President Hollande attended Patrice Chéreau’s funeral
main
The French political establishment paid tribute to a great director at the church of Saint-Sulpice. Details here.
Waltraud Meier sang Wagner’s Im Treibhaus and Träume (Rêves) in memory of one of the great Ring directors, followed by a reading of a Shakespeare sonnet.
Can you imagine Cameron attending the funeral of one of our great directors? No, didn’t think so…
Then again, would you WANT Cameron to be there??!!!
Not so much about wanting Cameron there as being symptomatic of lack of respect for arts in this country
Let’s not get carried away about Hollande. He is well known for not having much interest in the arts (can’t blame him, though; you can’t force someone to be interested in something they do not care for). So my guess is that he went to the funeral out of duty rather than real interest, let alone admiration, for Chereau’s work. After all, Chereau was the greatest French director alive (or so his advisors were telling him), so not going there would have been a really bad sign sent to the arts world.
If you don’t go to other people’s funerals, they won’t go to yours!
Hollande isn’t noted for his love of the arts. On the other hand, he badly needs a bit of popularity.
On the (other) other hand, I’m not sure that attending Chereau’s funeral will *really* boost his polls.
Just to tell.. apparently no one had been sent to Dutilleux’ funeral. Not rewarding enough diplomatically…