Lubek & Roussat: biography
Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek met in 2000, while studying the art of mime with world-renowned master Marcel
Marceau. After graduating from his international mime school in Paris, they trained for several years in drama,
acrobatics, puppet theater, dance and illusion, in various institutions, including the Centre National des Arts du
Cirque.
Early on, famous stage directors have asked them to design visual sequences in their shows: Jérôme Deschamps &
Macha Makeieff, Michel Fau, Benjamin Lazar.
Since 2004, they have been developing a unique theatrical identity, through visual, poetical, and multidisciplinary
shows.
In 2008, they founded Le Shlemil Theatre, whose unclassifiable original productions have been widely acclaimed by
audiences and critics world-wide. Among others, their magical and burlesque duet, Les Âmes Nocturnes, was
performed over 150 times in Europe and Asia, and awarded the Arte/Sacd prize in the Avignon Festival in 2012.
Their fantastical adaptation of the Beauty & the Beast, in which Mozart and Haydn instrumental pieces meet an
otherwordly visual atmosphere, also traveled across the world, including prestigious festivals (Utrecht Oude Muziek,
Santiago Via Stellae…)
Today, they keep on creating and touring new shows with their company, which is a unique way to keep close
contact with stages and audiences, and also allows them to test and experiment their ideas.
Passing on their knowledge and experience is yet another way of keeping their work alive and thriving: Julien Lubek
has taught the art of mime in the National Dramatic Art Conservatory in Paris for 4 years.
Meanwhile, for the past 10 years, a growing number of renowned conductors have seeked their collaboration as
directors for staged musical productions: Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Vincent Dumestre, Ophélie
Gaillard… Among others, they wrote and staged the following pieces: Carnaval Baroque (co-produced by Le Poeme
Harmonique), Musenna – Les miroirs du Levant (official French-Turkish season national closing show), Le Ballet des
Fées (co-produced by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and Cité de la Musique de Paris), Pierrot fâché
avec la Lune. These productions, in which live music combines with circus arts and visual theater, have travelled over
the world in the most prestigious theater halls: Opéra Comique, Bouffes du Nord and Cité de la musique à Paris,
Opéra Royal de Versailles, Royal Albert Hall in London, Teatro di San Carlo in Napoli, Festival Cervantino in
Mexico, operas and national theaters in Budapest, Madrid, Belgrade, Hongkong….
In 2010, The Opéra Royal de Wallonie (Belgium) hosted their first lyrical production : Die Zauberflöte, conducted
by Patrick Davin. The production met with great critical and public success, and is scheduled again in Liège in
Decembre 2015.
In 2014, they directed, and also designed the sets and costumes of two new opera productions : Dido and Aeneas,
conducted by Vincent Dumestre, which premiered in the Opera de Rouen and was also performed in Opera de
Versailles. This highly acclaimed production’s DVD is coming out in february 2015. This production will travel to
the Teatro Regio in Turin in November 2016.
Still in 2014, they also directed and designed the set, costumes and lighting of La Cenerentola in Opéra Royal de
Wallonie. This production will travel to the New Israel Opera in Tel Aviv in 2016.
Last edited October 2015
ALLEGORICA Opera Management
20 Passage de la Bonne Graine, 75011 PARIS
info@allegorica.it
Lubek & Roussat: style and way of working
Lubek & Roussat met Opera naturally, guided by their search for a global, complete stage experience, in which all art
forms meet and join forces to create a universal emotion.
Their own practice of many artistic disciplines (music, circus arts, choreography, magic, plastic arts…) and their
close connection with a variety of artistic fields endows them with a special status in the lyrical world.
Indeed, they keep developing their special own way of dealing with Opera pieces, somewhere in-between pure
historically informed performances and systematical contemporary transposition as in Regie Theater.
They do have great respect for the plays and their historical context. Having worked with baroque music a lot is a
good school to learn to decipher and understand how much a work of art owes to its period. On the other hand, they
also carry around powerful, identifiable personal esthetics, full of poetry, enchantment and seeming ingenuity.
However, building on these basis, they re-invent, in their own personal way, a craftsman’s vision of theater work, in
which the dramatic dimension aims at bringing out emotion.
