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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.
Born in the United States, Gavriel Heine trained in Moscow before making his debut in 2007 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, on the invitation of Valery Gergiev. In 2013, he was selected for the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview organised by the American Orchestral League. He has since been invited to major opera houses in Turin, Baden-Baden, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Covent Garden. Most recently, he conducted the Mariinsky Ballet on tour in Japan, China, Europe, and the United States, the Mariinsky Orchestra at the Gergiev Festival in Mikkeli, Finland, and the Mariinsky Opera on tour at the Bolshoi Theatre. He regularly works with the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Teatro Regio Orchestra of Turin, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the National Orchestra of Athens, the Novaya Rossiya Symphony Orchestra, the Samara Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Mikkeli Chamber Orchestra. Heine is currently Conductor in Residence at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, and Music Director of the Northern Lights Music Festival in Minnesota.
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).
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).
Born in Los Angeles, Anna Steiger first trained in piano, before studying singing with Noelle Barker at the Guildhall School of Music in London and then went on to perfect her skills with Vera Rozsa. She made her debut in Glyndeborne in the title role of L’incoronazione di Poppea, and then played Concepcion (The Spanish Hour) under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Since then, she has sung both soprano and mezzo-soprano roles on the greatest opera stages such as Zerlina (Don Giovanni) in Nancy, Stuttgart and Seattle, Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro) in Madrid, Los Angeles and Monte Carlo, and Tisbe (La Cenerentola) in Paris, Geneva and Marseille, Dame Ragonde (Count Ory) at the Opéra Comique and in Toulouse, the Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos) in St-Louis, ein Blumenmädchen (Parsifal) in Covent Garden or Gertrude (Roméo et Juliette) at the Chorégies d’Orange. She collaborates with conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Kent Nagano and Michel Plasson. She recorded Despina (Così fan tutte) under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Offrandes de Varèse with Pierre Boulez. More recently, she sang Clorinda (La Cenerentola) in Rennes and Rouen, Annina (La Traviata) in Toulouse and the role of Bélize (Les femmes savantes de Molière) in Paris, directed by Macha Makaieff.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : Clorinda in La Cenerentola (1986), Serpetta in La finta giardiniera (1989), La baronessa di Champigny in Il capello di paglia di Firenze (2006), and la Marquise in La fille du régiment (2016)
Franco Pomponi began his vocal studies in Chicago, before continuing them at the Juillard School in New York where he won the prestigious De Rosa Prize. He made his debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in the roles of Malatesta (Don Pasquale) and Mercutio (Romeo and Juliet). Subsequently, he was invited by the Metropolitan Opera and NYCO in New York, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, as well as in Portland, Toronto, New Orleans, Santa Fe, San Diego. In Europe, he sings in Marseille, Brussels, Palermo, Cagliari, Moscow, Madrid, Geneva, Budapest, Zurich and at the Liceu. His repertoire includes the roles of Escamillo (Carmen), the Four Devils (The Tales of Hoffmann), Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire), Ford (Falstaff) as well as the title roles of Don Giovanni, Hamlet, Sweeney Todd and Nixon in China.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Metternich in L’Aiglon (2013)
The Swiss baritone studied at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in the class of Frédéric Gindraux, before joining the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London to work with Prof. Rudolf Piernay. He collaborated with Dame Felicity Lott, François Le Roux, Graham Johnson and Eugene Asti. He sings several roles for the Opéra de Lausanne (Melchior in Menotti’s Amahl et les visiteurs du soir, Maximilian in Bernstein’s Candide, Urbain in Offenbach’s La vie parisienne, and creates recitals for children as well as a workshop during the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne in 2020. He is also heard singing Weill’s Berliner Requiem at the Opera Choir’s special concert.
He has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra on several occasions, the BBC and the Wigmore Hall. He is part of the “French Song Exchange” between the Wigmore Hall and the Salle Cortot in Paris, where he has the chance to make his debut in 2019. As a Samling Foundation Artist, Joël Terrin receives the title of Ambassador of Melody for the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2020. He enters the concert placement of the Migros Culture Percentage, of which he is also a scholarship holder, as well as the Friedl-Wald and Colette Mosetti foundations. In 2020 he won the English Song Prize.
French-Italian mezzo-soprano born in Milan, Beatrice Nani joined the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in 2014 in Brigitte Balleys’ class and obtained her Master’s degree in 2019. She is currently perfecting her skills with Marie-Ange Todorovitch and Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet. Passionate about theater, she trained with Gaëlle Bourgeois and Fiona Chauvin in Paris, and received valuable advice from Thierry Pillon, Jean-Yves Ruf and Shin Iglesias.
