Edito 2023

> However, as many of you know, this reunion is placed under a special sign. Kader Hassissi, who founded the Beaune International Baroque and Romantic Opera Festival with me forty years ago, has left to join the constellations a few days after the end of the 2022 edition. This is not the place to go into what the unexpected and brutal loss of a lifelong companion means to me. I prefer to testify here to the shock and immense sadness felt by our family: artists, technicians, volunteers, Friends of the Festival, spectators, public and private partners. It is impossible for me to name just one of them, as it would be necessary to do so for all of them, but let everyone know how much the sorrow and sympathy expressed in these thousands of messages have touched and helped us, all those close to him, to hold on. Without Kader, the Festival will never be the same again, and  already know the feeling that the most faithful among you will feel when they will look for his silhouette and his smile at the gate of the concerts. However, he would never have wanted the adventure to end, nor for the necessary time of remembrance to overshadow that of the musical happiness that he embodied so well through his radiance, his generosity and his humour. This 2023 edition, which is of course dedicated to him, is thus placed under the double sign of homage and hope.

>  It opens on 7 July with Purcell’s Odes, including the famous, Hail, Bright Cecilia! celebrating the patron saint of musicians. Paul Mc Creesh and his Gabrieli Consort and Players, who have been in Beaune almost every summer since the Festival began, were particularly keen to offer us this selection of works that are both profound and luminous. For the closing evening, on 30 July, Andreas Scholl chose the intimacy of the melodies of Dowland and Handel. Other great friends of Kader and the Festival were also eager to be present. Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, who on 8 July conducts Theodora, one of Handel’s most powerful oratorios, with the forces of the Namur Chamber Choir and the Millenium Orchestra. Jérémie Rhorer and his Cercle de l’Harmonie, who will take us on 15 July into the fantasy of Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, set with the works of his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn, whose genius has been too long overshadowed. On 22 July, Jean-Christophe Spinosi and Ensemble Matheus will be getting a head start on next year’s Olimpiade by celebrating those imagined by Vivaldi. Our dear William Christie, who has been at home in Beaune for so many years with his Arts Florissants, leads a troupe of young singers in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas on 23 July. And Marc Minkowski and the Musiciens du Louvre are back on 30 July with a Nouvelle Symphonie, based on the most beautiful pages of Rameau.

>  But Beaune is always about youth and the discovery of new talent. With Stéphane Fuget and Les Epopées, we are continuing a residency based on the operas of Monteverdi. The Coronation of Poppea will be performed on 14 July with a dazzling cast, including two of the protagonists of the recitals, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Dijan (16 July) and Eva Zaïcik (21 July). Valentin Tournet and his Chapelle Harmonique are back on 28 July for a dazzling Te Deum by Charpentier. And we are particularly happy to begin a collaboration this summer with one of the most brilliant and inventive conductors of the young generation, Camille Delaforge, for a Vivaldi recital on 9 July with Anthéa Pichanick.The Beaune odyssey continues! Thank you to all our supporters, whose loyalty is particularly precious to us this year: the City of Beaune, the Département de la Côte d’Or, the Bourgogne Franche-Comté Region and the Ministry of Culture via the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs. The Hospices Civils, who welcome us and patronise us, as well as the SNCF. Our media partners, first and foremost France Musique, whose microphones give Beaune’s nights a worldwide echo. Finally, thank you for your passion and commitment to your Festival.

Anne Blanchard
Founder and Artistic Director