cultural phenomenon founded in the last century on progressive and democratic principles, under his leadership, will allow you to understand a small retrospective of the theater forum held by Olivier Py last year .

From July 6 to July 29, 2018, the largest international theater festival in Avignon (France) was held for the 72nd time. Traditionally, the forum was divided into the official Avignon IN, within the framework of which the audience watched 40 productions, and the alternative Avignon OFF. The latter was attended by 1,000 amateur and communal theaters, which showed 1,300 performances. The number of spectators of the theatrical forum reached 50,000 people. In terms of the number of visitors and prestige, the Avignon Festival really has no analogues in the world.

If the theme of the official festival is compressed by certain ideological guidelines, then Avignon OFF is more democratic. There are no differences between professional and amateur theaters, except that the latter put on performances and come at their own expense. For many regional troupes, this is a unique opportunity to receive contracts and funding, to express themselves on a national and even international scale. 3500 producers, directors and journalists came to the festival in search of talents. According to the main website of Avignon www.festival-avignon.com, the festival is "the largest art market, during which the city is covered with flyers and posters, and troupes invite the viewer right on the streets". Nevertheless, the viewer somehow finds his way in this chaos, getting acquainted with the program from reviews and announcements, or relying on his intuition.

The Avignon Festival was founded in 1947 by the French director and actor Jean Vilard, who remained its permanent director until his death (1971). From 1951 to 1963 Jean Vilar also headed the National People's Theater (TNP), which did a lot to democratize theatrical art in France. He sought to acquaint the general public with classical works in a good setting. Louis Aragon spoke about the high level of the theater. By making ticket prices affordable and introducing a subscription system, he allowed many who had previously been deprived of this opportunity to approach the culture. Jean Vilar believed that the theater could not stand outside of politics and opposed the war in Algeria.

The festival remains politically engaged even today. Only its ideological orientation has changed beyond recognition.

On July 24, at the closing of the official part, Olivier Pi gave a detailed press conference about the goals of the festival. In particular, he said that the main issue that worries the French intelligentsia today is the fate of various, and especially "gender minorities", and he intends to expand the boundaries of the discussion of this topic in such a way that "to touch everyone" . He urged to pay special attention to youth.

Olivier Pi spoke in detail about the main, from his point of view, problems of our time that art should deal with: “This year we have chosen the gender issue as the main theme of the festival. … We also fought for women and feminism in a lot of plays. … We fought for a gender issue that affects everyone, and especially for the identity of transgender people, for their rights. We fought for LGBT rights (CI? - this is an acronym for terms from an ever-expanding list of gender identity violations - ed.) This is a huge community that affects everyone and which is still illegal in several countries of the world. We have fought for refugees, who some call migrants, many performances have spoken about this problem. This struggle intersected with the struggle for communities of LGBT and women. We fought for Europe at a time when Europe does not believe in itself. Naturally, we fought for a cultural Europe, and not the dictates of financiers. We have fought and are fighting for national education. … We fought for a man named Kirill Serebrennikov, who is under house arrest pending trial, probably for political reasons.” Also, according to Olivier Pi, they fought “for the people of Gaza, against terrible prison conditions, against patriarchy and wild capitalism…” In general, this would be the usual confused leftist discourse, if it were not for the colossal administrative possibilities in the hands of this person. Of particular concern was the fact that it was decided to direct the main onslaught of propaganda to young people.

The belligerent tone of the art director's speech sounded somewhat unusual at a cultural event, and the repeated word "struggle" implied the presence of some kind of cultural front.

However, the French director has been waging his war for a long time, and he has never hidden his positions. Despite the sometimes controversial attitude towards his art, Olivier Py achieved fame as a director, actor and founder of the theater, "combining Christian mysticism with Dionysian madness." Showing the versatility of talent, he performed in jazz clubs and cabarets under the pseudonym "Miss Knife" as a drag queen. The texts written by him are mainly devoted to "difficulties living in this world", pleasures, unhappy love and other personal problems. He published several books, the last of which, The Parisian, was recognized by some literary critics "infantile and unreadable", while glossy magazines with a cultural theme presented it as the best novel of the season. As a political journalist, he took an active part in the anti-Serb campaign, defended illegal migration and homosexual "marriages". Since 2013 - permanent art director of the festival in Avignon.

