He never ran out of ideas – on the death of theatre maker Pierre Audi

"I have a lot more experience today than I did 30 years ago when I started in Amsterdam, but I'm also learning new things here, and that's wonderful!" Pierre Audi said this in an interview at the beginning of his directorship at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, which he opened in 2019 with Romeo Castellucci's brilliant production of Mozart's "Requiem." With this enigmatic and fascinating evening, he ushered in a paradigm shift at France's most important classical music festival, which had previously been considered musically high-quality but not exactly groundbreaking in terms of direction. Since then, Aix has developed into the most interesting and ambitious festival among the major music festivals.

Audi has also planned this year's edition, which begins in early July, with great promise, despite a tight budget. The renowned theater director was far from past his prime, but with his palpable desire for ever-new artistic adventures and inspiration, he had reached the peak of his potential: as a well-connected key figure in the international music and theater world and as a trendsetter who was not afraid of taking risks and constantly opening up new spheres of influence for art. Audi's career was as wondrous and stellar as he was simultaneously steadfast in his fundamental convictions.

Pierre Audi was born in Beirut in 1957, the son of a banker. The family later moved to Paris. He studied history at Oxford and dabbled in his first productions. In 1979, he founded the Almeida Theatre in London, an experimental theater for premieres and first performances, which immediately caused a sensation. In 1988, his boldest career leap followed: at just 30 years old, Audi was appointed artistic director of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, which he would lead for an incredible three decades.

He succeeded in catapulting the house on the Amstel into the forefront of the world's leading opera houses. He personally staged a Monteverdi, a Mozart, and a "Ring" cycle there. He also shaped the house's profile with guest engagements from important directors and conductors. Audi also worked as a director at major houses such as the New York Metropolitan Opera, La Scala in Milan, and the Vienna and Bavarian State Operas. From 2005 to 2016, he was also artistic director of the Holland Festival. In 2016, he founded the Opera Forward Festival as a laboratory for the advancement of the genre and was artistic director of the Park Avenue Armory in New York.

His repertoire as a director reflected the director's broad interests, ranging from the early Baroque to the present day. His broad artistic and intellectual interests were also reflected in ongoing partnerships with visual artists such as Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Jonathan Meese, and the architectural duo Herzog & De Meuron.

He commissioned numerous compositions, including from Tan Dun, Pascal Dusapin, Kaija Saariaho, Louis Andriessen, Alfred Schnittke, Manfred Trojahn, John Adams, and György Kurtág. He also staged a 15-hour selection from Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Light" cycle at the Gashouder in Amsterdam, paving the way for a still-pending complete performance of the gigantic seven-part work.

He was also responsible for directing the Milan premiere of György Kurtág's Beckett opera "Fin de Partie" and recently helped his fellow artistic director Peter de Caluwe out of a difficult situation in Brussels when he took over the last two parts of the "Ring" cycle from Romeo Castellucci, whose performances had proven to be beyond the scope of his ideas.

He was most recently in Beijing, preparing to take over one of his productions, when he died suddenly on Saturday night. Pierre Audi was a friendly man who, even during the frenzied premiere week in Aix, freely gave interviews. He spoke assertively but not loudly, his facial expressions remained inscrutable, but he remembered faces and conversations even years later. He will be missed by European musical theater.