On stage, she was heard in Bouche à bouche by Maurice Yvain at the Théâtre Déjazet in Paris, in Bottesini’s Requiem at the Victoria Hall in Geneva. She created the role of Ella Maillart in Le Ruisseau noir by Guy-François Leuenberger at the Théâtre du Grütli in Geneva and interpreted Lois in Kiss me Kate by Cole Porter at the Théâtre du Galpon in Geneva. During the 2020 edition of the Georges Enesco International Competition in Paris, she won a special prize that will take her to Romania for her debut in the 2020-2021 season.
Accompanied by the young pianist Emilie Roulet, she also performs in concerts with their duo Battements d’Elles.
At the Opéra de Lausanne she performed the role of Louise in La Vie Parisienne in 2016, Cricri in Le chanteur de Mexico in 2017, Armelinde in Cendrillon by Pauline Viardot in 2018 and Duchess Totoche in Les chevaliers de la table ronde by Hervé in 2019. She also gives mediation workshops as part of the Youth Olympic Games in 2020 and creates a show for children, with baritone Joël Terrin.
Nicolas Wildi studied singing with Charles Ossola and Jeanne Roth in Neuchâtel and perfected his skills with Ion Buzea, Heidi Raymond and Stuart Patterson. He is passionate about Renaissance music of the late Middle Ages and early Baroque, all of which he occasionally practices. Currently, he devotes himself mainly to the stage, where he likes to lend his voice to smaller roles at the opera.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : Parpignol in La bohème (2008), a Domestique in La Traviata (2008), Ajax 2 in La belle Hélène (2008), a Matelot in Lakmé (2013), a Contadino in Luisa Miller (2014) and El Lañador in Doña Francisquita (2020)
Bastien Combe studied the trumpet and singing in Grenoble before continuing his singing training in Neuchâtel with Marcin Habela. He is a finalist of the Lied Mahler competition in Geneva. In concert, he sings the evangelist in Bach’s Weihnachtsoratoruim with the OSR. On stage, he performs the roles of D’Estourville (Ascanio de Saint-Saëns) in Geneva, Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) in Bern. His current works include the role of Herr Schulz in Cabaret at the Théâtre du Galpon.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : Renaud de Montauban in Les chevaliers de la table ronde (2019)
Born in Lausanne, Raphaël Hardmeyer obtained a master’s degree in law before studying singing in Geneva with Gilles Cachemaille and Alexander Mayr. He was a finalist in the Geneva Lied Mahler competition. On stage, he performs the roles of Charles V (Ascanio de Saint-Saëns) in Geneva, Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Masetto and the Commander (Don Giovanni) and Herr Fluth (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) in Hamburg. Current works include a contemporary creation as part of Opéralab, a collaboration between the Grand Théâtre and the HEM in Geneva.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Lakai in Ariadne auf Naxos (2019)
Born in Bogota, Fernando Cuellar trained in his native city before joining the troupe of Young Opera Artists of Colombia. He then continued his training in Geneva and Bern with Gilles Cachemaille.
As a soloist, he has performed with the Orchestre du Conservatoire de musique de Genève, the Orchestre du Conservatoire supérieur de Paris, the Théâtre du Passage in Neuchâtel, the Théâtre de Colombier, the Théâtre L’Heure bleue in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the Théâtre de Bienne, as well as at the Lausanne and Geneva opera houses. He sings under conductors such as Will Cruthfield, Gergely Madaras, Yves Senn, Andrei Feher, Franco Trinca and Gabriel Garrido.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Un notaro in La Sonnambula (2018) ein Offizer in Ariadne auf Naxos (2019).
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne
Born in Cardiff, Wales, Mike Winter has an atypical background as a choreographer and dancer. After starting his first career in international finance and information technology, he received a personal grant from Princess Diana, then President of the English National Ballet, with which he was able to develop his skills as a dancer. He is also a graduate of Trinity Laban in London.
Subsequently he enjoyed a prolific career as a dancer, international performer, choreographer and teacher. Alone, he collaborates in Switzerland with Guilherme Botelho, Philippe Saire, Jozsef Trefeli, Omar Porras, Nicole Seiler, Peter Regli, Antoine Jaccoud and Ursula Meier. Under the pseudonym Mister Winter, he has in recent years collaborated with Lloyd Newson, Pina Bausch, Marina Abramovic and the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York. More recently, Mister Winter created The Belief Series, an ambitious original trilogy of dance and theatre in collaboration with the Roman Catholic Church and Vatican City. He is currently touring Europe with Nigel Charnock’s Haunted by the Future with Israeli prima ballerina Talia Paz.
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.
Trained at the Aix-en-Provence Conservatory, where he made his debut under the baton of Darius Milhaud, Patrick Marie Aubert won first prize in orchestral conducting in the class of Pierre Villette. He also received a prize in singing and in opera, as well as in chamber music. He taught choral singing before becoming the director of the Léo Delibes Conservatory in Clichy, artistic director of the vocal ensemble Vox Hominis, musical director of the Divertimento orchestra and conductor of the Choirs of the Opéra de Nantes, and director of the Choir of the French Army until 2000.
