Opéra Royal - FABRICE LUCHINI READS VICTOR HUGO

Cultural

I gave my first public reading of texts and poems by Victor Hugo in June 2021, in the gardens of Chateaubriand's house.

Contrary to André Gide's statement, despite him being a keen analyst, ‘Who is the greatest French poet? Victor Hugo, alas,’ for me there are moments of brilliance in Victor Hugo's writings that go beyond his talent as a craftsman, and moments of joy in his writing that emerge from his prolific creativity.

Alongside the show about La Fontaine and lockdown that I have been performing since 2022, I wanted to return to this more austere exercise, in order to offer the audience a pure reading of texts, notably the sublime Booz endormi, which Marcel Proust described as the most beautiful of the 19th century, poems on the death of his daughter, and comments by writers such as Charles Baudelaire and Charles Péguy on Victor Hugo. The reading begins at the time of his exile in Jersey and Guernsey, and evokes in particular the death of his daughter Léopoldine.

I dedicate this reading to the director Sophie Fillières, who passed away in the summer of 2023, with whom I had the immense pleasure of preparing a film about Victor Hugo.

Fabrice Luchini.
Costumes made by the Théâtre de Liège workshops.