According to his priorities, a significant, if not most, part of the performances was devoted to the tragic fate of people with problems of sexual identity and other deviations, as well as feminists and migrants, that is, the entire set of politically correct topics.

The honor of opening the festival went to the internationally renowned French director and actor Thomas Jolly, who chose one of Seneca's darkest tragedies, Fiesta, for this. With the onset of night, the action began on the main stage of the Avignon Festival in the papal palace.

The tragedies of Seneca, who worked in the cruel times of Caligula and Nero, speak of the impossibility of the victory of morality over sinful passions and blows of fate. The deep disappointment of the philosopher is especially acute in this tragedy, where the author sees only death as a way out of the tragic contradiction. Exclamation of the choir from the tragedy of Seneca - “He is greedy for life who does not want to die when the world is dying”- becomes the leitmotif of the entire festival.

When asked by a journalist about the choice of plot and why the actors were interested in playing villains, and Tom Jolly himself chose the worst of them, Atreus, the director answered as follows: “When actors play monsters, they look for something human in them ... Finding human in monsters, we ask ourselves a question and look for something monstrous in ourselves.” And indeed, the blackness of the human soul of Tom Jolly was fully conveyed. The staging with magnificent scenography, costumes and effects blew up the theater hall in the open air. Here is how one of the critics described the performance: “Thomas Jolly, who plays the role of the main monster Atreus and director of Fiesta, reproduced the twilight, black tragedy of the Roman philosopher Seneca. It's a kitsch-influenced rock opera, overflowing with depressing, crazy redundancy. A wild odyssey to the depths of the roots, the terrible evil that everyone carries in himself.

The entire performance can be viewed.

"Fiest" became an event and set the tone for the festival that had begun. It could not have been better to find something that united the subsequent parade of moral and mental deviations, in the mirror of which a person was dismantled to the darkest corners of the soul. The glorification of physical or spiritual death, as the only possible way out, in the prologue of the theatrical holiday in itself made us think about the non-randomness of the choice of plot.

Here is a brief description of just a few performances from the program, which could characterize the general atmosphere of the forum. Judge for yourself.

"Ode to Try"- choreography by Jan Martens and "Ben and Luke"- the sensual pas de deux of dancers from Burkina Faso.

"Jellyfish"- naturalistic narrative about cannibalism and the animal nature of man, "the struggle with which will be eternal". (About the trial of those who escaped on the raft of the frigate "Medusa").

"Far Country"- adaptation by Christoph Rauk of the autobiographical novel by Jean-Luc Lagarce, who died of AIDS at 38. The production was attended by graduates of the theater school of Lille. The plot of the story: a young homosexual man who is aware of the approach of death wants to say goodbye to his loved ones. He, as it were, returns to his parental home, where his inclinations are not approved and they “do not understand” him. In this "distant country" there is a meeting not only with living, but already dead relatives. In addition, there is also the whole host of his former lovers, with whom the showdown continues. Christoph Rauck said this about the choice of the piece: “I did not expect to meet so much humanism in a theatrical play. We have all experienced or experienced the emotions and situations described by Jean-Luc Lagarce at one time or another. He reminds me of Chekhov". With a light hand, the director Lagarce is now called the "modern Chekhov."

"And why should I speak like you?" To prepare this performance, the actress Anouk Greenberg went in search of "raw texts" in shelters, insane asylums, in the circles of hell of the destitute and forgotten people. She found old documents archived by the medical staff, letters from the residents of the homes of sorrow. She reads them in a soft, well-placed voice. Sometimes the texts are simply heartbreaking, similar to a prayer, others are filled with hope, they have only one thing in common - that no one will answer them.

