The Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Minister of Education, Culture and Sport, Jose Ignacio Wert, granted today, 14th March, the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts posthumously to Gerard Mortier, Artistic Advisor of the Teatro Real until his death, last 8th March. This award, the highest one conceded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports in the field of Fine Arts, distinguishes people and organizations who have excelled in the field of artistic and cultural creation, or who have rendered notable service in the promotion, development of art and culture, or of the conservation of artistic heritage. El Teatro Real greatly appreciates that the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts was given to Gerard Mortier, whose processing was proposed to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports in recognition of the outstanding work he did as artistic director an artistic advisor of the Teatro Real from January 2010.
GERARD MORTIER | BIOGRAPHY
Gerard Mortier was born in Ghent in
1943. After taking classical studies with the Jesuits in his hometown, he
finishes his studies with a degree in Information Studies and a doctorate on
Law. His fascination by the opera, since his childhood, leads him to start a
career within this world, getting his first job in 1968, as the assistant of
the director of the Flanders Festival.
Between 1973 and 1979 he was the
artistic administrator of the Düsseldorf (1972-1973), Hamburg (1973-77) and Frankfurt (1977-79)
opera houses, along with Christoph von Dohnányi as music director. Later on, he
worked as artistic advisor at the Paris Opera with Rolf Liebermann and
Hugues Gall, before he would take the director position at the Théâtre Royal de
la Monnaie in 1981, succeeding Maurice Huisman. Throughout his eleven years in
front of the Brussels theatre, for which some of the most renowned composers
and stage directors of the 21st century have created original
operas, La Monnaie has become a reference within the contemporary music scene.
In 1991 he was put in charge of the
direction of the Salzburg Festival with three essential aims: to make the
programme evolve, to look for new audiences and to secure this institution into
de 21st century. After ten years leading the famous Austrian
festival, Mortier strengthened his prestigious position as artistic producer,
by encouraging the creation of new scores, revitalizing the opera world through
forward-looking readings and approaches with strong social content, political
or conceptual, and conceiving the lyric theatre as a point of convergence of
different ways of artistic expression such as painting, sculpture, installation
art, video, literature, etc.
In 2001 Gerard Mortier takes a new
challenge: to set up and run a festival in the Ruhr region, the RuhrTriennale
(2002-2004), by turning old industrial spaces into a meeting place for vanguard
artistic manifestations and stimulating both the discussion and the dialectic
through proposals which went beyond the traditional music and opera world.
After his work in Germany, Mortier
comes back to the Paris Opera, which already switched to the Bastille building
as its new venue, a process in which he had actively worked since the beginning
point. There, he takes the direction of the two Parisian opera theatres: Palais
Garnier and the Bastille, between 2004 and 2009, updating and widening its
audience with a diverse and creative programme.
GERARD MORTIER AT THE TEATRO REAL
In November 2008 Gerard Mortier
takes the position of Artistic Director of the Teatro Real, a position that
holds officially from January 2010 until September 2013, and through which he
continues to be actively involved in the Teatro Real’s life every time his
illness (diagnosed on May, 2013) would allow him to do so. Joan Matabosch
succeeds him officially in the artistic direction of the Teatro Real in January
of the current year, keeping for the next seasons the programme that Mortier
had already fixed.
During the period Mortier of
Mortier in the Teatro Real, 16 new productions have been performed at the venue’s
stage (Lohengrin and Les contes
d’Hoffmann will be presented in the current season), three worldwide
premiered operas —La página en blanco,
by Pilar Jurado, The Perfect American,
by Philip Glass and Brokeback Mountain,
by Charles Wuorinen— new shows such as C(h)oeurs,
by Alain Patel and Lo Real, Le Réel, The
Real, both conceived and performed by Israel Galván. In addition, three new
plays have been commissioned to Spanish composers and will be premiered in the
next seasons: El Público, by Mauricio
Sotelo (based on the homonym play from García Lorca), La ciudad de las mentiras, by Elena Mendoza (from texts by Juan
Carlos Onetti and El otro, by Alberto
Posadas (based on Unamuno’s play).
He has presented to the media and
to the audience all the new productions of the current season -Die Eroberung von
Mexico, The Indian Queen and Brokeback Mountain- with the exception of the one
that’s now on stage, Alceste, which
he wasn’t able to see.
Gerard Mortier‘s last visit to
Madrid was for the Brokeback Mountain
premiere, last 28 of January. However he sent his own texts to be read at the
press conferences of Alceste and for
the next season, as a way of claiming his presence within the theatre’s life.
Next season programme of the Teatro
Real, which combines both productions conceived by Gerard Mortier and those by
Joan Matabosch, was greeted by Mortier as it follows, through a text that was
read to the media by the Teatro Real’s President, Gregorio
Marañón (we have extracted the fragments regarding the three operas that have
been commissioned to Spanish composers):
“As Artistic Advisor of
the Teatro Real, allow me to say some words at the beginning of the press
conference for the presentation of season 2014/2015. First of all, I would like
to wish Joan Matabosch all the best in his first season and to thank him for
his great gentleman behavior during this season. I have already congratulated
him for the designation of Ivor Bolton as the new Principal Music Director of
the Teatro Real (…) I also want to thank him for keeping some of my reference
projects as the worldwide premiere of El
Público, by Mauricio Sotelo, about the text by García Lorca. I’ve always
thought that this work was predestined to become an opera. This is a project we
have been working on for four years. The second worldwide premiere will be La ciudad de las mentiras, by Elena
Mendoza, from texts by Onetti, conducted by Titus Engel, with which I intended
to continue with the opera in Spanish (…) Vive le Teatro Real! " The third opera commissioned by
Gerard Mortier, El otro, by Alberto
Posadas, based on the Unamuno’s play, will be presented in season 2016/2017.
INTERNATIONAL
RECOGNITION
Gerard Mortier‘s inestimable
contribution to the art world was recognized with countless awards, prizes and
medals throughout his career: Honorary Doctor by the University of Antwerp and
the University of Salzburg, “Officer of the Order of Leopold”, “Knight of the
Region of Honor, Commandeur of the Order of the Arts and Letters”, Baron title
awarded by the King of Belgium and the “Golden Medal of the Círculo de Bellas
Artes of Madrid”, amongst others.
Next 21st of May Gerard
Mortier was going to be made Honorary Doctor by the University of Ghent. The
same honorary acknowledgement would be given to him by the Royal Conservatoire
of Antwerp. On the 31st of May he was going to be awarded the first
honorary “Mortier Award” (a sculpture by Alexander Polzin) created by the
German magazine Opernwelt and the International Contest Ring Award, where
Michael Haneke would pronounce the encomium.
Also the Opera magazine, from the
United Kingdom, will concede him the Lifetime
Achievement Award, next 4 th of April.
He died
last 8 th of March, however, his projects will continue at the Teatro Real, honoring
his memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.