Aix-en-Provence (AFP)

Director Simon Stone gives instructions, composer Kaija Saariaho revises his score, Susanna Mälkki directs the rehearsal: the stars are at work at the prestigious festival of lyric art in Aix-en-Provence, even if, for the public, there is no 2020 edition.

At the Grand Théâtre de Provence, around forty people - including masked and distanced technicians - are busy on stage during the rehearsal of the opera "Innocence". We would like to believe that the premiere of this world creation will take place as planned.

A veritable "laboratory" of creations, the Aix festival, which was to be held from June 30 to July 18, hopes to be able to reprogram in 2021 this "opera-thriller" on ghosts from the past who come to haunt a wedding banquet.

"After the cancellation, I was very disappointed. I couldn't empty myself of the music before it existed on stage," said Kaija Saariaho at AFP, who attended part of the show at the end of June. rehearsal, one of the first of an opera in France since the deconfinement.

"When I started to hear it, it materialized and it gave me confidence", adds the eminent Finnish composer who has created successful contemporary operas like "L'Amour de loin" (2000) and "Only the Sound Remains" (2016).

Paradox: if "writing this work for years was very stressful", she works today without the pressure of the first. "We wonder why we work so hard ... but everyone is so happy to come back!".

Come back, with barrier gestures not obvious in an opera, especially with performers without masks but two meters away to sing.

To avoid being in large numbers in a studio, the musical spinning started on June 18 directly on the set.

The festival succeeded in bringing almost all the artists involved in this opera sung in nine languages, from the Czech Republic to Spain. Some exceptions, however: "the set designer and the lighting designer are still in London", explains producer Marion Schwartz. "By videoconference, we show them the scene with a tablet," she smiles.

- "Staying up" -

As for the costume designer, who is in Australia, she had already finished her drawings and an assistant works on site.

This very international production has experienced other twists and turns: the choreographer threw in the towel because of the difficulty of working at a distance and a replacement was found for the singer Lucy Shelton, stranded in the United States.

"I received the score a week ago; I had time to learn it since all my contracts were canceled," said Fiona McGrown, mezzo-soprano based in Paris.

"Already in normal times, an opera production is quite acrobatic," says Ms. Shwartz who worked in the past at the Paris Opera.

"Normally, we have a list of" unforeseeable unforeseen events ": when a singer who gets sick or who withdraws at the last moment; we know who the close replacements are geographically or who know the role. This is quite another dimension" .

Other stars were in Aix to participate in recitals and debates broadcast on Arte and France Musique as part of a digital edition of the festival (July 6-15), such as the German baritone Christian Gerhaher or the conductor British Simon Rattle.

"There is support from the artists, we are here to say that we must not stop," said Philippe Delcroix, technical director of the festival.

At the Théâtre de l'Archevêché, another emblematic place of the festival, he supervises the lights and the decor of a new production of "Coq d'or" by Rimski-Korsakov, edited by Barrie Kosky, director among the most requested at world.

Of the 300 intermittent technicians, half returned with this "desire to remain standing". "We have shifted the hours so that the machinists do not work alongside the electricians". "It's slower, but even with masks, it's happiness."

© 2020 AFP