The French Embassy’s Cultural Attaché, Roland Celette, Will Leave DC Next Month

Here’s the thing about
Roland Celette, the cultural attaché of the
French Embassy since 2001: There’s not enough time in the day to talk
with all the people in
Washington who want to sing his praises. It’s a rare thing
indeed to have that sort of status in the nation’s capital, where

pro forma and half-hearted accolades flourish. In the
past few weeks, as Celette quietly made public that he would be
returning to
France, the city’s cultural community has been shaken. Not only
does his country lose one of its most effective assets here,
but Washington loses a visionary who considered it his mandate
to give the city
la grande bouffe of French culture.

A sampling:

His admirers go on like that, lauding a man who is
outwardly quiet and unassuming, tall, bespectacled, turned out, and
fit.
He exudes curiosity, intellect, and appreciation. As he moves
among the city’s cultural establishments he has the aura of
a sleek sailboat slicing through the water, not disturbing the
natural beauty around him but pulling from it what he needs
to go forward. From his home on the embassy grounds he takes
off on not a boat but on his Cannondale bicycle to all parts
of the area. He rides it anywhere from 50 to 100 miles a week,
his favorite route being south on the George Washington Parkway
to Mount Vernon. “I love Mount Vernon,” he says. “I love
Alexandria, too. You really feel something there. It’s a gem.”

So who exactly is Roland Celette, and how did he get
here? Over lunch at Bourbon Steak—soup, a hamburger he cuts into with
a knife and fork—he talks modestly about himself. He is 57
years old. He is from Saint-Étienne, which he calls “the French
Pittsburgh.” He worked for a long time in Japan, which he
loves. He returns often. He came to Washington from a post as cultural
attaché in Cambodia. Was the job here something he pursued? Not
really. “The ministry in Paris proposed me,” he says, and
that was that. He has worked with four ambassadors to
Washington—François Bujon de L’Estang,
Jean-David Levitte,
Pierre Vimont, and
François Delattre, the current ambassador. He has been intrigued by each of them.

“All my ambassadors were very interested in culture,
very cultivated, very supportive,” he says. “L’Estang was a jazz person.
Once he brought me to Arena Stage for an evening of blues from
the ’20s and ’30s. He knew every song by heart.” Levitte, he
says, “was very interested in everything.” He recalls giving
the boss a CD of a Uruguayan pianist, a woman in her eighties,
performing Schumann. The pianist had been a student of the
renowned French pianist
Alfred Cortot. That was on a Friday. “He called me on Saturday morning and said, ‘This is exceptional.’ We decided then to invite her to
perform at the French Embassy. It was a magical moment.”

Celette recalls that Vimont was a private guitarist and a huge fan of American guitar music, particularly
James Taylor. When he and Vimont went to Memphis for the presidential debate between
John McCain and
Barack Obama, he says, the ambassador slipped
away to visit the Gibson guitar factory. He knew that when Vimont could,
he’d set aside
work to visit music clubs, particularly in New Orleans. Of
Delattre, Celette says, “He’s very eager to be sure American people
know about what is going on in France in contemporary art. We
have this legacy, the Impressionists, but we need to show what
is going on today.”

From his current post in Brussels as secretary general
of the European External Action Service, Vimont writes, “For me, Roland
has been much more than a collaborator; he was an eye opener
and a constant force for arts, life, and joy.” He cited his fundraising
skills (Carol Bogash called them “American” in cleverness), his ability to coordinate smoothly with the bureaucracy in Paris, his ability to listen
and make new friends, and his creativity. “The man has one new idea per second, more or less.”

That would explain his productivity. When he arrived
in 2001, the cultural attaché’s office in Washington was smaller and
less involved in outreach. Now Celette’s staff of 15 handles an
estimated 250 events a year, divided almost equally between
programs inside and outside the embassy. “I don’t like to call
them ‘my’ staff, actually,” he says. “They are the people working
with me. They are wonderful. Some started as interns and were
so good we found a way for them to stay.” Under his leadership
the embassy has produced film festivals, music festivals, wine
and food festivals, dance and theater festivals. His office
has a mailing list of more than 30,000 people, most of them in
the Washington area.

Ambassador Delattre says he “cannot overstate” the
role Celette played on behalf of French culture, putting it “at the
heart
of cultural activities in Washington.” But no replacement has
been named as yet. “His successor will have big shoes to fill
and will have the task of continuing—despite the major
budgetary constraints—the momentum that has been created.”

