The institution has announced that the dance director ceased her duties that she has held since 2016 and will leave on July 31 to devote herself to her family.
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The announcement fell like a bomb. Aurélie Dupont, Director of Dance of the Paris National Opera since 2016, resigned. She will leave her duties on July 31, at the end of the season.
At 49, after forty years spent in the institution – she joined the Opera dance school in 1983 – she chooses to open a new chapter. In the press release sent by the Paris Opera, she already talks about her projects: a book, a documentary film and a musical. She would also like to restore room for her family life and two children. His decision was accepted by Alexander Neef, Managing Director, who salutes “his commitment, his sensitivity and his determination which were essential to the influence of the Ballet company …”. Aurélie Dupont indicates that she “leaves this magnificent institution today with the feeling of accomplished duty”. She continues: “My greatest pride was to hatch talents, dancers and choreographers …”
In six years, Aurélie Dupont has done a huge job. Its solid, efficient and attractive programming was not only a public and economic success -the 2021-2022 season reaches a filling rate of 98 % -, but it highlighted artists still little known such as Alexander Ekman, Crystal Pite and Sharon Eyal… Seven stars were named in the company whose passion, combined with a sharp technical level, is unstoppable in classic productions as recently Bayadère and in more contemporary programs such as that signed by the Swedish Mats EK. At the same time, the captures of shows, whose health crisis has amplified the phenomenon, were deployed in different contexts for an ever wider audience.
replacement at the raised foot
The circumstances were not very simple. In 2016, a year after her farewell to the scene in the Ballet Manon, filmed by the filmmaker Cédric Klapisch of which she is near, Aurélie Dupont took up the challenge proposed by Stéphane Lissner, then managing director, to replace, almost at the raised foot, Benjamin Millepied resigning from his position as Director of Dance. On February 6, during an extraordinary press conference, to the greatest surprise of the 200 journalists present at the Palais Garnier, in Paris, she landed between Millepied and Lissner. In the middle of a cataclysm, she seized the bar of the company of 154 dancers and endorses the boss costume. Two years later, she faces a storm: the disclosure of a confidential report on the management of the troop aims directly and underlines a “disastrous” atmosphere. Finally, in 2020, the pandemic forced the company to develop unexpected resources. Director Dupont sets up visio courses for dancers and representations are exceptionally visible on Facebook.
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