Alain Maratrat

Early life

Alain Maratrat was born in Paris into a family far from the world of art; his father was a train conductor and his mother had stopped working as a dressmaker to raise her children. He attended the Institute National des Arts du Spectacle in Brussels, Belgium from 1969-1973 and, thirty years later, joined 3 fellow students from the class of ‘73 to play their younger selves in Trente Ans a Peine, a play by Jean-Claude Carrière, which was based on their acting aspirations and experiences at INSAS.

Career

In 1974 Maratrat was invited to join Peter Brook’ s company, the International Centre for Theatre Research, and he remained an active member of the company for nearly 20 years, participating in most of the company's successful productions. He acted, experimented and traveled the world with Brook’s multi-cultural assembly of actors, dancers, musicians and other performers. They participated in theatrical encounters with audiences in native villages, asylums schools and a prison, as well as traditional theaters throughout the world. Working with Brook fed and developed Maratrat’s interest in creating theater that would touch and enliven ordinary people, regardless of their culture. Since leaving Brook’s company, Maratrat has managed active careers as an actor (film, theater and television), theater and opera director, and acting teacher.

He has performed in films by directors Claude Berri, Amos Gitai, Michel Deville and Alain Berberian and plays directed by Bruno Bayen, Philippe Mantha, Gabriel Garran, Peter Brook, Dominique Mühler, Bernard Sobel and Gaston Jung. Maratrat has directed theatrical productions of Ferenc Molnár’s Liliom (1991), Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (1993) and Gaston Salvatore’s Staline (1994). Braz’s Rencontres (1995) was staged after a year-long collective workshop. He directed Goldoni’s The Impresario from Smyrna and The Dance Lesson (1996). In 1998 he directed The Conference of Birds with the Teatro Kismet and a group of international actors in Bari, Italy, and in 1999 he traveled to South Africa to direct Romeo was a Shoeshiner with social centers in the townships of Pretoria. More recent productions include Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night ́s Dream (2003), Chekhov’s The Three Sisters (2004), Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (2004), Marivaux’s The Dispute (2005), Shakespeare’s The Twelfth Night (2006) and Schiller’s Marie Stuart (2011).

He began his career as an opera director in 1981 with The Love of Three Oranges by Prokofiev. Since then, he has directed productions including: L ́Étoile by Chabrier (1982), Les Voyages de Monsieur Broucek by Leoš Janáček, conducted by Gilbert Amy (1982), Offenbach’s Les Brigands, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner (1987), and Martinu’s Les Trois Souhaits, conducted by Kent Nagano (1990). He was both librettist and director of Passeport Musical Pour Paris with Mstislav Rostropovich (1991). In 1992 he created the original opera Zarzuela, Historia de un Patio, followed by Saleri’s Falstaff, conducted by Jean-Claude Malgoire (1996), and Kodály’s Harry Janos (1998), for which he also adapted the libretto.

In 2004, Maratrat was contacted by Jean-Pierre Brossmann, director of the Theatre du Chatelet, about directing Rosinni’s Il Viaggio a Reims. The Chatelet was co-producing the opera with maestro Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg. With Gergiev’s blessing, Maratrat immediately began In depth work with the Mariinsky’s Academy of Young Singers, who would be performing, and his creative team Pierre-Alain Bertola, (set design), Mireille Dessingy (costumes), and Pascal Mérat (lighting). The vibrant and innovative opera, which premiered at the Mariinsky in 2005, was awarded two Golden Masks (Russian theater’s highest award) for best opera and best director, and a Golden Sofit (best opera in St Petersburg). Maratrat's relationship with the Mariinsky Theater continued with a new version of The Love for Three Oranges in 2007 and a 360 degree staging of Mozart’ s Magic Flute (2008), which has been performed more than 150 times at the world-famous opera house.

Throughout his life, Maratrat has explored the relationship between the body and acting. By developing a body that is sensitive, and free, he believes an actor can best transmit the subtlest interior stirrings. From an early age, he practiced gymnastics, Judo and contemporary dance. In 1984 Brook sent him to India to study Kalarippayatt and Kathakali and to Taiwan and Hong Kong to learn Chinese martial arts and weaponry (trident, lances, swords, iron balls) in preparation for the company’s epic production of the Mahabharata. Maratrat played the role of Vyassa in the French production and coached the other actors in martial arts techniques. To further his understanding, he studied T'ai chi ch'uan (with both Lizelle Reymond and her teacher Di Tchao) and Kung-fu (with Dan Schwartz). He has Practiced Eutonie (with Gerda Alexander), Feldenkrais Method, and Alexander Technique. He has taken work workshops with the Peking Opera (acrobatics and fire juggling), as well as Sumatran dance, Balinese Mask, and Javanese puppet masters. And he has practiced singing with the Dagar BrothersDagar_Brothers (Calcutta), as well as musical interpretation with Celibidache and other notable musical conductors. Maratrat regularly shares the results his experience with acting students though master classes, workshops and acting classes, influencing a new generation of actors, singers and dancers around the world.

Honors and awards

Golden Mask

Golden Sofit

Productions

Actor (Theater)

Actor (Film/Television)

Director (Theater)

Director (Opera)

Director (Variety)

Teaching