The XVII Encuentro de la Luz held last May 16 had the honor of having the presence of Jean Kalman, for almost 2 hours we attended the talk of one of the most important lighting designers.
In 2017 he welcomes him to Madrid’s Teatro Real with Britten’s “Billy Budd” directed by Keith Warner.
Jean Kalman’s 2017/2018 season begins in November with the creation at La Scala of Kurtag’s “End of Departure” directed by one of his travelling companions, Pierre Audi.
Kalman, a man who according to his own words is not used to talk about himself, showed us the most intimate side of his work with light.
Without going too much into the subject of technique (which most of us know and handle) he led the first few minutes of the talk into an almost mystical space, telling us about his father – a painter and sculptor – a man strongly influenced by the bible. From the great love he feels for his work thanks to the experience passed on by his father and from the first words of Genesis, which make him return again and again to the primordial sense of light and space/time:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And it was the afternoon and the one day tomorrow.”
Kalman, the great lighting designer, spoke to us about the need, the urgency of making a space/time – inseparably related – one’s own in order to intervene with the light that creates tension, emotion, energy.
Jean Kalman was born in Paris on 20 July 1945. After leaving university he worked as a philosophy professor, but after a few years he decided to give up teaching and dedicate himself to photography, an activity he did for a short time and then devoted himself to lighting.
His first experience in theatre was at Les Bouffes du Nord, the theatre that for 40 years has been run by Peter Brook, a space for research and creation located in the north of Paris in an area inhabited mostly by immigrants. It is here that for the first time he illuminated a show that captivated hundreds of spectators absolutely devoted to the emotion of the theater, impressed by the reaction of the public, that day he was certain that this was what he wanted to do in his life.
In his beginnings he was dedicated to the lighting of plays and musicals and in 1998 he made his first lighting design for the opera “La dame de pique” by Tchaikovsky. Since then, passionate about opera, he has been the creator of the lighting of great works such as: “Contes d’Hoffmann”, “Salomé”, “Don Giovanni”, “Didon et Enée”, “Cosi fan tutte“, “Wagner dream”, “La Damnation de Faust”, “The Damnation of Faust“. “… and has worked on the most important stages in the world: the Amsterdam Opera, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, the Grand Théâtre du Luxembourg, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Paris Opera, English National Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala in Milan, the Vienna Opera, the Bolshoi Theatre…
The Asociación de Autores de Iluminación wants to pay tribute and recognize his extensive professional career, so we have decided to name him Honorary Member.
Many thanks to Mr. Jean Kalman for the exceptional moment he shared with us.
Pilar Velasco (AAI)
WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL THE COLLABORATORS WHO MADE THIS MEETING POSSIBLE:
