Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, France's minister of culture and communication, has met with the theater's four top candidates: conductor and Baroque-music specialist Marc Minkowski; J_rêäme Deschamps, a comic actor and director of the Th_ê¢tre de NêÎmes; Christian Schirm, director of the Paris Opera's training program, Atelier lyrique; and Jacques H_doin, general director of the Th_ê¢tre du Chê¢telet.

The new director will succeed J_rêäme Savary, who has been at the head of the Op_ra-Comique since 2000, and will be charged with moving the theater away from Savary's program of popular musical-theater, and more toward the French-style comic operas that the company produced when it was founded in the 18th century (such as works by Grétry, Adam, Auber, Donizetti, and Meyerbeer), in addition to Baroque and contemporary works.

The Op_ra-Comique has suffered from financial troubles over the last few years, with little government funding; the theater's 1999-2000 season had to be canceled for lack of funds.