Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

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Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, 1980.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (born February 19, 1932 in Paris , † August 11, 1988 in Munich ) was one of the most important directors of music theater (opera director) and an innovative stage and costume designer .

Life

Ponnelle grew up in an artistic family. His grandfather, a wine merchant and music critic, was friends with the composer Richard Strauss . Ponnelle's parents attentively promoted his artistic knowledge and skills. For eight years he received the piano lessons customary in upper class circles. The mother, Mia Ponnelle, b. Reiter, a singer from a Hungarian-Czech theater family, and the father, Pierre Ponnelle , wine merchant and journalist, owned a winery in Beaune ( Burgundy ). From 1942 Ponnelle père supported the Resistance , later the German army occupied her residence. The French military government commissioned 1945 a. a. Pierre Ponnelle as an officer for cultural affairs with the establishment of a new radio station, Südwestfunk .

Until 1948, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle spent his last school years in the French high school in the Cité of Baden-Oos. The interaction and exchange with important artistic personalities who went in and out of the Ponnelles once again reinforced this desire for creative activity at Ponnelle fils. Among the friends of the house were personalities such as Heinrich Strobel , the influential head of the music department at SWF, who made Baden-Baden and Donaueschingen centers of contemporary music; Hans Rosbaud , the chief conductor of the radio orchestra where Ponnelle fils took music lessons; Pierre Boulez , avant-garde composer and temporary successor to Rosbaud, has lived in Baden-Baden since 1958 ; Hannes Tannert , the director of the Baden-Baden Theater, who invited Jean-Pierre Ponnelle to many engagements together with his wife, the actress Margit Saad, including “Les Caprices de Marianne”, with which they were allowed to appear at the 1963 Berliner Festwochen ; but also Hans Werner Henze , whom Ponnelle met at the Donaueschinger Musiktage . Henze made his debut in 1950 with his ballet “Jack Pudding” in Wiesbaden, and he commissioned his friend Jean-Pierre for the set and costumes. They both went to Paris, Ponnelle studied art history and philosophy at the Sorbonne as well as painting with Fernand Léger ; later they worked several times together on Henze's pieces, including Ponnelle's breakthrough with the opera Boulevard Solitude (1952).

In March 1959, Ponnelle was drafted for military service in France. Since he was pacifist, he refrained from using the privileged officer career that would have been open to him as a high school graduate. Two and a half years of martyrdom in the Moroccan-Algerian desert were interrupted by two painting assignments: a fresco in the gym of the barracks in Rabat ; then a triptych descent from the cross for the Catholic military band "Notre-Dame de la Paix" in Baden-Oos at the instigation of General Paul Vanuxem, deputy general commander of the French troops in Germany, previously professor of philosophy. It is considered his most important painting, measures 265 × 657 cm and has been in the military band of Évreux (Normandy) since 1968 ; the owners of the Schmincke company (Düsseldorf), with whom the Ponnelles were friends, provided him with the oil paints for free. As a result, he was able to spend a whole happy year with his family in Baden-Baden. So you went to Colmar several times to see the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald and enjoyed Alsatian cuisine. Then he had to go back to the desert and into the Algerian war . Pressed to the utmost by this hostile environment, he made the decision to no longer limit himself to the production of sets and costumes, but to penetrate and master an entire work as a director. In 1965 he was invited to an opera production in the Upper Rhine region by his friend Germain Muller , Alsace's most important cabaret artist and at that time the cultural representative of the city of Strasbourg . This staging of Britten's Midsummer Night 's Dream was to be followed by eleven other sensational engagements in Strasbourg.

Artistic career

Catherine Malfitano , Traviata , 1980.

In the 1950s, Ponnelle limited herself to the design of stage sets and costumes for opera, drama and ballet; So he always stayed in the background, behind the scenes. He wanted to change that after his traumatic war in Algeria. First, he expanded his radius of action to include theater direction. His mentor, the director of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus Karl Heinz Stroux, supported and entrusted him with Albert Camus ' Caligula in 1961 . Two years later the first opera direction followed with Richard Wagner's opera “ Tristan und Isolde ”.

