Passion for theater: Lilo Baur’s international career
Published: Thursday, Oct 24th 2024, 09:40
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Lilo Baur has had many careers: as an actress in theater and film and as a director for drama and opera. The Swiss Federal Office of Culture has now honored the internationally acclaimed work of the Aargau native with the Swiss Grand Prix of the Performing Arts / Hans Reinhart Ring.
"Being able to make a living from your passion is a luxury, it's incredible that it's possible," says Lilo Baur. Her facial expressions and gestures alone reveal this passion in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency.
Whether as an actress or director, the native of Aargau works improvisationally and focuses on the body. This approach is already part of her training. She attended the Jacques Lecoq International Acting School in Paris. The institution is based on physical theater and improvisation plays a central role.
Observation is essential to Lecoq's way of working, says Baur. "It's an awakening of the senses, you have to observe and, above all, analyze the body." When she stages a play, she involves the actors. "I give the actors keys for access and work out the characters and individual movements with them," she explains her approach.
"The Miser" at the Geneva banking center
One example of this is her production of Molière's "L'Avare" ("The Miser") at the Comédie-Française in Paris. Baur has been working there regularly since 2010. "L'Avare" from 1668 was revived there in 2022 to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of the influential French playwright and actor and is on the program for the 2024/25 season.
"When I read the play again, I said to myself: this is so topical," says Baur. In her interpretation, the main character Harpagon is "a Swiss banker after the Second World War who is obsessed with his casket hidden in the garden", the theater writes on its website. "I immediately thought of Geneva, because that's where money from all over the world is kept," says Baur.
She was born in Muri in Aargau in 1958. She made her career mainly abroad, first as an actress and since the turn of the millennium mainly as a director. However, she also continues to stage plays in Switzerland.
From 1998 to 2000, she was a member of the ensemble of the renowned London theater group Théâtre de Complicité, with which she received several international awards, including for her leading role in "The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol" (1994). The play also made a guest appearance in Zurich at the Theaterhaus Gessnerallee.
Immediate theater at the Globe
In London, she also left her mark at the Globe Theatre, with roles in "The Honest Whore" and "The Merchant of Venice" (both 1998), or with Peter Brook as Gertrude in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (2002/03). The Globe is a theater building from Shakespeare's time with an open-air stage and, as was customary at the time, close proximity to the audience. "There was always interaction with the audience," enthuses Lilo Baur. "It's a very immediate and direct theater, a bit like commedia dell'arte."
However, Baur has not only taken on roles for the theater stage, but also in films, for example in "Vollmond" (1998) by Fredi Murer. In 2004, she made a cameo appearance in "Bridget Jones". She also appeared in the BBC's Charles Dickens adaptation "Bleak House" (2005).
The switch from acting to directing was a turning point in Baur's life. In 2003, she received a request from Greece. She was to work with the theater director Thomas Moschopoulos. She accepted the offer.
Since then, she has worked primarily as a director and has staged countless plays, such as "Grimm's Fairy Tales" (2009) in Athens, "33 svenimenti" (2008) by Chekhov in Rome and "Fish Love" (2008) based on Chekhov, which was co-produced by the Théâtre de Vidy in Lausanne.
Opera leaves less freedom
In addition to acting, she also stages operas such as "Dido and Aeneas" (2011) by the English baroque composer Henri Purcell and the modern work "Ariane et Barbe Bleu" (2012) by Paul Dukas, both in Dijon. She performed the late romantic "Lakmé" by Léo Delibes at the Opéra de Lausanne in 2013 and the opera "Le Pétit Prince" by Michaël Levinas from 1949 there in 2014.
On the difference between drama and opera, she says that opera leaves less freedom. The score dictates the rhythm. But one thing remains the same: "Whether it's theater or opera, I always start with improvisations with the actors". She also often involves dancers, who emphasize the physical and rhythmic dimension of the performance: "I have great respect for the music, I find it very important and think it drives the whole stage action."
The Federal Office of Culture is now honoring this diverse work with the Grand Prix of the Performing Arts / Hans Reinhart Ring. Baur is "a little surprised, I wasn't expecting it."
The award ceremony will take place on October 31 at the Theater Casino Zug. Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis will be in attendance. The prize is endowed with CHF 100,000 and is considered the most prestigious Swiss theater prize.
©Keystone/SDA
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