"Some have never seen the sea"- a saga about the dramatic fate of young Japanese women who came to the United States to become the wives of Japanese immigrants. We are talking about their disenfranchised and hopeless life, which became more complicated with the start of the war between Japan and the United States.

Another performance on anti-patriarchal themes was brought by a director from Egypt. In a play "Mother" it is said that being the guardians of the "Patriarchal Temple", women in the Egyptian family are subjected to daily humiliation. From the author's point of view, they give themselves up to "voluntary slavery" from which there is no way out.

Attention was also attracted by the work of Olivier Pi himself - "Antigone" Sophocles, which he realized with the prisoners of the prison of Avignon. All roles in the play are played by men. As critics write, despite unprofessional diction, the prisoners play sincerely, the daily struggle for "dignity" in terrible French prisons is close to them.

"Trance"- Staged by Didier Ruiz. The word is presented to seven transsexuals who, throughout the performance, talk about the transition from one borderline state to another.

"He can always say it's for the love of the prophet" In a theatrical oratorio directed by Iran, Gurshad Shaiman tells the drama of young people who fled the Maghreb and the Middle East because of their sexual orientation.

"Dry Season"- a tough matriarchal ritual in which the leader of the Nova nova troupe Fia Menard, a man with a violation of sexual identity, who after therapy took the form of a woman, declares war on the norm and patriarchy. The play begins with a scene in which seven naked women, legs apart, lie under the pressure of a low ceiling, which moves vertically regardless of their will. According to the director's intention, this should symbolize enslavement, the only way to free oneself from which is a rebellion against society.

According to a French critic: “In the visually stunning set design of The Dry Season, a ritual of destruction of the patriarchal home is performed. Determined to end male oppression, Fia Menard demonstrates a vengeful force without, however, avoiding stereotypes. "I'm slapping your pussy" - the first words of the performance, spoken by Fia Menard, sound like a declaration of war. In response to these obscene words, which many women probably heard in the alley, and which are a symbol of the dominance of men who have turned public space into hostile territory, the leader of the Nova nova troupe decided to quit the game (change sex). Heavy artillery, capable of firing red balls at the patriarchy… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”.

And here you involuntarily notice that despite the emphatically victimized images of most theatrical productions, someone’s roar is already heard from behind them, allowing himself to threaten society in the language of the gateway. Someone declares war on modern culture and the image of man in it, calls for the victory of archaic instincts over human essence, revels in sin and vice. This subject, similar to the characters from the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, creates an orgy of "return". Fighting with the patriarchy, he is engaged in the destruction of that thin cultural layer, the creation of which humanity has spent tens of thousands of years. It should be noted that this large-scale project is being carried out with the full support of the elites, the confusion of the humanistic intelligentsia and the non-resistance of the people.

Whether the agenda of the largest theatrical forum is exhausted by "gender" and how the theatrical outback lives - about this in the second part of the Avignon OFF article.

Preparing a review of the best summer theater events in Europe has become a real challenge for the editors along the way. We want to go everywhere and, having written an article, we are now trying to come to terms with the fact that no one will let us go to festivals all summer long. In addition to cultural significance, it is especially attractive that all the events mentioned in the review take place in small old towns - where castles, medieval streets and incredible nature are all around. At the same time, a trip to these festivals will not be a torment in terms of logistics - planes fly, trains run, roads are laid. Western Europe, after all.

1. Avignon Festival (Festival d'Avignon), France

• when: July 6-26
• website: www.festival-avinon.com
• prices: an average of a couple of tens of euros per ticket

One of the largest theater festivals in Europe takes place in July in the city of Avignon in southern France. From 35 to 50 performances are brought to Avignon every year. French and international productions are usually presented equally. The director of the festival, Olivier Pi, as a rule, invites recognized stars of the European theater, but at the same time seeks to find new names. Events take place in approximately 20 venues, many of which are temporary outdoor stages in scenic historic sites. The most famous and main "theater" is being built in the courtyard of the Papal Palace - a monument of Gothic architecture that served as the residence of the heads of the Catholic Church in the 14th century.

