back

The Diversity Advisory Committee, led by Myriam Mazouzi, has been created to help the Paris Opera improve its internal and artistic policy on diversity issues in order to effectively fight all forms of racial discrimination.

The Committee gathers five time a year and, for the 2023/24 season, is composed of:

ALEXANDER NEEF
Paris Opera General Director

MYRIAM MAZOUZI
Diversity Officer and Paris Opera Academy Director

JOSÉ MARTINEZ
Paris Opera Dance Director

MARTIN AJDARI
Paris Opera Deputy Director

ARIANE MURAOUR
Paris Opera Human Resources Director

ELISABETH PLATEL
Paris Opera Ballet School Director

GUILLAUME DIOP
Étoile dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet

BERNARD ARRIETA
Baritone with the Paris Opera Chorus

FABIEN WALLERAND
Tubist with the Paris Opera Orchestra

SYLVIE CHALAYE
Anthropologist of representations of Africa and the Black community and art historian

MARIAME CLÉMENT
Stage Director

TANIA DE MONTAIGNE
Writer and journalist

SAÏD HAMMOUCHE
Chairman of the Mozaïk group

AGNÈS SAAL
Senior official at the Ministry of Culture for Corporate Social Responsibility

PIERRE VESPERINI
CNRS researcher specialised in Antiquity

Created by Sylvie Chalaye and Myriam Mazouzi, the series features the careers of artists from outside Europe and who marked the world of dance and opera, reflecting the multiple influences that nourish these artistic practices.

Featuring seven episodes, they present the lives of choreographer Maurice Béjart, musician and composer Le Chevalier de Saint-George, choreographer and dancer Germaine Acogny, soprano Christiane Eda-Pierre, violinist George Bridgetower, soprano Caroline Branchu and choreographer Marius Petipa.

One episode a month is made available to the Paris Opera’s employees, via an internal communication system. This series aims to show the employees and the public as well the importance of extra-European cultures in the history of opera and ballet.

The Diversity & Inclusion Barometer has been created by the Paris Opera in collaboration with Mozaïk RH at the end of the 2022/23 season. It has been made to give an initial snapshot of the state of diversity at the Paris Opera, to measure the feeling of discrimination and inclusion and get feedback from employees on the actions undertaken by the Opera to fight against discrimination.

The Paris Opera was awarded both the Gender Equality and Diversity labels in 2018. These two labels were renewed in June 2022 for a further four years by the certification organisation AFNOR.

For the past six years, the Paris Opera has been taking an active approach to diversity and equality, which are among its priority areas of action. The Direction has been committed to further strengthening the Opera's involvement in these issues of general interest and has included diversity, professional equality and accessibility in its 2022-2024 strategic guidelines. More than ever, the Paris Opera is convinced that fully assuming its social responsibility and adopting exemplary measures is necessary.

Among its recent projects, the Opera concluded a new agreement on professional equality on 9 February 2022 and structured its recruitment, training and awareness-raising processes for employees.

The law has created a Gender Equality Index to measure pay inequalities between women and men, aiming to eliminate the pay gap between the genders. The n°2018-771 Law of 5 Septembre 2018 for the freedom to choose one's professional future stipulates the employer's obligation to calculate the gap between the salary of women and men using 5 indicators. For the year 2022, the gender equality index for the Paris Opera is 95 points out of 100. The gender pay gap calculated in this index is 0.0% in 2022 (compared with 0.1% in 2021 and 0.9% in 2020).

The Institution is also conducting long-term work on promoting diversity on stage and within its work teams. That is why the Direction appointed Myriam Mazouzi, Academy Director, Diversity Officer for the Paris Opera and set up an advisory committee which meets several times a year to discuss the issue.

Since the beginning of 2022, Sophie Gavriloff, Director of the Spectator Experience and Marketing and also Accessibility Officer, has been working on opening up our theatres and programming to disabled audiences and artists. A “disability agreement” was signed in May 2022 to encourage the recruitment and job retention of people with disabilities.

These actions are part of the new strategic directions defined by the company and are intended to be maintained and strengthened to build an inclusive, open and resolutely committed opera. As a public institution, the Paris Opera is committed to diversifying its communication channels in order to widen its audience, keeping in step with the social and civic challenges, and rethinking work organisation to meet legitimate expectations in terms of health, safety and quality of life at work.