He participated for nearly twenty years in major national events and conducted numerous concerts in France and abroad. He was the conductor of the Choir du Capitole de Toulouse from 2003 to 2009, then director of the Choir of the Opéra national de Paris from 2009 to 2014. He has collaborated with the conductors Maurizio Arena, Serge Baudo, Roberto Benzi, Marc Minkowski, Evelino Pidò, Michel Plasson, Georges Prêtre, Yutaka Sado, Jeffrey Tate, as well as with the directors Robert Carsen, Georges Lavaudant, Jorge Lavelli, Laurent Pelly, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Olivier Py, Robert Wilson. He will direct the choir on Orfeo ed Euridice (2019) at the Opéra de Lausanne, and will be the conductor for the exceptional concert of the Choir of the Opéra de Lausanne in February 2020.
Vincent Lemaire is a set designer for theatre, dance and opera. He creates sets in theatres such as La Monnaie, Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Théâtre du Capitole, the Operas of Lyon and Marseille, Opéra National du Rhin, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Royal Opera House in Stockholm, Theater an der Wien, Innsbruck Early Music Festival, the Operas of Zürich and St. Gallen, Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper and the Hamburg Staatsoper. He collaborates regularly with director Vincent Boussard, notably in Un ballo in maschera at the Théâtre du Capitole, La fanciulla del West in Hamburg, La Traviata in Tokyo and Strasbourg, Manon at the Lithuanian National Opera, Otello in Salzburg, Die tote Stadt and Lohengrin in St. Gallen as well as The Prophet in Essen. In 1999 and 2001, he won the Prix du Théâtre awarded by the French Community of Belgium.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Hamlet (2017)
Nicolas Gilli took his first steps as lighting director at the Théâtre de Nice, before being entrusted with lighting creations by Jacques Weber, the Director at the time. For more than 10 years, he collaborated in all areas of lighting, notably with Jacques Rouveyrollis and Alain Poisson. After leaving Nice, Nicolas Gilli worked as a freelancer for many artists such as Zaz, Michel Sardou, Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, as well as for shows such as the musical comedy Le rouge et le noir.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne
Isabel Robson trained as a Scene Director in London and Video Director in Paris. Since 2001, she has been a freelance set designer and focuses mainly on video creation. She made her debut at the Theater Basel and the National Theater in London. Since then, she has collaborated with various directors such as Gernot Grünewald, Philipp Preuss and Nurkan Erpulat. She has also collaborated on numerous occasions with Vincent Boussard for Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny in Berlin and Otello in Salzburg and Dresden. The film Marina, which she shot and directed with the werkgruppe2 collective, won the Golden Dove at the DOK festival in Leipzig. Her video installation of György Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragments at the Jewish Museum in Berlin was also shown at the Kurtág Festival in Dortmund in 2020.
Pour la première fois à l’Opéra de Lausanne
Né en Autriche, Helge Letonja est danseur, chorégraphe, directeur artistique et curateur de festivals. Il effectue sa formation à Amsterdam et à New York avec Alvin Ailey. En tant que danseur, il se produit avec le ballet de l’Opéra de Graz, Montréal Danse ou encore le Tanztheater Bremen. En 1996, il fonde à Brème la plateforme Steptext avec laquelle il produit depuis plus de vingt ans des spectacles de danse contemporaine. A l’opéra, il crée des chorégraphies pour Iphigénie en Tauride au Salzburger Festspiele et à Zurich, Die Blume von Hawaï ainsi que The first emperor, un opéra chinois contemporain, à Sarrebruck. Depuis 2011, il collabore avec le metteur en scène Vincent Boussard sur de nombreuses productions à Berlin, Tokyo, Strasbourg ou encore Dresde.
Helge Letonja est l’initiateur du projet européen KorresponDance Europe, le fondateur des festivals Xtra-Frei et Afriction et le curateur de plusieurs festivals comme Baila España. Il coache également de nombreux chorégraphes et collabore avec différentes écoles de danse, notamment en Afrique. Lauréat du Diversity-Preis-Bremen, Helge Letonja affectionne particulièrement l’échange et la collaboration avec des artistes de cultures différentes.
Pour la première fois à l’Opéra de Lausanne
Né en Lituanie, Gediminas Šeduikis commence sa formation par l’étude du piano, puis la poursuit à l’Académie de Théâtre à Vilnius. Il fait ses débuts comme assistant de mise en scène à l’Opéra de Vilnius et à l’Opéra National de Lituanie avant de devenir directeur de production au sein de cette dernière institution. Il collabore ainsi avec de nombreux metteurs en scène, parmi lesquels David Alden, Robert Wilson, Andrejs Zagars ainsi qu’Arnaud Bernard, et met en scène Acis and Galatea, Der Zigeunerbaron, Die Fledermaus, Hänsel und Gretel ou encore l’opéra rock Eglé, du compositeur letton Vilkončius. Il reçoit le Prix Fortūna pour sa mise en scène de Lucia di Lammermoor.