“I never had a career plan. It always turns out differently than you think.’With a role in the classic Verdi opera Ernani actor Johan Leysen (72) writesa new chapter on his long resume. ‘I am a Sunday child. I’m still getting workdone.’
Ewoud CeulemansDecember 15, 20225:30 pm
Can Johan Leysen also sing now? It’s a legitimate question, if you see thename of the 72-year-old acting icon between the credits of Ernani seestanding. Ernani is after all a rarely performed opera by Giuseppe Verdi.Still, you don’t have to expect a Leysen aria. “Don’t panic, fortunately wedon’t do that,” says the actor with a laugh. Instead, he is allowed to do whathe does so well: perform texts by Peter Verhelst with the necessary gravitas,in between Verdi’s arias.
“For me it is incomprehensible that those singers, who can go on such anincredible rampage, think it’s fantastic what I do as an actor. Then I think:I just say that text, there is nothing to it – compared to what singers ordancers do.”
Leysen enjoys being in their company. He has previously collaborated withcomposers such as Heiner Goebbels and opera directors such as Pierre Audi, andin Jonathan Harvey’s opera Wagner Dream he even took on the role of RichardWagner. “I’ve worked with music before and I really, really like it. In anactor’s training it would be welcome, that you were confronted with acting tomusic. That you have to count and that your text has to be there at the righttime. That you can’t hide behind ‘I don’t feel it for a while’. _(laughs)_There is no room for that in music. And that gives an actor great freedom, Ithink.”
However, it is not easy to put a finger on Leysen’s role in Ernani an operafor which Verdi was inspired by a play by Victor Hugo and which deals withErnani, who wants revenge on the Spanish king Don Carlos and loses his heartto Elvira, the betrothed of Carlos’s confidant.
Leysen in ‘Ernani’.Sculpture Annemie Augustijns
“It is a strange opera anyway,” Leysen summarizes, “in which horny gentlemenare ready to attack each other with daggers, but postpone it all the time.There’s also a girl who doesn’t quite know what she wants – it’s a wonderfulaffair all in all.
“It’s not really a role I play, my character has no name. I rather believethat I am a kind of storyteller. An alter ego of Ernani perhaps, or some kindof mentor. It also shifts throughout the performance. I didn’t ask Peter whyhe wrote this text, I decided to just let it happen. The special thing aboutBarbora Horáková, the director, is that she is inspired by the passion ofVerdi’s music. Her dramaturgy is very intuitive. And I think: I don’t have toask questions, I watch how she works and just try to find my place.”
Confusion
He once directed a play himself: the now eight-year-old Trauer Zeit. “I didthat once because I felt I had to do it. But then I had it too. I am aperformer. As a director, you have to be smart enough to listen to otherpeople’s input and ultimately do your own thing. I’m too accommodating forthat. Ignoring idiotic advice is not difficult, but listening to thesuggestions of smart people and then saying: ‘Good idea, but we’re not goingto do that’? I think that’s very punishment. I admire directors who can dothat, who dare to do that. But that’s not how I feel.”
And so he has been sticking to acting for fifty years, but to acting in allshapes and sizes. His public resume counts 170 film credits (“But if you fartin the background in a 1982 film, it will be included”), including TerrenceMalicks A Hidden Life Jean Luc Godards Je vous salue, Marie the Oscarnominee Daens and the Dutch Felice… Felice… , for which he was awarded theGolden Calf for Best Actor. As a theater actor he worked in Belgium with GuyCassiers ( Wolfskers, tell the children we are no good ) and Milo Rau (Lareprise, Orestes in Mosul ), and also played all over Europe in French,English and German.
“I like that variety”, says Leysen, “of constantly discovering new things andnew people. Sometimes that’s not too bad, sometimes it’s not – that’s part ofit. I find it exciting. I never had a career plan. Maybe there are people whocan, but I don’t believe in that. I couldn’t do it anyway. It always turns outdifferently than you think. Life depends on chance encounters, on contacts youmake, and on what may or may not result from that. I’m an old fart now, but Ihaven’t built anything. That’s an illusion. I think experience is the worstthing there is on stage, because it is of no use to you. You have to try againand again. I like that. If I didn’t feel that anymore, I would stop.”