In 1968 he celebrated his international breakthrough at the Salzburg Festival with Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville with conductor Claudio Abbado . He has worked for this festival for 20 years in a row, of which his Mozart cycles are particularly noteworthy: Così fan tutte (1969, conductor Seiji Ozawa ), Le nozze di Figaro (1972, conductor Herbert von Karajan ) (was also shown in Vienna), Don Giovanni (1977, conductor Karl Böhm ), La clemenza di Tito (1976, conductor James Levine ), Die Zauberflöte (1978, conductor James Levine) and Idomeneo (1983, conductor James Levine). Jean Pierre Ponnelle also staged Les contes d'Hoffmann (1980, conductor James Levine), and Moses und Aron (1987, conductor James Levine) in Salzburg and created the set for Il Sant'Alessio (1977).

At the end of the 1970s he worked with Nikolaus Harnoncourt on the Claudio Monteverdi cycle at the Zurich Opera House . Important works by Ponnelle also emerged at the Milan Teatro alla Scala - around 1973 La Cenerentola - as well as at the Vienna State Opera - Manon in 1971 , Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci in 1985 and L'italiana in Algeri in 1987 (was also shown in Munich)

For Salzburg he developed a special version of the Magic Flute , the so-called Children's Magic Flute : Not only was the plot of the Mozart opera explained and depicted - Papageno was the emcee - but the theater work was also explained, with Ponnelle herself on the stage of the Felsenreitschule as Director appeared. As a theater director he was also occasionally active later, for example at the Akademietheater in Vienna with Man Not Playing with Love by Alfred de Musset (1973; with Paul Hörbiger , among others ).

Working method

In his artistic life, Ponnelle worked for 303 productions and only needed 36 years on stage, which corresponds to an average of 8 ½ pieces per year. Ponnelle set himself a rehearsal period of mostly 4 weeks for each production, which he almost always kept. As probably the first director of music theater, he staged several plays at the same time in different cities. Ponnelle always read the notes from the orchestral score, only exceptionally from the easier piano reduction.

His staging style was supported by a sometimes ironic, but ultimately compassionate humanity for his stage characters. Ponnelle vigorously opposed any superficial updating. The work was supposed to speak for itself; it had enough expressiveness for him. He was able to communicate fluently in four languages ​​with his stage colleagues and, if necessary, also translate librettos into the language of the country of performance.

The price of his obsession with the theater and the overexploitation of his health was a far too early death at the age of 56. As early as 1982 and 1988, his poor health forced him to stay in hospital for longer. With physical exhaustion, there was also a creative standstill in the form of increasing repetitions. However, his knowledge and routine always ensured an above-average level of craftsmanship.

In the summer of 1988 he fell into the unsecured orchestra pit during rehearsals in Tel Aviv. He only apparently recovered from the consequences of the fall; he continued working and died a few weeks later of heart failure in a Munich hospital on August 11, 1988.

Ponnelle was married to the actress Margit Saad-Ponnelle (* 1929) and had a son with her, the conductor and composer Pierre-Dominique Ponnelle (* 1957). His second son Jean-Philippe was born in 1985. He found his final resting place in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The tombstone was designed by the sculptor Ulrich Rückriem . The grave is in the 49th division, 2-ème section, 1 / 45e ligne, numéro 33/50, concession No. 262.

The film adaptations of the opera: Ponnelle's legacy

What remains for posterity of Ponnelle's work, above all, are his opera films, which he made as a director and set designer since the early 1970s, generously supported by the media magnate Leo Kirch . Other opera films still pay tribute to Ponnelle today. Especially well known are the adaptations of stage works by Claudio Monteverdi , his productions of Mozart operas at the Salzburg Festival and the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff , which won the Best Director Award of the Prix Italia.

