Avignon (AFP)
Portuguese director Tiago Rodrigues was appointed director of the Avignon Festival on Monday from autumn 2022, becoming the first foreigner to lead the prestigious theatrical event.
He is one of the most prominent directors in Europe and since 2014 has directed the Dona Maria II National Theater in Lisbon, the Portuguese equivalent of the Comédie-Française.
He will take office in September 2022 and its first edition will be presented in July 2023, announced in Avignon the French Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot.
"It is the most beautiful theater festival in the world, it is an adventure to which I promise you that I will devote all my energies, trying to contribute to this great celebration of artistic freedom and cultural democratization", declared Tiago Rodrigues during a press briefing at the Palais des Papes, a major venue for the city and the Festival.
"I would like to thank France, a host country, a diverse and open society, which welcomes and has welcomed so many migrants and exiles, so many Portuguese, especially my father, who escaped the dictatorship in Portugal", he added
Tiago Rodrigues, 44, was appointed a few hours before presenting his version of "La Cerisaie" by Tchekhov, with Isabelle Huppert, in the Cour d'honneur, where the opening show of the Festival d'Avignon is traditionally given.
Son of committed parents, a communist journalist father and a socialist doctor mother, he was born on February 16, 1977, three years after the Carnation Revolution which led to the fall of the Salazarist dictatorship.
Perfectly French-speaking, he knows the festival well, having triumphed there with Shakespeare's "Antoine et Cléopâtre" in 2015 or even with "Sopro" in 2017 where he pays tribute to the profession of blower in the theater, guardian of memory and continuation.
© 2021 AFP