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Based on the eponymous work by Voltaire, Candide according to Bernstein transposes the caustic Voltairean sense of humour into contemporary American society. A comedy that mocks the world’s absurdity, this ‘American operetta’ questions the optimism of Brave New World and its supposed superiority. Bernstein creates a lyric work unique in its genre. Candide is subjected to a significant number of edits by a variety of people before arriving at its final form which encompasses all its originality. Just like the fate of the work itself, the young Candide’s initiation journey is marked by several adventures and sudden changes. While he learns at his own expense that ‘everything is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds’, the music on the other hand returns to optimism in sparkling passages full of joy and parody. Nothing is left out: a brilliant overture, the pieces of bravery for the coloratura, the dances, from the tango to the gavotte; everything is there. Irony and good nature mark the path of happiness, which consists very simply of ‘cultivating our garden’.
Music by Leonard Bernstein, book by Hugh Wheeler after Voltaire, Lyrics by Richard Wilbur, with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard Bernstein
Orchestrations by Leonard Bernstein and Hershy Kay; Musical continuity and additional orchestrations by John Mauceri, with a narration for concert version by Leonard Bernstein and John Wells, adapted from the satire by Voltaire and the book by Hugh Wheeler; edited and supplemented by Erik Haagensen.
Work given by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne. Gavriel Heine is currently resident director at the St Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre and musical director of the Northern Lights Festival Opera (Minnesota). He is the first American to graduate from the Moscow Conservatory and one of the last students of Ilya Musin at the St Petersburg Conservatory. In 2007 Valery Gergiev invited him to make his debut at the Mariinsky Theatre, where he has since conducted over 600 productions. He has also conducted for the Mariinsky Ballet on tour in Japan, China, Europe and the United States. He has conducted the Mariinsky Orchestra at the Gergiev Festival in Mikkeli, Finland, and the Mariinsky Opera on tour at the Bolshoi Theatre. He has been invited to conduct numerous other orchestras, such as the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Teatro Regio Orchestra from Turin, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Athens State Orchestra, the Novaya Rossiya Symphony Orchestra, the Samara Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Mikkeli Chamber Orchestra. In 2013 he was selected for the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview organised by the League of American Orchestras.
From 1996 to 2000 Vincent Boussard was director of the Comédie-Française Studio-Théâtre where he worked on his first productions. Since then, he has worked mainly on directing opera, in particular at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden, in Strasbourg, at the Liceu in Barcelona, in Frankfurt, San Francisco, Toulouse, Hamburg, Brussels, Vienna, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, in Stockholm, at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Dresden’s Semperoper, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Aalto Theater in Essen, in Marseille, St. Gallen, Lausanne, at the Lithuanian National Opera and the Korean National Opera. He has also been invited by festivals such as Osterfestpiele in Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Innsbruck, Festival dei due Mondi in Spoleto, and Festival Amazonas in Manaus. During the 2018-19 season, he directed I Puritani at Frankfurt Opera and Dialogues of the Carmelites at Riga Opera. At the Opéra de Lausanne: Hamlet (2017).
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
After studying classical literature and history of art, Christian Lacroix turned to freelance work in fashion and costume, in Paris, Italy and Japan. He was artistic director of the Jean Patou company from 1982 to 1987, when he created his own fashion business. At the same time, since the 1980s, he had designed costumes for numerous theatre, opera and ballet productions: at Opéra Garnier, La Monnaie, La Comédie-Française, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Metropolitan, the Festival d’Aix, at the Opéra Comique, and for the operas of Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne. Since 2000, he has developed his work as a designer and scenographer for his own company (Centre National du Costume de Scène in Moulins, Musée de la Mode et Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée Réattu and Rencontres d’Arles). He has also worked with several institutions (Musée du Quai Branly, Walraff Museum in Cologne, Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Bordeaux, Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris, Musée du Louvre Lens and Musées d’Avignon), and this work has become more prominent since he stopped working as a fashion designer.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
Miles Mykkanen has performed at numerous venues worldwide and his voice is unanimously appreciated everywhere. He made his debut at the Opera of Minnesota in Silent Night, a production awarded by the Pulitzer Prize, in Philadelphia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Franz Welser-Möst in Ariadne auf Naxos. He has performed in Alceste (Gluck) at the Bayerische Staatsoper, and in concert in Messiah with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Kennedy Center National Symphony Orchestra. He recently sang in performances of Candide in Arizona and Palm Beach, and of West Side Story with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Slatkin. He has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival accompanied by pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Malcolm Martineau and Roger Vignoles, among others. He appeared in PBS Great Performances and on Medici.tv in master classes with Renée Fleming, Fabio Luisi, Emmanuel Villaume and Sutton Foster.