When he arrived in Washington in 2001, what did
Celette notice about the city and its culture? After a long pause, he
says,
“Well, I was impressed by the big institutions. I connected
very quickly with the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery of
Art, and the Library of Congress. Wonderful staff. Serious
staff. What I was impressed with, too, is you have so many foundations,
so many active sources of culture in the city.”

Celette recalls that he was here for what he calls
“the French bashing, the freedom fries” of 2003, when France did not
support
the Bush administration in the buildup to the Iraq War and
Republicans in Congress, along with other protests, had the menus
in House restaurants substitute the word “freedom” for “French”
before fries and toast. There were calls for boycotts of French
products. Ambassador Levitte suggested to him that an antidote
would be “more cultural diplomacy.” That’s when he first worked
with
Garth Ross to create the Festival of France at
the Kennedy Center. It was a success, Celette says, “because it showed
the depth of the
relationship between the US and France.” For another program,
Celette and Ross traveled in France for a week, notably to a
street performance festival, and from that brought 15 companies
to the Kennedy Center in 2008 to showcase street art at the
Millennium Stage.

Celette says he has not had the privilege of meeting
the men who have served as President while he’s been here, but he has
met some Washingtonians who made a lasting impression. He has
warm words about many, including Ross, Bogash, and Powell (the
last of which, Celette says, “has always been inspiring to
me”). He mentions
Ina Ginsburg. “She was the assistant to
Andy Warhol,” he says, “and she has so many stories. She made many good connections for me and gave me very good advice. Washington is
a big theater; people change, but the characters are the same. You need people to help you understand how it works.”

James Oberstar, when he was in Congress, was head of the Congressional French Caucus. “He would recite French poems spontaneously!” says
Celette. He’s also a fan of Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer. “He knows so much about French philosophers, because there is a strong connection between French philosophers and the American
constitution,” he says. “Justice Breyer also knows French cinema better than anybody.”

Celette is a cinema buff and prefers to see his films at the National Gallery of Art. He commends
Peggy Parsons, curator of NGA film programs, for running “amazing collections” of films. “You have the avant-garde, you have the first
years of cinema, films from all over the world. You can go on Saturday and Sunday.” And he does, on his bicycle.

When asked to name a favorite cultural institution in
Washington, he is confounded. There are so many. But he will allow that
he adores the Phillips Collection. “I worked so well with the
Phillips that they gave me a lifetime membership,” he says.
“I am very proud of that.” Then he quickly jumps to the
Shakespeare Theater, the Studio Theater. “I’ve seen wonderful plays
here by Jean Genet, [Jean-Paul] Sartre, performed with American
actors. They had very good understanding.”

With all this cultural knowledge dancing in his head
and his soul, I wonder if he has a favorite epoch, and he launches into
an eloquent explanation of just how he see’s the world. “I try
to find the modernity of everything. No matter when it was.
Modernity is innovation and imagination. It’s so difficult to
have a new idea, a real idea. We are surrounded by things that
are not really modern. They are a repetition of the past.
Sometimes someone is bringing something new. That’s always my goal.
To find something that is new, whatever the century.”

As friends and colleagues hear the news of Celette’s
departure, they wonder why he is leaving Washington. Was it the French
election? No. “It is a decision made long before the election,”
he says. The reason is family. He wants to be near his aging
parents, who live in Clermont-Ferrand. He will teach French
literature and work toward trying to find the $1 million seed
money needed to start his own cultural foundation centered on
youth and the arts.

Dorothy Kosinski, director of the Phillips
Collection, says, “He’s been so terrific to us, to me. I can’t begin to
tell you how I’ll miss
him.” She ticks off a list of programs they created together,
and marvels that in the depth of the recession he was unrelenting
in seeing that a program got started featuring the cutting edge
of European classical music, a program that’s about to begin
its third year at the Phillips. “When everyone else is cutting
back he comes to me and says, ‘This has to happen.’” She says
he informed her of his plans to leave some time ago, but she
was in denial. “I tried to pretend it wasn’t true, but it is,
and it is sad for Washington.”

What will Celette miss most about Washington? “My friends,” he says. “But I invite everybody to come visit me.” Let’s hope
he has lots of guest rooms.

Carol Ross Joynt