URBAN GUIDE

The Lacoste festival was created by Pierre Cardin 14 years ago this summer, but it’s by no means resting on its laurels. Under Eve Ruggieri’s artistic inspiration, this year’s vintage will be wonderfully eclectic.

The open-air venue in the quarries below the castle that once belonged to the Marquis de Sade is not the festival’s only unconventional aspect. Each summer it offers a mix of opera, drama, music, dance and readings, all with the added spice of humour and surprise. This year’s bill features de Sade, Colette, Maxim’s and Hamlet! The festival kicks off with Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta in concert version, with 13 young singers from the Bolshoi and piano accompaniment – an introduction to opera and to some enthusiastic young talents. Then for the 14 July holiday there’s Hamlet, a musical drama freely inspired by Shakespeare’s play, conceived, composed, staged and co-produced by Daniele Martini. The costumes are by Pierre Cardin, who points out that «Nobody had thought of doing Hamlet in this form.» On 18 July, Eve Ruggieri, who’s been passionately involved in this unusual festival from its beginnings, imagines an explosive meeting between de Sade and Casanova, erotic masters of the Age of Enlightenment. Staged by Yves Coudray to great opera music by Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart played by the Ensemble Prométhée, it features Stéphane Freiss of the Comédie Française as the Marquis de Sade. Then comes something more classical with a ballet by Julien Lestel to music by Puccini, and a whiff of scandal with Moi Colette, a play by Pierre-André Hélène with Véronique Fourcaud as the avant-gardist, freedom-loving libertine Colette. Then an irreverent cabaret, Ca swing Chez Maxim’s produced by Gérard Chambre, before closing with L’invitation au voyage, a song recital by soprano Natalie Dessay with bass-baritone Laurent Naouri (her husband) and Maciej Pikulski on piano. We’ll be leaving with a head full of melodies!

Festival de Lacoste, du 11 au 28 juillet, dans les carrières du château du Marquis de Sade.