Leysen: ‘In my opinion, experience is the worst thing there is on stage.’ImageMayli Sterkendries
Leysen has never been short of work. After his training at the Studio HermanTeirlinck, he moved to Amsterdam, where he started working at Baal. Shortlybefore that, Aktie Tomaat, in which young artists denounced the old-fashioned,dusty theater of the major institutions with tomatoes, brought about arevolution in Dutch theatre. Fifty years later, a lot has changed again, henotes.
“There is a lot of confusion and I don’t always know what to think about it,”he admits. “That must be the age, I think. In Paris, a performance about atrans woman was canceled because she was played by a cis woman, and peoplethought that was not possible. Then I think to myself: what do you think ofthat, Leysen? I find that odd. Because the essence of theater is that youpretend, that you try to say something about things that you are not and tryto do it the best you can. That also takes courage. While I understand thatthe theme is something very intimate, I wonder if it might not be empatheticto someone who is not a trans person?”
What has also changed, he notes, is employment for young actors. While Leysensoon found work with Dutch companies, it is often difficult for the newestgeneration to start their career.
“That cannot be compared. We came out of drama school with five or six peopleand unless you killed your father, you quickly found work as an actor. Theratio between actors looking for work and the number of places where theycould go was good. It was simpler, I have the impression, than now. Now it’s afight. I think there is more work, but there are also many more actorsgraduating. The youngsters are having a hard time now.”
It does not get any easier when a decision is made from above to put thehatchet in project subsidies, as the Antwerp city council and culture aldermanNabilla Ait Daoud (N-VA) have done. “What is happening here in Antwerp isshameless. Shame-too-less. The Flemish administrators, especially the peoplewho are so eager to attract culture and education without knowing the sector…They really don’t give a damn. They just want to be in charge. And that isoutrageous. But I don’t know if there’s anything you can do about that. Mylate twin sister, Frie (former director of, among others, De Singel andKunstenfestivaldesarts, EWC ), then said: ‘At a certain point they don’t giveany more money, and then you have to do your things without money.’ You can’tsit in the victim’s corner and do nothing. But I still find it a disgrace.”
A small miracle
In that career spanning nearly half a century, Johan Leysen only once thoughtit might be over, in the late 1980s. “There was one period when I was in a bitof a slump, when I considered quitting,” the actor recalls. “Then Frie said:go with ( the Dutch director, EWC ) Jan Ritsema talking. There is_Wittgenstein Incorporated_ came out of it and that performance has reconciledme with my work. Jan was not an easy director, he terrorized me quite a bit,but he forced me to be truthful. And that has been a good lesson, which hasgiven me a lot.
Leysen: ‘If you don’t watch out, as an actor you are constantly looking forapproval. That is addictive.’Image Mayli Sterkendries
“If you’re not careful, as an actor you’re constantly looking for approval.And that is addictive. While you can also work for the pleasure of working, ofpracticing your profession well, of taking care of your game. That doesn’thave to be accompanied by big praise or pats on the back. Of course that’snice, but it shouldn’t be your bike. It is just a profession that youpractice, and that has dawned on me through Jan.”
In recent years, both Jan Ritsema and Frie Leysen have left him, we note. Isthat a confrontation with the finiteness of life? “I still miss Frie everyday,” he replies. “It is confrontational, but you can also see it the otherway around: it is a small miracle that I am still working. There are also manyactors my age who no longer work, who no longer feel like it or who are nolonger in demand. Again: I’m lucky, I still get to work. And of course Ibelong to a generation that is written off, that is forgotten. That is part ofthe scene, that you are forgotten. I do not mind.”
**Ernani from 16 to 31 December at Opera Antwerp, from 11 to 22 January at