Music in Times of COVID: In Conversation with William Christie and Claire Roserot de Melin
- Gabrielle Desalbres
- Jun 22, 2021
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 29
William Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He read History of Art at Harvard and then Music at Yale, where he specialised in the baroque repertoire. Opposed to the Vietnam war, he moved to France in 1970 and pioneered the renewal of French baroque music by creating his musical ensemble Les Arts Florissants in 1979. Since 1985, he has lived in his seventeenth-century manor in Thiré (Vendée) which hosts a yearly festival of baroque music, Les Jardins de William Christie. A gifted pedagogue, in 2002 he founded the Jardin des Voix, a biennially-run academy for young singers, and he regularly teaches at the Juilliard School and the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris.
Claire Roserot de Melin is General Manager of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse in France. She previously worked as an artistic coordination director, at the Opera of Rouen and for various companies and ensembles. She used to be an oboist.
CJLPA: What is the current situation for the music industry? What sorts of scheme exist to protect musicians in these troubled times?
Claire Roserot de Melin: There are two dimensions to the issue of musicians’ social protections in this crisis. Even though some gaps in social protection remain, musicians have been better protected in France than anywhere else. Firstly, the existing system of intermittents du spectacle has enabled artists to get social benefits as any other employees. Paid for by employers and workers’ contributions, it allows performing artists to claim benefits for the fallow periods between intermittent contracts, as long as they have worked for at least 507 hours in ten and a half months. The second aspect is the introduction of an année blanche which consists of the extension of the intermittents entitlement to social benefits in line with the 2019 fiscal year. This system is relatively effective but it nonetheless excludes intermittent new entrants and non-national artists. Trade unions and employers are asking for the prolongation of the année blanche after 31 August, when they are supposed to come to an end, and for more financial support for entities responsible for artists’ day-to-day lives, such as artists’ health support groups, which have been strongly impacted by the loss in revenue. But our main priority remains to reopen concert halls, and we have been in talks with the Ministry of Culture and the Prime Minister for months. Major public cultural institutions such as the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse have a leading role to play in protecting the artistic ecosystem. We have fulfilled every work contract regardless of nationality, and permanent artists have pursued rehearsals and recordings as usual. In contrast, privately funded institutions have been terribly hit, economically, by the closures of concert halls, and some might unfortunately never reopen.
William Christie: I do not think there are such things as schemes but, rather, less ambitious protocols focussing too much on sanitary issues and leaving musicians aside with no prospects. Concert halls, musical venues, and theatres have been closed since March 2020, with the exception of Spain and Monaco in Europe, and musicians have no other option than to play concerts without a public. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have had more than 100 concerts and six opera productions cancelled, and the future is still very unclear. France has nonetheless been good to us with the system of ‘chômage partiel’, but there is a difference between having a normal professional life and one with no prospects. France takes great pride in its culture, l’exception culturelle française, which is used as a political weapon, and its showcase abroad, yet its political significance has eroded domestically since the 2000s, and the time France had visionary culture ministries seems gone.
