Luc Bondy, the death of the Phoenix – Le Figaro

The great Swiss director Luc Bondy has died at the age of 67 years. Ill for many years, he was head of the Odeon Theatre of Europe since 2012.

The disease had accompanied most of his life. Each time, he overcame and set to work. The director, writer, filmmaker died this morning at the age of 67 years. Director of the Odeon, the last stage is a masterpiece of delicacy and depth, Ivanov Chekhov.

There was in him intractable childhood . Nothing could bring him down. Nothing prevented to dream, to plan, to share. To stage. He directs his actors as fine lectures, he writes himself novels, essays, short stories, poems or running movies, there was always in him that strength, that candor also, who were nothing seemed ever having to stop.

And then the sad news fell this morning. Luc Bondy died on this beautiful sunny day late autumn, a beautiful day at the Chekhov one day that will not stop the tears of those who love him forever. He had 67 years on July 18, while his Ivanov Chekhov had triumphed at the Odeon he headed past few seasons. The show had been taken at the beginning of the season and still had a hero’s welcome. He was then hospitalized. His wife Marie-Louise had returned to work. It is her first that we think and their children, wonderful twins

For a long time the name of Luc Bondy had circulated in France before finally somebody did come.: it was Patrice Chéreau who invited him to Nanterre-Amandiers soon as he took charge of the theater in the 1980s It was in 1984 Foreign Earth Schnitzler and no one ever forgot the extraordinary sight and sound of tennis balls exchanged on the large chainring. There was Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier. While a troupe that remained loyal and loves and admires him for ever.

He loved actors

A master stroke, but it was not the first . The son of François Bondy (1915-2003) intellectual and Swiss philosopher (Luc Bondy was born in Zurich) began very early and spent his youth in Paris following courses including Jacques Lecoq and starting early as Eugène Ionesco assistant , a friend of his father assembled for a show in Hamburg.

For in 1969, in Germany he began his directorial career, amount Genet, Shakespeare, Goethe, all great writers who accompanied him throughout his life. From 1974 he was at the theater in Frankfurt and continues to seek deep and light shows in which actors have primary responsibility. He loved actors and this is the humanity of his productions at the theater as opera, which hit the most.

He then in Cologne and directed Gombrowicz and his always Shakespeare expensive, but it also addresses Beckett.

Next come the radiant years of the Schaubühne Berlin where he became co-director with two playwrights in 1985. He succeeds Peter Stein. He remained until 1987.

It is in this period, particularly fertile and brilliant of his life that had called Chéreau in Nanterre. It was in those years that the French public learned to reckon with him. What great memories! For instance The Winter’s Tale Shakespeare at the Avignon Festival in 1987 with the faithful, Michel Piccoli, Bulle Ogier, Nada Strancar among others. In 1989, The Lonely Way Schnitzler, with Didier Sandre, André Dussollier, the late Jerome Nicolin particular.

Meanwhile, Luc Bondy continues to stage works for the European opera. In Vienna, Berlin, London, Brussels. We can not list all the titles here, but every time the depth of the shows is praised by all the critics and extolled by the public.

Shakespeare, Chekhov, Schnitzler

This is Luc Bondy never stops working and if disease recurrence, he always finds a way to win on it and enjoy convalescence periods to read and read again. He always returned to the same companions: Shakespeare, Chekhov, Schnitzler. But he neglected nothing in the contemporary repertoire, Botho Strauss Yasmina Reza as he staged in German but also in French, including La Madeleine.

For years, he was director of the Festival Vienna. He made a place where the best of European creativity, and beyond Europe had an appointment.

France was his country’s life and culture. He had dreamed a moment to direct the Bouffes du Nord after Peter Brook he considered one of his teachers; his appointment in 2012 as head of the Théâtre de l’Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, was a little brutal – with the return of Olivier Py very well leading the institution.

But who will deny that it has, with its excellent artistic teams, technical, administrative, done an excellent job at the Odeon. He had the grief of seeing him die Patrice Chéreau which should have set Shakespeare scene. They got along like cats and dogs sometimes, but the dispute was part of their nature creators.

It should, in March, to stage Othello . The show had been handed over to the next season. There was concern. They would not believe that he did not yet overcome once the disease. Physically, he had aged prematurely. Yet there was in his eyes, in his soft voice, in his manner, something of an eternal child. It is he whom we cry.