The Paris Opera and the Orsay Museum united to celebrate Degas, "painter of the dancers"

Paris (AFP)

As part of the 350th anniversary of the Paris Opera, the French temple of the lyric and choreographic arts and the Musée d'Orsay join forces for a major retrospective at the start of the school year dedicated to Edgar Degas, nicknamed the "painter of the dancers".

From his beginnings to his last works, Degas (1834-1917), one of the founders of Impressionism, devoted his work to immortalizing the Paris Opera's daily life, from the stage to the backstage, passing by the rehearsal rooms and the foyer.

"Degas is not only + the painter of dancers + as we are accustomed to calling him, he used the Paris Opera as a kind of toolbox, allowing him to explore all the spaces but also those who occupied them, "said Henri Loyrette, general commissioner of" Degas at the Opera "(24 September-19 January 2020).

"Degas painted the artists, the orchestra, the audience, including the black-haired subscribers who haunted the backstage, and the opera gave him many points of view, including the study of movement and gesture," he added. Loyrette.

Associated for the first time at the Paris Opera, the Musée d'Orsay - who collaborated last year with the Châtelet for "Picasso, blue and pink" - will propose October 11 and 12, in addition to an exhibition Reasoned, a choreographic creation in the middle of the works and conceived by the dancer Nicolas Paul and Aurélie Dupont, director of the dance of the ballet of the Opera.

Under the direction of Philippe Jordan, the orchestra of the Paris Opera will be mobilized on December 9 with a concert under the great nave of the Musée d'Orsay which will propose a Franco-Russian duel between works by Debussy and Prokofiev.

A carte blanche will be given in November to Frédéric Mitterrand on cinema and opera with projections at the Musée d'Orsay of emblematic works including "Madame Butterfly", faithful adaptation of Puccini's opera, that the former minister of Culture had done in 1995.

"To celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Paris Opera at the Musée d'Orsay and elsewhere is to open the house to another audience," says Stéphane Lissner, general manager of the Opéra national de Paris. "The event around Degas will allow hundreds of thousands of people to discover opera".

? 2019 AFP