Second Storming of the Bastille

By Otto Friedrich

For Israeli conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim, 46, Paris has truly been the city of light. During his 14-year tenure leading the Orchestre de Paris, he built a major international reputation and branched out to top assignments in the opera world. A year and a half ago, he won the powerful job of artistic director at the still uncompleted Opera de la Bastille. In September the grateful government awarded him the Legion of Honor. But now Barenboim's luck has turned. While President Francois Mitterrand kept silent, he was summarily fired -- and just as summarily vowed to sue. He denounced the "lies, half- truths, bad faith and especially the incompetence of those in charge."

With that, the Bastille exploded into the biggest uproar since a mob stormed the fortress prison to begin the French Revolution of 1789. Some of the brightest stars in the world of music noisily opened fire in support of Barenboim. Jessye Norman, the stately Georgia-born soprano, said she would "reconsider" whether to sing in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the Revolution. Patrice Chereau, who was to stage a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni on opening night a year from now, said he considered his contract "annulled by this event." Conductor-composer Pierre Boulez resigned as vice president of the organization in charge of Parisian opera. Zubin Mehta of the New York Philharmonic said, "I will not go there under these circumstances." Herbert von Karajan, the grand old czar of the conducting world, declared that his plans for the Bastille were "null and void." Also lining up behind Barenboim: Sir Georg Solti of the Chicago Symphony and Carlo Maria Giulini, formerly of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The target of all this firepower was Pierre Berge, 58, the autocratic president of the $400 million-a-year Yves Saint Laurent fashion empire and the designer's companion of 30 years. Some said Berge's chief qualification to be head of the governing Association of Theaters of the Paris Opera was that he had contributed handsomely to Mitterrand's re-election campaign last year.

The split puts in conflict two radically different concepts of opera. Barenboim's plan was to concentrate on top talent, starting with himself in charge of everything at an annual salary of $1.1 million; he expected to devote extra time to rehearsals and limit performances to about 160 a year. "He doesn't want a few special roses in a garden of weeds," as Mehta puts it. Berge, who took over the opera association last August, not only requested that Barenboim take a pay cut and give up substantial executive authority but also demanded that the $430 million Bastille opera house start paying its way with an assembly line of up to 250 performances a season. Barenboim agreed to take a substantial pay cut, but the arguments over artistic control remained insoluble. "I am not willing to accept the chief executive of a couture house telling me who is best to sing a particular role," Barenboim told a press conference.

Berge retorted that he never asked any such thing, only a veto power over Barenboim's decisions. "I have absolutely no interest in artistic control of the new opera," he told TIME. Nonetheless, he argues that Barenboim's choice of classic works is "elitist." Says he: "The program established by Barenboim . . . satisfies neither President Mitterrand nor me." But he puts considerable blame for the furor on the maestro's exalted pay: "I offered Barenboim a salary of 4 million francs (($667,000)), but he would not accept anything less than 5 million (($833,000))."

Berge also complained that Barenboim would be spending only a minimal four months a year at the Bastille. The conductor claimed he would spend at least seven months there and wondered aloud how much time Berge was planning to take off from Saint Laurent to work on opera. "When he refused to accept my conditions," Berge declared, "we broke off negotiations. I cannot let the money of the state be spent in so extravagant a fashion." And he did not like Barenboim's slurs, either. "I am not the head of any old couture house," he said. "I built a fashion empire out of nothing."

There is actually some difference of opinion about whether Paris really needs an expensive new opera house. The grand old Palais Garnier, with all its gilt mirrors and chandeliers and its resident phantom, has delighted audiences for more than a century. But cultural-monument building is a beloved Parisian occupation, and after the success of President Georges Pompidou's imposing modern-art center, Mitterrand naturally began in 1981 to think about a new opera house. Being a Socialist, he talked glowingly of popular, modern opera, and the edifice was assigned to the gritty Bastille area.

In contrast to the gaudy old Garnier, the 2,700-seat Bastille opera is designed to be austerely functional -- a bleak concrete, stainless-steel and glass oval, with gray-black granite floors and walls and five revolving stages for fast changes of scene. "The whole idea of this opera house is that it is very sober," according to architect Carlos Ott, 42. "You don't have decoration inside the hall. The decor is on the stage."

With six months to go before the curtain rises on Bastille Day, Berge is blithely ignoring all the threats of boycott as he considers how to replace the gifted and popular Barenboim. "I'm sure I will find people of excellent quality," he says. Others are less sure of that.

With reporting by Alexandra Tuttle/Paris