19 July 2024
Jura, France

Jura really hasn’t changed but I’ve never seen it like this. It’s been more than a decade – in fact, all of fifteen years – since I’ve visited this region, so centrally located in Europe and yet so entirely remote. The gray houses with light blue shutters, the ‘made-for-a-movie’ bakeries and cheese shops, all of it, are just the same as they were in 2009, and just the same, probably, as they were one hundred years ago, before the wars and modernity changed the face of the European continent. Not so much the French Jura- these deep valleys covered in Savagnin (and no, that’s not a typo to the faux-wine snobs) plantings are about as French as France would aspire to be. It’s filmic. And on this visit, I hope not to make the newspaper.

Rather, in the press this week has been En vertu de… (2021), the first as an exclusive interview with the Artistic Director and General Manager of the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. When asked for the definitive work of his tenure at the top of the world-class house in Luxembourg, Tom said (and I transfer somewhat roughly), “I am thinking of the show conceived during the pandemic and production of which was stopped because of it. It is a diptych of operas with the title “Zu unseren Brüdern, zu unseren Schwestern” combining the world premiere of the opera “En vertu de…” by the composer Eugene Birman, and “Der Kaiser von Atlantis” by Viktor Ullmann with the staging of Stéphane Ghislain Roussel. The meaning of this diptych clearly posed the question what lesson can be learned from the catastrophe of the Second World War? How can we not repeat our mistakes, learn from our faults, avoid fatality? The show is an alert, a call to consciences. It will be revived in 2024-25 in Saarbrücken, Ghent / Antwerp and Geneva…. It is a good example of a show that is both critical and philosophical, and which encourages creation.”

And then, this brilliant promotional video covering the last four years of enoa‘s remarkable activities in the space of contemporary opera. It was precisely five years ago that I first became involved in the organization, invited to be Artist-in-Residence at the 2018 Helsinki Festival under the curation of Topi Lehtipuu, who has since then become a friend and very close collaborator. Indeed, through enoa, I have met numerous friends, colleagues, many collaborators, and have had truly life-changing encounters with world-class organisations, thinkers, and musicians. I say this not out of promotion or responsibility, even, but out of gratitude. It has been transformational. In that little video, you’ll catch a glimpse of En vertu de… as well. In transforming opera, enoa has transformed us creators, too.