A mystical opera in the Bastille, Alain Souchon revisited by the Comédie Française, the Hors Pistes festival… our 5 cultural highlights

Tristan and Isoldathe legendary revival at the Opéra Bastille

Seventeen years after its formation in 2005, the Opéra national de Paris resumes Tristan and Isolda by Richard Wagner in a neat performance by Peter Sellars, a pioneer in his use of video. Bill Viola’s four-hour film serves as the setting and symbolic evocation of the poetry of love and death. The worlds of the two artists are independent of each other, images break free from music and vice versa. Bill Viola videos, archetypal, hypnotizing, great formal beauty, sculpting time. Installed like altars on a stage, they appeal to the emotion and universality of tears. Another event: the conductor Gustavo Dudamel for the first time mastered this opera that revolutionized the history of music. The whole gives a Tristan and Isolda zen and universal. The onlookers didn’t sulk in their happiness.

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

Zanele Muholi, first retrospective at the European House of Photography

Born a woman 50 years ago in a town in Durban, South Africa, Zanele Muholi defines herself as a non-binary personality and a “visual activist”, using the camera as a weapon against injustice. Her work provides visibility to the black LGBTQUIA+ community, including marginalized lesbians who are victims of violence, particularly through corrective practices, namely punishment, rape. The serial Face and Follow-Up Phase, started in 2006 and listing 500 images, illustrates the approach. The practice is meant to be collaborative, the people being photographed become the strength of the proposal and contribute to providing the chosen venue, attire and pose for the shot. By documenting the community strange black South Africans, Zanele Muholi’s photographs invite viewers to revisit accepted ideas. A plea for distinction.

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

Souchon ballad in Studio-Theatre

In 2023, Alain Souchon celebrates fifty years of his career, marked by 9 Victoires de la Musique. So many hits made by his accomplice Laurent Voulzy: I’m ten years old, Hello bobo mom, Under girls skirts, Sentimental crowd, And if no one but then… We all have something of Souchon in us. Actress and director Françoise Gillard thinks so. And he composed, with the help of Amélie Wendling, a Souchon ballad, like walking through his repertoire, for the Cabarets of the Comédie-Française. After Serge Gainsbourg, Georges Brassens, Barbara or Léo Ferré, it was Alain Souchon’s turn, played by the six women from the troupe.

Souchon balladfrom January 26 to March 5, 2023, comedy-francaise.fr

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Hors Pistes Festival at the Center Pompidou

For his 18^e edition, the Hors Pistes festival themed “Seeing war and making peace”. This annual event, dedicated to the moving image, revolves around exhibitions, screenings and performances. The exhibition, through the works of Thibault Brunet, Orianne Ciantar Olive, Arnaud Dezoteux and Celsian Langlois, Kapwani Kiwanga or Hélène Mutter, questions the metamorphosis of the image of war. On the sidelines, journalist Pierre Haski devised a program of meetings aligned with news of the war in Ukraine. Nikita Kadan, a major figure on the Ukrainian scene, presents a collection of war images. “My job is not to turn a blind eye,” he said.

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

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Caroline Guiela Nguyen: heart theater forever

Caroline Guiela Nguyen is a theatrical woman, writer, director and director of the company “Les Hommes Approximatifs”. Its specialty is representing different faces and bodies, all parts of the world are not in the set. He just published an artistic manifesto, heart Theatre, in his work, the source of his inspiration, which at its heart revolves around diversity. She was recently appointed, at the age of 41, as head of the Strasbourg National Theatre, where she will take up her duties in September 2023. And thus becomes the only female director in the national theatre.

Heart theaterin collaboration with Aurélie Charon, Actes-Sud-Papiers