High-and-mighty Mortier

Gérard Mortier gave an interview to Le Monde a couple of days ago, the occasion for him to speak about his 5 years as director of the Opéra de Paris, his futures plans, and his predictions for the years to come.

As usual, he whined about how misunderstood he is, said the Paris Opera doesn't have the audience it deserves (under-educated and over-criticizing), that he has done an extraordinary job in Paris in just 5 years.

For the future, he predicts Stéphane Lissner will become the director of the Opéra de Paris in 2013, and that he'll have a hard time educating the Spanish audience in Madrid (as he'll be the Teatro Real director from 2010) and that he will probably have some fights as well there (" Le handicap en Espagne est l'éducation musicale, ce qui fait que les orchestres espagnols sont pleins de musiciens étrangers. Je ne changerai pas mes convictions, même si je dois me colleter avec le public espagnol.").

One thing for sure: he will remain an arrogant ass til the day he dies.