Winner of the first prize at the 2018 Cesti Baroque Opera Competition and the 2017 Belcanto Vincenzo Bellini competition, the soprano Marie Lys has sung with conductors such as Michel Corboz, Laurence Cummings, Giampaolo Bisanti and Daniel Reuss. After studying at the University of Music in Lausanne, she went to the Royal College of Music in London where she obtained a Master’s degree with distinction and a certificate in opera. In opera, she has sung in roles including Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) at Bury Court Opera, Adelaide (Lotario) at the Göttingen Handel Festival, Dalinda (Ariodante) at the London Handel Festival and Asteria (Tamerlano) at the Buxton Festival. With the Abchordis Ensemble she won first prize at the Göttinger Reihe Historischer Musik competition, then released two recordings with Sony DHM. She was grateful for the support received from Pour-cent culturel Migros and the foundations Samling, Leenaards, Dénéréaz, Colette Mosetti, Friedl Wald, and Drake Calleja Trust.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Eurilla in Orlando Paladino (2017), Lisa in La Sonnambula (2018), Adèle in Die Fledermaus (2018), and Amour in Orphée et Eurydice (2019).
Joël Terrin studied piano before turning entirely to singing. He joined Frédéric Gindraux’s class at the HEMU and worked with Jean-Philippe Clerc, Helmut Deutsch and David Jones. He will pursue his studies at Guildhall School in London at the beginning of the 2017 term.
On stage he has played the Cat and the Armchair in L’enfant et les sortilèges, the King and the Ogre in Le Chat botté by Cui, and der Weiser in Hin und zurück. He has performed Handel’s Dixit dominuswith the OCL, Israël en Égypte directed by Leonardo García Alarcón, and regularly performs Lied and French melody, his preferred repertoires.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : a cockney in My fair Lady (2015), Juanito in La Belle de Cadix (Route Lyrique 2016), un spirito in L’Orfeo (2016), Gontran, Urbain and Alfred in La vie parisienne (2016), Melchior in Amahl et les visiteurs du soir (2017), Lancelot in Les chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), and Herman Augustus in Candide (2020) .
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is a core group of about forty chorists who are, for the most part, students from singing or professional specialisation classes at the Lausanne Conservatory or other conservatories in Western Switzerland. Chorists are selected by audition and periodically reviewed. Choir directors are chosen from among the most experienced and vary for each performance.
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is regularly hired by orchestras and festivals in Switzerland and abroad: Création by Haydn (December 2003 – conductor Jerzy Semkow) and Stabat Mater by Rossini (February 2006 – conductor Corrado Rovaris) as a part of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra season, Roland by Lully (concert version) at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, at the Opéra de Montpellier and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Bruxelles (January 2004 – Talens Lyriques orchestra – conductor Christophe Rousset), Die Entführung aus dem Serail concert version at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (January 2005), La grotta di Trofonio (concert version) at the Théâtre de Poissy (March 2005 – Talens Lyriques, conductor Christophe Rousset), Nocturnes by Debussy at the 2007 Montreux Septembre musical (RSO Berlin – conductor Marek Janowski).
In 2008 and 2010 the choir performed as part of the OCL season under the baton of Christian Zacharias: Te Deum by Bruckner (February 2008), Les Noces by Stravinski (December 2008, also in Saint-Gall) and Beethoven’s IXe Symphony (April 2010).
The Choir has also been on many tours with Opéra de Lausanne productions: Opéra de Vichy (Rigoletto in 2005, Il Turco in Italia in 2006, La veuve joyeuse in 2007, Carmen in 2008, Amelia al ballo in 2008 under the direction of Arie Van Beek and La Traviata in 2009 conducted by Roberto Rizzi Brignoli), Opéra Comique (Amelia al ballo by Menotti in March 2007). In October 2008, the Opéra de Lausanne and its choir toured Japan for five performances of Carmen.
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is featured on several CDs: Le Nez by Chostakovitch, Roland by Lully and La grotta di Trofonio by Salieri. The Choir was also involved in televised performances on RTS of La fille de Madame Angot, La Belle Hélène and, for the reopening of the Opéra, L’elisir d’amore.
After studying at the Aix-en-Provence Conservatoire where he made his debut conducted by Darius Milhaud, Patrick Marie Aubert won 1st prize for orchestra conducting in Pierre Villette’s class. He has also won prizes for singing, lyric art and chamber music. He was a teacher of choral singing then director at the Conservatoire Léo Delibes in Clichy, artistic director of the vocal ensemble Vox Hominis, musical director of the Orchestre Divertimento and choir master at the Opéra de Nantes. As choir master of the French army until 2000, he participated for almost twenty years in major national events and conducted numerous concerts in France and other countries around the world. He was choir master at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse from 2003 to 2009, then director of the Opéra de Paris choir from 2009 to 2014. He has worked with conductors such as Maurizio Arena, Serge Baudo, Roberto Benzi, Marc Minkowski, Evelino Pidò, Michel Plasson, Georges Prêtre, Yutaka Sado and Jeffrey Tate, and theatre directors including Robert Carsen, Georges Lavaudant, Jorge Lavelli, Laurent Pelly, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Olivier Py and Robert Wilson. Patrick Marie Aubert is a Knight of the Legion of Honour, an Officer of the National Order of Merit and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Orphée et Eurydice (2019).