A Daring Opera Leader Leaves His Mark In Provence

Bernard Foccroulle is getting ready to go. What’s his legacy at the Aix-en-Provence Festival? “During the past 11 years he has made the Aix festival … feel more connected: to young artists, whom it has assiduously fostered; to new work, which it has commissioned in quantity and quality; to the operatic canon, which it has refreshed with provocative stagings and musical visions; to new audiences; and to its Mediterranean region, which it has celebrated with forays into North African and Middle Eastern styles without seeming patronizing.”