André Diot

André Diot (born 1935 ) is a French cinematographer and lighting designer. During his career, he designed the lighting for the 1976 Bayreuth Jahrhundertring, staged by Patrice Chéreau, the opening and closing ceremony of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, and in 2013 Così fan tutte at the Paris Opera.

Career

While a director of photography in television, Diot was introduced by Bernard Sobel to Patrice Chéreau, with whom he subsequently worked extensively. Their first joint creation was in 1967, for Les Soldats by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. Diot then introduced Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamp (HMI) theater projectors, usually reserved for the cinema or sports events. Until the mid-1980s, he used techniques such as black-and-white, backlighting and shadows to create an onstage environment of chiaroscuro, or of twilight, a poetic atmosphere that eventually became their joint trademark: Diot-Chéreau.

They worked together in Chéreau's first theatre, the Théâtre de Sartrouville, from 1966, in a team with together with stage designer Richard Peduzzi and costume designer Jacques Schmidt.

As part of this team, he designed the lighting for the Jahrhundertring (Centenary Ring), the production of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, at the Bayreuth Festival celebrating the centenary of the festival and the cycle. In 1992, he designed the lighting for at the opening and closing ceremony of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.

He has collaborated with other directors, including , , Roger Planchon, Jean-Pierre Vincent and Jacques Weber. He designed the lighting for Peter Zadek's 1988 staging of Shakespeare's Der Kaufmann von Venedig at the Burgtheater, which took the action to a Wall Street background. The artist's conversations with Zadek are part of a 2012 book Peter Zadek und seine Bühnenbildner (Peter Zadek and his stage directors), edited by . In 2011, he designed the lighting for Janáček's Katya Kabanova at the Vienna State Opera, staged by . In 2013, he designed the lighting for Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Paris Opera, staged by Ezio Toffolutti and conducted by Michael Schønwandt.

Awards

Diot received the Molière Award in the category Best Lighting Design, in 2001 for Brecht's Le Cercle de craie caucasien, in 2004 for , directed by Zabou Breitman at the Théâtre de l'Atelier, in 2005 for Ödön von Horváth's Le Jugement dernier, and in 2006 for Shakespeare's Le Roi Lear, directed by André Engel. He was nominated in 2007 for Blanc by Emmanuelle Marie, staged again by Breitman.

Filmography Selected theatre productions

1967: Les Soldats by Jakob Lenz, staged by Patrice Chéreau 1973: La Dispute by Marivaux, staged by Chéreau 1979: No Man's Land by Harold Pinter, staged by Roger Planchon at the Théâtre national populaire at Villeurbanne (French premiere) 1986: , written and staged by 1998: de Sacha Guitry, staged by at the Théâtre des Variétés. , staged by Benno Besson 2001: Le cercle de craie caucasien by Bertolt Brecht, staged by Besson 2002: Jeux de scène by Victor Haïm, staged by Marcel Bluwal at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre (Premiere) 2004: by Roland Topor, staged by Zabou Breitman at the Théâtre de l'Atelier 2005: Célébration by Pinter, staged by Planchon at the Théâtre du Rond-Point 2006: Le Roi Lear by Shakespeare, staged by Engel 2009: Minetti (de) de Thomas Bernhard, staged by Engel at the 2010: La Tragédie du roi Richard II by Shakespeare, staged by at the Festival d'Avignon

Selected film productions

1973: L'École des femmes, telefilm by Raymond Rouleau 1975: Lily aime-moi by Maurice Dugowson 1976: F... comme Fairbanks by Dugowson by Jean-François Adam 1985: by 1986: by Michel Deville Le Passage (fr) by 1987: by Vergez 1989: La Folle Journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro de Roger Coggio 1997: by Deville 1999: La Maladie de Sachs (fr) by Deville