Word: barrault
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Jean Louis Barrault is one of the towering figures of the French stage. A brilliant mime and tragedian, he has also been a potent instigator of dramatic innovation as director of the Théâtre de France, giving world premières of works by such playwrights as Beckett, lonesco and Genet. Last week Barrault interrupted rehearsals at his company's permanent home, the Odéon Theater on Paris' Left Bank, to announce that he had been dismissed as its director. The coup de grâce was administered in a curt letter from...
...cause of Barrault's dismissal was his role in last May's student riots. During the demonstrations, anarchist rebels from the Sorbonne "liberated" the Odéon and turned it into a discussion hall. They also destroyed 50% of the sets, ripped up red velvet seats and urinated on costumes. Barrault wept when he saw the damage, but government officials believed that he tacitly allowed the rebels to take over. Barrault also took the stage to proclaim his sympathy with student goals and to denounce France's "bourgeois culture...
...Angeles Philharmonic-and who last week touched off a furor by denying that he was the least bit interested in conducting the New York Philharmonic*Yet what the musical performance lacked in authentic accent was balanced by the thoroughly Gallic staging of French Actor-Director Jean-Louis Barrault...
Prosper Merimee novella rather than from the encrustation of operatic melodramatics that have come to form the accepted Carmen style, Barrault restored to brimming life the tale of the gypsy charmer and the innocent soldier she dupes into loving her. "The story," says Barrault, "is tragedy rather than melodrama. It is a human tragedy, surrounded by a society that is so caught up in its own dance of life that it is indifferent to the suffering of others...
Considering the varied origins of his non-French-speaking cast, Barrault was probably justified in overstressing the theatrical aspects of the plot with constant stage activity. Bumbry, a rising singer who has created her share of glory at the Met as the villainesses in A'ida and Don Carlo, has yet to master the sinuous individuality of the French musical line. Though often incisive, Mehta's operatic work does not yet measure up to his symphonic accomplishments. As a result, Barrault created a Carmen that was acted more than it was sung. But he also provided...