Their approach strikes by how much life and movement animate the stage. In their view, visual energy must live up
to the vocal and instrumental power of each play. This is why not only the characters, but also the sets, costumes and
lighting are moving, changing… alive.
There is a double goal to this approach: the first one is being as close as possible to the original piece’s spirit and
rhythm. The second, is to guide the spectator’s eye, by surprising it – without ever shocking it- by keeping it spry,
and thus to allow the widest possible audience to reach demanding pieces and take pleasure in (re)discovering them.
Roussat & Lubek, therefore, prepare their shows as one would prepare a celebration, an extraordinary moment to
share with numerous guests. This is why they voluntarily leave aside all signs of “realism”. Everything has to be uncommon, stylized, magnified; but always full humanity and intimacy, without ever lapsing into grandiose or pompous
effects, which often exclude the viewers just as much as they impress them.
On contrary, as in a successful celebration, they rely on images shared by all guests. What one could call “cliché”, but
they rather think of it as powerful idealized images taken from an old book in the attic, that you can’t help but look at
with nostalgia and wonder. This is a way to connect the spectators together and to relate to the authors and
composers of these remote works, however still so living to our ears and eyes.
The atmosphere is colored by a seeming naivety. Indeed, the scenes may look somewhat childish, but only to those
who have enough distance to experience the taste of it.
The audience basically leafs through an old-style pop-up book, mesmerized by its simple craft, charmed by its playful
obviousness, but also questioned by the many details and, above all, historical and contextual references sprinkled all
over, that give the whole its meaning.
Simplicity goes hand in hand with humility and humanity. This is why, while creating mystery, fantasizing, and
dramatic images, the two artists rely on time-honored techniques rather than new technologies: set elements moved
by hand on stage, trapdoors, secret passages and sets that open, fly or revolve...
In the same way, the characters’ acting relies on a mime-inspired corporal technique, through which the
psychological analysis is magnified and brought to life. Indeed, one can’t perform in a 1500 seat venues as he would in
front of a movie camera; face expressions are just not enough to pass the emotion on to the audience.
Roussat & Lubek avoid both inert psychological acting, as well as disembodied and affected old-times attitudes. To
this end, they bring the singers into theatrical games, and soon each one’s body and personality become the subject of
the improvisation: their assets as well as their weaknesses, both being sources of real emotion serving the character’s
soul.
ALLEGORICA Opera Management
20 Passage de la Bonne Graine, 75011 PARIS
info@allegorica.it
One last thing: in this idea of a global show, in which everything is possible – as long as it stands by the composer’s
and the librettist’s views – the stage directors always resort to a team of stage artists specialized in various disciplines,
who extend the soloists’ and choir’s visual vocabulary , and create a link between the sets, the audience, and the main
characters.
They come from the world of circus, dance and physical theater, and have all been trained by Roussat & Lubek in the
past, so as to master the latters’ specific vocabulary, based on mime techniques, but which above all stresses on the
understanding of the musical discourse, a delicate and frail presence on stage, and the use of dramatic moves as a way
to convey emotion.
They take in charge part of the soloists’ heavy responsibility – that of visually embodying deeply emotional situations
on stage. They carry life and emotion on stage, in relation with the libretto, far from the traditional corps de ballet
and its essentially esthetical function. What’s more, they know how to utterly vanish when the situation or the vocal
emotion requires so.
To conclude with, Cécile Roussat & Julien Lubek keep exploring the lyrical world, with humility and enthusiasm.
Their first three productions, three often staged “classics”, have struck the audience and the critics, and will all be
shown again in the coming seasons.
While both have been music-loving and have played music since their young age, they met the Opera through mime
and theater… And definitely wish to keep on living this double life: performing one night under a circus tent, and
directing renown soloists on an opera stage the next day. Thus, they keep enriching and enhancing their personal
world, and keep on inventing a lively and human way of designing opera productions for today’s widest audiences…
with love and deep respect for now vanished times…
ALLEGORICA Opera Management
20 Passage de la Bonne Graine, 75011 PARIS
info@allegorica.it