Jean-Louis Martinoty

After replacing Ponnelle for a rehearsal he became his assistant and the writer of the scripts for most of his opera films (including La clemenza di Tito, Madama Butterfly and Carmina Burana).

Among his more famous efforts are Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea (1982) with Jean-Claude Malgoire and Jean-Philippe Rameau's, Les Boreades at the Musical Festival of Aix-en-Provence with John Eliot Gardiner.

[4] Some years later, Martinoty revived Lully's Alceste in a memorable production at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, next to Salieri'sTarare, Cesti's L'Argia and Gassmann's L'Opera Seria at the Schwetzingen Festival.

His roughly one hundred stagings between 1975 and 2015 feature the whole opera repertory and were presented on both French and international stages : Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at Covent Garden, Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in Karlsruhe Festival (for which he designed the sets), Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld in the Paris Opera, Bizet's Carmen in Tokyo, Mozart's Don Giovanni in the Wiener Staatsoper,[5] etc.

In contrast, Gounod's Faust at the Bastille Opera in 2011 with Roberto Alagna in the title role was the object of a salvo of negative criticisms, in particular because of the loaded decoration and of his direction considered too "kitsch".

Fleur Pellerin, Minister of Culture and Communication, honored him in a press release : "...The Opera world is mourning the death of one who was revealed very early as one of the best directors of his generation ...