How to get there

The small Avignon (population 90,000) has an airport, and it even receives flights, but, unfortunately, only from the island of Corsica and from several cities in the UK. The nearest more or less significant transport hub is Marseille. The distance from Marseille to Avignon is 106 kilometers. You can do this way on a fast comfortable train or, of course, by car. We do not recommend flying through Paris - almost 700 km to Avignon. Unless if you are planning a big car trip to France.

2. Salzburg Summer Festival (Salzburger Festspiele), Austria

• when: July 21 - August 30
• website: www.salzburgerfestspiele.at
• prices: from a couple of tens to several hundred euros

In July-August, Salzburg (Austria) will host one of the world's major theater and classical music festivals, the program of which includes concerts, opera and drama performances. The festival has been held regularly for almost a hundred years, and irregular successful attempts to hold it started in 1877. One of the performances of the dramatic program will definitely be Hugh de Hoffmannsthal's "The Name" which formally began the festival in 1920. The best opera artists and conductors of the world consider it an honor to perform in Salzbug. The cost of tickets ranges from a couple of tens to several hundred euros - depending on the prestige of the event and the chosen place. It is better to organize a trip well in advance: for performances with stars like Anna Netrebko or Cecilia Bartoli, tickets are sold out instantly.

How to get there

The road to Salzburg lies through Vienna or Munich. From Vienna, the easiest way to get to the festival is by train. Travel time will be from 2 hours 40 minutes, trains depart every hour. If you are looking to minimize travel time, take a look at the Austrian airline, which offers tickets directly to Salzburg with a change in Vienna. If you are traveling by car, then the beautiful Austrian autobahns are at your disposal. The distance is about 300 km. From Munich - even closer, only 144 km. Both by car and by train, the travel time will be less than two hours.

3. Festival in Bregenz (Bregenzer Festspiele), Austria

• when: July 19 - August 20
• website: bregenzerfestspiele.com
• prices: from 30 to 300 euros (lake scene)

And again the opera, and again Austria. The Bregenz festival is not comparable to the Salzburg one either in scale or in the number of stars on the stage, but the main and unique star here is the stage itself. The construction of the stage on Lake Constance takes about 12 months. For example, about 40 companies from four European countries participated in creating the stage for the production of the opera Turandot (Puccini). The wall you see in the picture below is made up of 29,000 steel and wood elements. Width - 72 meters, height - 27 meters. The number of soldiers of the "Terracotta Army" at the stage is more than two hundred.

In addition to staging on the lake, the festival program includes a number of other theatrical and musical events: concerts, opera performances, master classes.

How to get there

The nearest large airport to Bregenz is Zurich (about 120 km). Closer, but with fewer flights: Memmingen (75 km) and Friedrichshafen (38 km). Away, but very good with flights - Munich (190 km). From the airport, you can easily get to Bregenz by train or by car.

4. Edinburgh Festival, Scotland

• when: August 4-28
• website: www.eif.co.uk and www.edfringe.com
• prices: most of the shows are within 10-30 pounds, there are free ones, there are also more expensive ones, the ceiling is 150 pounds

Every August, Edinburgh becomes the venue for more than a dozen near-cultural events initiated by different organizers, but united under the common brand "Edinburgh Festival". The largest of them are the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe Festival.

The Edinburgh International Festival is more traditional, but by no means boring. Between opera performances with the participation of world stars and classical music concerts, rock bands perform. The Broadway theater hit shares the bill with plays by young Scottish playwrights and a radical interpretation of Shakespeare. The ballet program consists almost entirely of contemporary.

Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world, a celebration of free creativity, where anyone can perform. First of all, you should go to Fringe for experimental theatrical performances and for stand-up. It is clear that all 50 thousand performances (and this is a real figure, not hyperbole) cannot be equally good, but at one time Rowan Atkinson and Eddie Izzard, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, members of Monty Python and Steve Coogan performed at Fringe.

