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Yes, Timothée, some arts have (too) little evolved.
Let’s be clear: his statement “no one cares about opera and ballet anymore” is factually absurd. In 2022, operas in France welcomed over 800,000 spectators, 39% more than in 2019; the Paris Opera had a 93% average occupancy rate in 2023. The ballet continues to grow with a global market increase of 5% per year. The facts are clear: these arts are not dying.
However, they are based on a grammar and a history that must be embraced. While cinema offers immediate access, opera and ballet require implicit learning. It’s not so much the complexity that excludes, but the absence of keys to enter. Moreover, a part of the classic repertoire is kept in formaldehyde. In Italy, for example, it’s a tradition to replay the same titles endlessly, with minimal changes to gestures, sets, or costumes. Operettas continue in front of an aging audience.
Faced with a work from the repertoire, two approaches are possible: protection or risk. The first treats the work as a heritage relic, akin to a Raphael or a Van Gogh. This is legitimate and necessary, but it puts the director in the role of an archivist and the programmer as a curator. The second consists of organizing a collision between the text and the era. When Romeo Castellucci brutalizes “Parsifal,” he’s not seeking consensus but a spark. He puts the work under tension. This tension disturbs, divides, but is vital. Because the mission of live performances is not to preserve but to impact, question, and challenge our world.
It’s in this spirit that in 2021, I agreed to stage “The Magic Flute” in streaming at the Vichy Opera, on the condition that this interpretation be a visceral response to “Why?”. This “Cyber-Magic Flute” brought Mozart into the world of video conferences and social networks to resonate with the isolation and fractures of our time.
This is what Timothée Chalamet clumsily points out: why produce, in 2026, a same “La Bohème” in costumes, a same “Swan Lake” in tutus, without questioning their relevance? Why these works, why now? And most importantly: why not create more new works that speak of our current tensions and humanity?
Timothée Chalamet is wrong about the numbers, but he hits the essential point: an art that stops questioning itself condemns itself to fossilization. A living art is not one to be preserved, but one to be questioned and put at risk.
This article is an opinion piece written by an external author to the newspaper, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team.
