Daniel Oren's Gestural Body as Conductor at Opéra-Bastille

Fabrice Hadjadj profiles Israeli conductor Daniel Oren, who directs two operas at the Opéra-Bastille in Paris from February to April 2011: "Francesca da Rimini" by Zandonai and "Luisa Miller" by Verdi. Oren, winner of the 1975 Karajan Competition at age 20, became music director of the Rome Opera at 22 and has since conducted at the Metropolitan Opera and Berlin Philharmonic. The article focuses on Oren's expressive, involuntary body movements, captured by filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Warluzel in over 200 hours of rehearsal footage. Warluzel, a teacher at the École supérieure d'art de Toulon, created video installations with Oren for Rossini's "Barbier," Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette," and Puccini's "Tosca." An excerpt, "Cassette 9," was shown in March 2010 at Le Moulin art space in La Valette-du-Var. Hadjadj contrasts Oren's spontaneous, non-posed gestures with those of dancers or other conductors, arguing his body is "embraced" by music rather than controlling it. The text references philosopher Bernard Sève's book "L'Altération musicale" (2002) on the unsettling physicality of performers. Oren's conducting is described as a primal, ecstatic dance that reveals music's embodied source, breaking the illusion of disembodied sound. The article was published in artpress in January 2011.