Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director Pierre Audi Has Passed Away

Pierre Audi, the visionary French-Lebanese theater and opera director, passed away on May 3, 2025, at the age of 67. Born in Beirut on November 9, 1957, Audi’s artistic journey spanned continents and genres, leaving an indelible mark on the global cultural landscape.

A critically acclaimed director and artistic director, Pierre Audi was appointed the Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director of Park Avenue Armory in 2015. He also served as General Director of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, a position he took over in September 2018 after a 30-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Dutch National Opera, and as Creative Partner for Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, a multiyear appointment that began in 2021.

“Pierre was a creative visionary, a titan who shaped the cultural world for so many of us. As the Artistic Director of the Armory, he raised the profile of the institution to a new level by bringing extraordinary and adventurous work from every discipline to our unconventional building,” said Adam R. Flatto Founding President and Executive Producer Rebecca Roberston. “On behalf of the Armory’s Board of Directors and staff, I share our condolences with his beautiful family, as well as to his wider artistic family that he so deftly built over the last 45 years. He was a generous, fascinating, and brilliant colleague and we will miss him very much.”

During his tenure at the Armory, Audi solidified the institution’s reputation for commissioning and presenting boundary-defying programming created by today’s most innovative artists, leaving an extraordinary legacy of productions, commissions, and partnerships that continue to touch lives and spark imagination.

Audi was dedicated to bringing to the stage spatial masterpieces such as Circle Map (2016), a dynamic program of work by Kaija Saariaho performed by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Esa Pekka-Salonen; an inventive staging of Pierre Boulez’s Répons (2017), performed twice in succession each evening by Ensemble intercontemporain and IRCAM and conducted by Matthias Pintscher, allowing audience members to switch seats to gain a new sonic and spatial perspective; and Inside Light (2024), electronic music from Kalheinz Stockhausen’s magnum opera cycle Licht with immersive lighting and video projections.

He introduced tremendous directors to New York audiences, such as Simon Stone (Yerma in 2018), Richard Jones (The Hairy Ape in 2017, Judgment Day in 2019), Robert Icke (An Enemy of the People in 2021, Hamlet and Oresteia in 2022, The Doctor in 2023), and Alexander Zeldin (LOVE in 2023); and commissioned the creation of bold new works from adventurous creative minds, including Anne Imhof with DOOM: House of Hope, Claus Guth and Jonas Kaufmann with Doppelganger, Kyle Abraham with Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful, Bill T. Jones with Deep Blue Sea, and Julian Rosefeldt with Euphoria.

He was known to give carte blanche to visionary artists he admired and respected to realize their grandest visions in the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall, engaging Sam Mendes, Ivo van Hove, Peter Sellars, Michel van der Aa, and others to create have productions that have left an indelible impact on the cultural community.

Audi’s career trajectory has been characterized by both reinventing the classics and supporting groundbreaking new work. He founded the Almeida Theatre which, under his direction, established an international reputation for producing provocative new plays and musical commissions, introducing a vast number of then-living composers to the U.K., from John Cage, to Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt, and mounting for the first time in the U.K. works by Robert Wilson, Deborah Warner, Simon McBurney, and Robert Lepage, among others.

Appointed as head of the Dutch National Opera in 1988, Audi was the youngest opera leader at the time and was the longest serving in the world. He helped transform the company into one of the most cutting-edge and successful in Europe, with a commitment to commissioning new work and building new audiences for the art form. Among the numerous critically acclaimed performances are his staging of Wagner’s Ring cycle, in which the theater was completely remade to set the orchestra in the middle of the stage, his now-classic cycle of three Monteverdi operas, Vespers, and madrigals, some of which were subsequently presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Sydney Festival, and the Los Angeles Opera. He has also established a large repertoire of contemporary musical theater works, including world premieres by Tan Dun, Kaija Saariaho, Wolfgang Rihm, Louis Andriessen, and Pascal Dusapin. His staging of Rossini’s final opera, Guillaume Tell, had its Metropolitan Opera debut in October 2016.

From 2004 to 2014, Audi served as Artistic Director of the Holland Festival, presenting works in music, dance, theater, and visual art by such artists as William Kentridge, John Baldessari, Tacita Dean, and Ryoji Ikeda; directors Peter Sellars, Sam Mendes, and Ivo van Hove; choreographers Mark Morris, William Forsythe, Lemi Ponifasio, Akram Khan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker; and contemporary composers John Adams, Nico Muhly, and Louis Andriessen. Audi has also worked as guest director at a number of opera and theater companies, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Paris Opera, the Ruhrtriennale, the Salzburg festival, and the Vienna State Opera.

He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Leslie Boosey Award for his contribution to British Musical Life, the Prize of Holland’s Theater Critics for his directing of Shakespeare’s plays and Monteverdi operas, and The Netherland’s state prize for the arts, the Johannes Vermeer Award. Audi was knighted in the Order of the Dutch Lion in 2000, and was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2006 in France. To mark his departure from the Dutch National Opera, he was awarded the Gold Medal of Honour for Arts and Sciences from the House of Orange Nassau by King Willem Alexander for his contribution to Dutch cultural life and for his work as a stage director.

Pierre Audi’s legacy is characterized by his fearless exploration of new artistic territories and his dedication to expanding the boundaries of art forms. He is survived by his wife and two children, who were a source of inspiration throughout his illustrious career. He also leaves behind an extended artistic family of countless artists, collaborators, colleagues, board members, and staff who join us in mourning a great artistic leader and  beloved friend. His contributions to the arts will continue to inspire generations of artists and audiences worldwide.