Aleksi Barrière is a French-Finnish director, dramaturge, and writer. He works as a versatile creator of music/theatre and is the co-artistic director of the French performance collective La Chambre aux échos. His work is lauded for its sharp interdisciplinarity extended to intercultural collaboration, and the creative stances of his dramaturgies, in search of the new forms that are called by new narratives.
In addition to his work as a visiting director, Barrière has development with his collective, and in collaboration with conductor Clément Mao-Takacs, a broad range of performances where music and theatre meet in renewed ways, expanding on the available forms offered by theatre and opera. The collective’s work has included re-explorations of 20th-century classics (Hanns Eisler’s war cantatas in 2015, Berio’s and Cage’s vocal music in 2017) as well as collaborations with living composers.
As a librettist, Barrière has also collaborated closely with composers such as Kaija Saariaho (choral works 2005 – 2020, the opera Innocence in collaboration with writer Sofi Oksanen, 2021), Juha T. Koskinen (Ophelia/Tiefsee, 2017; Earthrise, 2024; *Waterfire, TBA), and Diana Syrse (Connected Identities, 2017; Circe, 2021). Upcoming projects with composers Outi Tarkiainen and Tomás Bordalejo will be premiered on opera stages in the upcoming seasons.
His recent work includes the music/theatre performance Between (text and staging, Finnish National Opera, 2022), The Fatzer Soldier’s Tale (text and staging, Musiikkitalo Helsinki, 2022), and a series of stagings for the Night and Aria Festival in Espoo (Curlew River, 2023; Handel’s Messiah and Peter Maxwelll Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, 2024). Eathrise, an intertwining of new and baroque music written and directed by Barrière, was premiered at the Finnish National Opera in the fall of 2024.
Selected productions w/o La Chambre aux échos
- Earthrise, libretto and staging of a new music theatre work by Juha T. Koskinen (Finnish National Opera, 2024)
- The King is Dead!, devised music theatre work combining Eight Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies and Quatuor pour la fin du temps by Olivier Messiaen (Urkuyö & Aaria Festival, 2024)
- Messiah, new staged production of the oratorio by G.F. Haendel (Urkuyö & Aaria Festival, 2024)
- Bogoluchie, oratorio by Djuro Zivkovic (musical direction Christian Karlsen, partial premiere in 2018 in Bergen, world premiere in 2024 at the Folkoperan in Stockholm)
- Curlew River, new production of the opera by Benjamin Britten and William Plomer (Urkuyö & Aaria Festival, 2023)
- Only the Sound Remains, new production of Kaija Saariaho’s opera (conducted by Clément Mao-Takacs, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, 2021)
- Metsän hiljaisuuteen, devised piece on Outi Tarkiainen’s cantata (Hiljaisuus Festival, Finland, 2018)
- Letter of Love (The Fundamentals of Judo), devised piece for four actors on texts by Fernando Arrabal and Yves Klein (Trap Door Theatre, 2018)
Selected libretti
- Projects in development with composers Juha T. Koskinen, Outi Tarkiainen and Tomás Bordalejo.
- Earthrise, music theatre by Juha T. Koskinen, Anni Elif Egecioglu, Marianna Henriksson (2024)
- Innocence, opera by Kaija Saariaho (2021), in collaboration with Sofi Oksanen (original script)
- Reconnaissance, science-fiction madrigal by Kaija Saariaho (2021)
- CIRCE (bird of prey), musical monodrama by Diana Syrse (2021)
- Connected Identities /The Invention of Sex, chamber opera in two parts by Diana Syrse (2021)
- Ophelia/Tiefsee, melologue by Juha T. Koskinen (2017)
Selected translations into French
- Voiliers fuyez à voiles légères + Les eaux mortes, final poetry collections by Eeva-Liisa Manner, éditions L’extrême contemporain, 2024
- Contre l’œuvre d’art totale : Écrits 1984 – 2024, collected writing by Heiner Goebbels (with Isabelle Kranabetter), éditions de la Philharmonie de Paris, 2024
- Monter un feu (To Build a Fire) by Jack London, L’extrême contemporain, 2022
- Mademoiselle Else (Fräulein Else) by Arthur Schnitzler, 2015
- Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner (with Laurent Prost), 2012
- Hugo Simbergin siivet by Ville Kurki, 2011
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, 2006
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