A voice can leave the stage without leaving opera. Renée Auphan’s career offers an unusual illustration: trained as a singer in Monaco, she went on to lead several major French-speaking opera houses, from Lausanne to Geneva and then Marseille. Her career also sheds light on a role too often reduced to managing a theatre.
From the stage to opera management
Born in Marseille in 1941, Renée Auphan studied singing at the Conservatoire de Monte-Carlo and won first prize for singing, in the soprano category, at Monaco’s Académie Rainier III. She began her career at the Opéra de Marseille, then joined the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. There, she successively worked as an assistant stage director, stage manager and artistic administrator.
These roles brought her closer to several professions involved in a production: the performers’ work, stage preparation and artistic coordination. Her move from the stage to management was therefore not simply a career change. It extended the experience she had gained through her day-to-day involvement in putting on a performance.
A health problem took her away from the stage in the early 1980s. In 1983, she was appointed head of the Lausanne Festival; the following year, she took over as director of the Opéra de Lausanne. She remained there until 1995. The organisation gradually developed into a fully fledged opera house, now known as the Opéra de Lausanne.
Leading means balancing competing voices
Management is not just about choosing works. Singers, conductors, directors and production teams must be brought together around a project that works both artistically and materially. In an interview with «Le Temps», Auphan describes this responsibility as very practical work involving choices, discussion and coordination.
The recruitment of singers illustrates its limitations. An audition gives you an idea, but does not fully convey what an artist can do on stage. Auphan explains that she would sometimes go and see a singer perform when an audition had not been enough to convince her. The judgement then goes beyond the voice heard in an audition room: stage presence and suitability for a role must also be considered.
This attention to detail extends to the choice of conductors. In opera, their ability is not measured solely by their musical direction in the broad sense: they must also know how to work with singers and put them at ease. Auphan also emphasises directing actors, another essential aspect of staging. A production thus brings together musical and theatrical decisions that can pull in different directions.
A season is planned several years in advance
Programming an opera commits a company for the long term. Artists are approached well before performances, so a season must be prepared several years in advance. In her interview with «Le Temps», Auphan refers to lead times of three to four years during her time as head of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. This advance planning means artistic choices depend on factors that cannot all be controlled at the time the programme is drawn up.
A season cannot be made up solely according to the management’s tastes. The repertoire must take account of the audience, the choir, the budget and the artists available. Auphan describes a balance between a few works chosen out of personal desire and the other titles needed to create a coherent whole. This helps explain why a programme is neither a simple personal shortlist nor a mechanical response to the audience’s presumed expectations.
Financial constraints add a particular difficulty: in her interview, Auphan says that the City of Geneva’s subsidy can change from one year to the next, while seasons are prepared several years in advance.
Lausanne, Geneva, Marseille: three stages in her career as a director
After Lausanne, Renée Auphan took over as head of the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 1995, remaining there until 2001. She then directed the Opéra de Marseille from 2002 to 2008, returning to the institution where her career had begun. Alongside her management roles, she also worked as a stage director.
These stages show the breadth of responsibility involved in running an opera house, but they do not mean that every institution is managed in the same way. The size of the auditorium, available resources, teams and repertoire all affect the choices that can be made. In the interview published by «Le Temps», Auphan discusses, in particular, the difference between the experience of a smaller theatre and that of a major Geneva stage. The emotion she seeks in opera therefore depends not only on the work: it is also shaped by the relationship between the performance and the venue hosting it.
Her career is also a reminder that artistic management is a practice of balance. A vision must be defended without losing sight of the artists, resources and practical realities of a production. For a singer who became an administrator and then a director, understanding opera means engaging with its interwoven professions: the voice, the stage and the organisation that makes them possible.
References
The Opéra de Lausanne, one of the institutions led by Renée Auphan.
