Chanel Kicks Off Villa Noailles Centenary With Opera Preview
POWER COUPLE: To mark the centenary of the Villa Noailles, the modernist home built by art patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles in the southern French town of Hyères, Chanel hosted a musical performance on Thursday at the 7L library in Paris, in the space that used to be Karl Lagerfeld’s photo studio.
Shelves lined with a staggering 33,000 books provided the backdrop for a preview of “Ressusciter la Rose,” the opera based on an original idea by Jean-Pierre Blanc, director of the Villa Noailles and founder of the annual Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories.
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“The place where we are tonight is unique,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS. “It reflects its creator’s immense culture and insatiable curiosity for all the arts, including music, song, architecture, design and dance.”
Performers including French singer Camélia Jordana sang excerpts of the work, composed by Raphaël Lucas, dressed in white costumes created by artist Jacques Merle and embroidered by Montex, one of a stable of workshops owned by Chanel.
Members of the Wonsembe acrobatics troupe tumbled through the room as part of the spectacle, which will be performed in full on Sept. 16, 17 and 18 at the Villa Noailles.
It was part of a program of satellite events in Paris, Hyères and Marseille to mark the kick-off of the centenary celebrations, a multipronged affair that will also include a documentary film by Karim Zeriahen, and an exhibition dedicated to the wardrobe of Marie-Laure de Noailles.
“If people still talk about the Noailles today, it’s because they played a huge part in our country’s artistic activity in the early 20th century, and they had this extraordinary aura that few other art patrons enjoyed, at a time when the Culture Ministry did not exist,” Blanc told WWD.
“They supported these artists not just for one-off events, but almost their whole lives, by providing for them financially and nurturing their artistic endeavors, and that is really exceptional,” he added.
Among the artists the couple hosted at the Bauhaus-inspired villa, designed by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, were Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau.
Lagerfeld was among those fascinated with the place. In 1995 he published a book of photographs of the Villa Noailles, which had fallen into abandon before its 2003 renovation, and in 2015, he was the artistic director of the Hyères Festival. “Karl Lagerfeld changed the course of my life,” said Blanc.
Chanel is a major sponsor of the centenary, and 7L will publish new editions of the poems and novels of Marie-Laure de Noailles, who traveled in the same circles as founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and regularly wore the designer’s haute couture creations.
In Paris, several galleries and institutions launched teaser events on Thursday. The India Mahdavi gallery is hosting screenings of “Les Mystères du Château de Dé,” a 1929 film shot by Man Ray at the Villa Noailles, while the Galerie du Passage has photographs of Marie-Laure de Noailles by the likes of Willy Maywald and François-Marie Banier.
Purchased by the city of Hyères in 1973, the Villa Noailles is set to undergo another round of renovations starting next year.
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