Opera films

Secondary literature

  • Fabian, Imre (1983): Imre Fabian in conversation with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. An opera world book. Zurich: Orell Füssli, 232 pp.
  • Fellinger, Bettina (1987): Opera on TV. The opera adaptations by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. 145 p., Master's thesis from the University of Hamburg (not for exchange)
  • Willaschek, Wolfgang (1989): Jean-Pierre Ponnelle - Works for Salzburg, 1968 - 1988. On the occasion of the exhibition Jean-Pierre Ponnelle - The Salzburg Works, 1968–1988 [27. July - August 31, 1989]. Salzburg: Salzburg Festival, 128 pp., Numerous. Ill. + 1 exhibition guide.
  • Woska, Elisabeth (1991): Ponnelle in Munich. 1952 to 1988. [Catalog for the exhibition in the National Theater in Munich, March 18 - June 20, 1991] Munich: Bavarian State Opera, 60 p., Overw. Ill.
  • Bendikas, Kristina (1999): Opera productions of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. The American years. Toronto: University of Toronto, Diss., IV, 321 S. [available in: University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg, Frankfurt a. M.]
  • C. Bernd Sucher , Stefan Jordan:  Ponnelle, Jean-Pierre. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 615 ( digitized version ).
  • Calabria, Vera Lùcia, Jean-Pierre Ponelle and the camera. Comments on Ponnelle's handling of the media , in: Jürgen Kühnel / Ulrich Müller / Oswald Panagl (eds.), The music theater in the audiovisual media. »... acts of music that have become apparent ...« , Anif / Salzburg: Müller-Speiser 2001, pp. 276–294.
  • Lo, Kii-Ming (2001), The Opera Film as an Extension of the Stage. Attempting a theory based on Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's »Rigoletto« , in: Jürgen Kühnel / Ulrich Müller / Oswald Panagl (eds.), The music theater in the audiovisual media. »... acts of music that have become apparent ...« , Anif / Salzburg: Müller-Speiser 2001, pp. 264–275.
  • Busch, Max W. (2002): Jean-Pierre Ponnelle 1932 - 1988 [on the occasion of the exhibition: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle - “I speak through the eyes” on the artist's 70th birthday, Akademie der Künste , Berlin, January 20 to March 3, 2002] ed. from the Foundation Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Berlin: Henschel, 398 pp.
    - The standard work: The life and work of JPP from the pen of his closest friends and former employees, excellently illustrated and researched.
  • Brug, Manuel (2002): No more curiosity, nowhere. The Akademie der Künste shows the estate of the powerful opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, who is in love with the stage, Die Welt , March 1, 2002, online:
  • Laska, Markus (2002): Jean-Pierre Ponnelle on the 70th In memoriam , IBS aktuell, 21, pp. 11–14, extensive illustrations [newspaper from the "Interest Association of the Bavarian State Opera Audience" - IBS]
  • Bendikas, Kristina (2004): The opera theater of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, VI, 199 pp. ISBN 0-7734-6485-9
    -     table of contents
  • Lo, Kii-Ming (2014), A Disillusioned Dream of America: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's opera film »Madama Butterfly« , in: Sieghart Döhring / Stefanie Rauch (eds.), Musiktheater im Fokus , Sinzig: Studio Punkt Verlag 2014, Pp. 219-236.
  • Lo, Kii-Ming (2015): Seeing, hearing and understanding: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's film adaptation of "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. In: Thomas Rösch (Hrsg.): Text, music, scene - The music theater by Carl Orff. Schott, Mainz etc. 2015, pp. 147–173, ISBN 978-3-7957-0672-2 .
  • Lo, Kii-Ming (2015), “In the dark you, in the light me!” ─ Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's Bayreuth staging of “Tristan and Isolde” , in: Naomi Matsumoto et al. (Eds.), The Staging of Verdi & Wagner Operas , Turnhout: Brepols 2015, pp. 307–321.