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TASS-DOSIER. On July 6, 2016 in France, in the city of Avignon, one of the largest and most prestigious international theater forums opens - the Avignon Festival (Festival d "Avignon). This year it celebrates its 70th anniversary.

Story

The festival traces its history back to 1947, when the famous French actor and director Jean Vilar organized the "Week of Dramatic Art" in Avignon. It was a huge success, and next year a theater festival began to be held here. Jean Vilar headed it until 1971.

Until the mid 1990s. mainly French groups were shown here, invitations from foreign theaters were episodic. The merit of turning the Avignon Festival into an international theater show belongs to Bernard Favre d "Arcier, who served as director in 1980-1984 and in 1993-2003. In the 1990s, he included performances by groups from Japan, Korea, Taiwan (PRC) , India, African and Latin American countries, arranged a "Russian season" in Avignon in 1997. Also, d'Arcier ensured that the financing of the festival was transferred from the municipal to the state level.

Today, during the days of the festival, Avignon becomes a place of "pilgrimage" for leading directors, choreographers, set designers and admirers of theatrical art. The review is held annually in July and is known for its special attention to innovative productions.

Programs

Traditionally, the festival program is divided into two parts - official IN and informal OFF.

Participants of the IN program are selected by the director of the festival. Only in 2003-2014, when the festival was directed by Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudrillet, the program was formed by guest directors. Since 2015, the festival has been directed by director and actor Olivier Pi, who composes the program himself.

Every year in Avignon, 35-50 groups show their work (about 300 productions). It is a laboratory of premieres and a place for exploring the new for both theatrical figures and the audience.

The performances are held in the open air on city squares, and the main auditorium of the forum is traditionally the courtyard of the Papal Palace, there are no curtains or decorations. It hosted the premieres of many leading directors and choreographers: Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Maurice Béjart, Pina Bausch, Boris Sharmats and many others.

The OFF program was included in the festival in 1968 and is completely independent in its organization. It does not involve artistic selection and leadership, and anyone can get there. Almost around the clock on all stage venues in the city there are performances of local or visiting artists. Dozens of troupes, musical groups and individual artists - readers, poets, dancers, puppeteers - perform on the streets and squares, in parks, nightclubs and cafes. The activities of theater enthusiasts who come to participate in this program are mostly spontaneous. There are more than 1000 performances in total.

A feature of the Avignon Festival is that it does not award prizes and titles. The review includes not only performances, but also lectures, seminars, master classes.

Russian involvement

In 1997, as part of the "Russian season" in Avignon, nine performances by Russian directors were shown, incl. productions by Pyotr Fomenko, Valery Fokin, Sergey Zhenovach.

In 1998, Russia brought Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm, staged by Henrietta Yanovskaya, and Chekhov's little-known play Tatiana Repina, directed by Valery Fokin, to the festival.

In 2000, the performances of the Moscow Taganka Theater were sold out, showing "Marat-Sad" staged by Yuri Lyubimov.

In 2001, Russia was represented by the performance "Boris Godunov", staged by the English director Declan Donnellan with a group of Moscow actors.

In 2006, the Moscow Theater "School of Dramatic Art" participated in the festival, presenting the performances "Mozart and Salieri. Requiem" and "Canto XXIII. Burial of Patroclus. Games" staged by Anatoly Vasiliev.

In 2015, the Gogol Center Theater showed Kirill Serebrennikov's play Idiots based on the script of the film of the same name by Lars von Trier, the action of which was moved to modern Moscow. This year he is taking Gogol's Dead Souls to Avignon.

Festival 2016

In 2016, the main themes of the festival will be politics, the problem of rising nationalist sentiments, the political and humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, as well as the art of women artists. The jubilee show will open with the play "The Damned", which the famous Belgian director Ivo van Hove staged especially for the Comedie Francaise troupe.

In total, the official program includes 26 dramatic performances, 7 dance performances and 14 interdisciplinary ones. French and foreigners - equally. The festival will run until July 24th.