Pierre Cardin had a classical music festival
mainThe excellent French site Forumopera.com infirm us that the fashion designer, who died yesterday, was a lover of the performing arts.
In a ruined castle once owned by the Marquis de Sade in Lacoste he created a music festival under the artistic direction of Ève Ruggieri.
Some of its recitalists were Sonya Yoncheva (2017), Jakub Józef Orliński (2018), Jonas Kaufmann (2016), Natalie Dessay (2014)…
Read more here.
🙂
Yes, and as early as 1995 (before a real festival was launched) the stone quarry underneath the castle saw the premiere of Marius Constant’s chamber opera “Teresa”, whose plot is about an extravagant meeting of Marquis de Sade with Saint Teresa of Ávila… I remember that the incredible humidity of the place put the piano in bad shape. Cardin (whose I remember once confusing Albinoni and Albeniz…) subsequently bought 40 houses (1/3 of the village), which resulted in a huge controversy:
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/mode/pierre-cardin/lacoste-le-village-quasi-desert-de-pierre-cardin_3593087.amp