PROFILES

The last time we met him, in 2006, he was directing the Théâtre National de Nice. “I’d imagined moving on to a little theatre in Paris,” Daniel Benoin remembers with amusement. But that was before Antibes city council decided to build a theatre – Anthéa – at the turn of the 2010s. After assisting in the conception of the spiral-ramped venue built from scratch, he segued into putting together its programme for the first season. “I’d directed national theatres for many years, and here I didn’t have all those constraints, such as having to programme 90% theatre. It was a great adventure, choosing a team and having a free rein for the programming.” His gamble? To extend the focus from theatre to performing arts in general, with 45% of the season earmarked for opera, one-man-shows, dance and circus. “Being an optimist by nature, I’d banked on annual audiences of 40,000 and selling 3000 season tickets.” Over its third season, 2016-17, Anthéa in fact totalled 115,000 spectators, with 12,000-plus season-ticket holders. “Audiences spontaneously come to see headliners and shows they see as having a good reputation. The idea behind season tickets is to encourage them to discover new things,” Anthéa’s artistic director explains. Since he’s above all an actor and stage director, Anthéa is involved in many productions and coproductions as well as hosting shows. “I make the kind of theatre I love,” states this history buff whose Alsatian forebears regularly found their nationality changed by war. Benoin’s comrades in arms are named François Berléand, Isabelle Huppert, Sami Bouajila, Paul Chariéras, François Marthouret or Patrick Chesnais. “I may on occasion show violence but I’m something of a prude when it comes to nudity. I enjoy directing opera too, images in music.“ After December’s amusing but disquieting Misery, in February Benoin whirls us off into the tumultuous romance that is Le Nozze di Figaro.

Par Tanja Stojanov

Photo Jean-Michel Sordello