Foto: Toni Härkönen
Aleksi Barrière
Librettist
Vita
Aleksi Barrière (b. 1989) is a French-Finnish director, dramaturge, and writer. He works as a versatile creator of music/theatre and is the 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 developed 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 (Berio, Cage, Feldman, Henze, Milhaud, Schönberg, Stravinsky…) as well as collaborations with living composers.
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), the premiere of Djuro Zizkovic’s Bogoluchie (staging, Folkoperan, 2024), 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). Earthrise, an intertwining of new and baroque music written and directed by Barrière, was premiered at the Finnish National Opera in the fall of 2024.
As a librettist, Barrière has 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; The Invention of Sex, 2020; Circe, 2021).
Outi Tarkiainen’s opera Day of Night, on a libretto by Barrière, will be premiered at Aalto-Theater Essen and Finnish National Opera in 2027. New stage works created together with composers Tomás Bordalejo, Sami Klemola, and Lauri Supponen, among others, are in the making.
In addition to his work as a visiting director, Barrière has developed 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 (Berio, Cage, Feldman, Henze, Milhaud, Schönberg, Stravinsky…) as well as collaborations with living composers.
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), the premiere of Djuro Zizkovic’s Bogoluchie (staging, Folkoperan, 2024), 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). Earthrise, an intertwining of new and baroque music written and directed by Barrière, was premiered at the Finnish National Opera in the fall of 2024.
As a librettist, Barrière has 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; The Invention of Sex, 2020; Circe, 2021).
Outi Tarkiainen’s opera Day of Night, on a libretto by Barrière, will be premiered at Aalto-Theater Essen and Finnish National Opera in 2027. New stage works created together with composers Tomás Bordalejo, Sami Klemola, and Lauri Supponen, among others, are in the making.