Web links

Quotes

  • Edita Gruberová : “Ponnelle has explored souls. The fascinating thing about his work was the precision with which he led us singers to an understanding of roles. Every little detail was meticulously worked out. From a visual point of view, he created a very individual aesthetic that was sometimes dismissed as conservative by the hasty and myopic. In truth, his work has always been at the forefront of psychological depth research. "(In: Busch 2002, 40)
  • Hans Werner Henze in the spring of 1947 or 1948: “The father [Ponnelles] was a high officer in the French occupation army, which did not prevent me from staying in a guest room of the Ponnelle family on my musical expeditions in Baden-Baden. Today, on this wonderful spring day in Baden, the anticipation for a weekend in civilization was particularly great. Outside the Baden fruit trees were in splendid bloom. [...] ... but then to freedom with Rossini, Mozart , and Abbado at the Scala , in Salzburg , Monteverdi with Harnoncourt, with the ring . Television was added and attracted his Basque-Burgundian view, his aesthetics developed here again in new ways. And Jean-Pierre worked and worked, non-stop, sometimes on several productions at the same time. Did he know that his clock would run out faster than the normal? "(In: Busch 2002, 48)
  • Claus Helmut Drese : “The special thing about his theatrical genius was that he knew how to combine image, scene and music in his work. He mastered music theater as a total work of art like few before him. His style was derived from the search for the identity of a historical subject; he did not make use of today's usual updating, refraction or relocation of the plot to other times. The art of quotation, variation, mannerist exaggeration or simplification is not historicism as it has been accused of, but its autonomous path from tradition to the present ... Personally, I am very grateful and also a little proud of it, over twenty years to have shared his path for a long time. "(in: Claus Helmut Drese, ... by intent and by chance ... 1999, 469f.)
  • Yvonne Kenny : “I keep and cherish these memories of one of the greatest opera directors I have ever worked with. He was unique because his concepts were so artistically comprehensive. He designed equipment and directed with equal brilliance. The eyes experienced a festival of beauty, there were dramatic developments and a compelling power of characterization. Jean-Pierre asked me to go deeper, to find out the truth of a figure without inhibitions and tricks and to express the extremes of human emotions completely openly and honestly. He gave us food for the soul in abundance. "(In: Busch 2002, 49)
  • Anja Silja : “Working with Ponnelle was very different from what I was used to with Wieland Wagner and in whose productions I had sung almost exclusively for many years. Ponnelle's style was much more realistic, more culinary, something was always happening on stage. It wasn't my style, it still isn't. But his incredible energy and great ability made these productions unforgettable and inspiring for me too. He invented solutions that were extraordinary because of their visual beauty, but also because of their often surprising simplicity and effect. "(In: Busch 2002, 62)
  • “ I also saw Bayreuth's Tristan 1986 with Caterina Ligendza and Peter Hofmann , but didn't find anything negative in the performance. It was [...] a personal highlight in life. An unforgettable dream. The silver tree in the second act and the highly romantic staging by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle were exemplary. Every single singer was engaged and part of the masterpiece. ”Wagner Forum, February 27, 2001
  • Hanspeter Krellmann, chief dramaturge of the Bavarian State Opera, sums up after 20 years:
    “It was an impressive era,” he looks back, “I count Jean-Pierre Ponnelle as director, the Ring by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and the great risk, all operas , among its highlights by Wagner and Richard Strauss. ”Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 16, 2002

swell

  1. ↑ Ponnelle family
  2. ↑ Manuel Brug: "No more curiosity, nowhere" , Die Welt , March 1, 2002
  3. ^ Table of contents of The opera theater of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
  4. ^ Wagner Forum ( Memento from August 1, 2003 in the Internet Archive ), February 27, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Ponnelle, Jean-Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French director, set and costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1988
Place of death Munich