Her father? Manuel Garcia, a famous Spanish tenor, creator of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, who agreed to let her attend his home lessons as a child. Her sister? Maria Garcia, better known as Maria Malibran, the early 19th century shooting star of the opera world who tragically disappeared at the age of 28. Her piano teacher? A certain Franz Liszt who tutored her to a level where she could confidently play a duet with Clara Schumann. Her admirers? They were legion and Alfred de Musset was the first to court her, but when it came to getting married, her friend George Sand pointed her towards a less troubled potential spouse in the person of Louis Viardot, director of the Théâtre des Italiens and 20 years her senior. Chopin would have better luck… whatever George thought of that! Her first role? Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello in London in 1839 at the tender age of 17, the prelude to a brilliant career that would see her not only light up stages but also fire the imagination of the creative talents of her time, like Saint-Saëns who dedicated Samson et Dalila to her, or Gounod who wrote Sapho for her with its tailormade aria ” Ô my lyre immortelle”. In short, a life in music, of which the creative dimension should not be forgotten, as reflected in a wide variety of a melodies she composed from her early years onwards, along with some works of greater scope such as her Cinderella, a comic opera (sometimes referred to as a chamber operetta) in three tableaux for seven solo singers, choir and piano, written in the 1880s after Perrault, Andersen and Nicholay Checkhov to a libretto of her own creation, and premiered on 23 April 1904 in her Paris salon when she was 84 years old.
First representation on 23 April 1904, in Miss Mathilde de Nogueiras’s salons.
Born in 1998, French soprano Nuada Le Drève began her musical studies on the violin. She continued her lyric studies in the class of Frédéric Gindraux and Jean-Philippe Clerc at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, where she obtained her Master’s degree in 2023. She is currently studying with Hedwig Fassbender and Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet.
Curious about the German language and repertoire, she studied for a semester in Rainer Trost’s class at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (MDW).
She perfected her technique in Master Classes with Birgid Steinberger, Jennifer Larmore, Véronique Gens, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Matthias Lademann, Markus Hadulla and Stephan McLeod. In April 2024, she took part in the Master Class of the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie (IMA) directed by Edith Wiens and Tobias Truniger in Neumarkt, Germany.
She was awarded the Prix Tremplin 2023 by the Leenaards Foundation. She has won several prizes in competitions such as 3rd prize at the Concours international de chant de Nîmes in 2023, the Jeune talent prize at the 35th Concours international de chant de Béziers and the Jeune espoir prize from the Centre français de promotion lyrique in 2019.
She made her debut as a soloist in the role of Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte directed by Pierre Bleuse in Sion (CH), La Fée in Pinocchio by Gloria Bruni at the Opéra de Lausanne and La Fiancée in Les Noces by Stravinsky under the baton of Daniel Reuss at the Théâtre du Jorat.
For the 2023/24 season, she sings the title role in Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon at the Opéra de Lausanne, Zweite Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco at the same opera house. She performs in concert and recital at numerous venues, including the Opéra de Montpellier, and collaborates regularly with the Grand Théâtre de Genève.
Originally from Marseille, Rémi Ortega began his singing studies at the Conservatoire de région de his city, in the class of Claude Méloni, then joined the Haute école de musique de Lausanne in the class of Jörg Durmuller, where he followed master classes by Alain Garichot, Laurent Pillot, Yvonne Naef and John Fiore. In 2019, he won the Prix d’interprétation de l’instant lyrique at the Concours des maîtres du chant in Paris. He made his stage debut in the role of the Corporal in La Fille du régiment in Marseille under the direction of Bruno Conti, then in the roles of the innkeeper Pasek and the Mosquito in The Cunning Little Vixen in Monthey, under the baton of Ivan Törzs. Later, he sang the title role in Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón, Taddeo in L’italiana in Algeri conducted by Amaury Du Closel, and Emperor Chang in Lehar’s Das Land des Lächelns.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: L’Auberge du Cheval-Blanc (2021) and My Fair Lady (2022).
Born in Lausanne to a French father and a Bolivian mother, Marc Leroy-Calatayud was recently appointed associate conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève for the 2022/23 season, after having held the position of artist-in-residence at the Orchestre national de Cannes during the 2021/22 season. He worked as assistant conductor at the Opéra national de Bordeaux from 2016 to 2019. A recipient of a scholarship from the Akademie Musiktheater Heute (2018-2021), he studied conducting in Vienna and Zurich with Mark Stringer and Johannes Schlaefli. His symphonic projects for the 2022/23 season include debuts with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and the Kanazawa Orchestra Ensemble, as well as re-invitations to the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. A passionate devotee of opera, he is developing a vast repertoire ranging from Handel and Mozart to Ravel, Weill and Rihm. He will soon be conducting Reynaldo Hahn’s musical Ô mon bel inconnu at the Opéra de Tours and at the Opéra de Rouen. Recent collaborations include L’Elisir d’amore at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, La Légende du Roi Dragon by Arthur Lavandier, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mârouf, savetier du Caire by Henri Rabaud at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, and Die sieben Todsünden by Kurt Weill with the Ensemble Nomade. He has also worked as an assistant on numerous productions, such as Les Troyens at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Daniele Rustioni), Platée and Œdipe at the Opéra de Paris (Marc Minkowski, Ingo Metzmacher), and Jakob Lenz at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (Ingo Metzmacher). Marc Leroy-Calatayud is a fervent advocate of music education and outreach projects. In 2009, he founded a youth orchestra, the Orchestre Quipasseparlà, with the aim of finding new ways of making music accessible to all. He has organised concerts in hospitals, old people’s homes and homeless shelters.
Originally from the Marseille region, Gilles Rico studied music and philosophy before taking a PhD in medieval philosophy at Oxford University. In parallel to his academic career, he turned to opera directing, working first as an assistant for various European and North American opera houses and festivals. He has worked with directors such as Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, Joël Pommerat, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Jérôme Deschamps, Andreas Homoki, David McVicar, Damiano Michieletto, Robert Carsen, James Gray and Katie Mitchell. In 2016, he directed his first opera production at Angers-Nantes Opéra, the world premiere of Maria Republica by François Paris, which received the Critics’ Choice Award the same year. He also directed Un dîner avec Jacques, a show based on Offenbach produced by the Opéra-Comique in Paris and then taken on tour in France. He created the participatory opera Tistou les pouces verts by Henri Sauguet at the Rouen Opera and then staged Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Philharmonie de Paris. More recently, he directed the participatory opera Les Petites Noces after Mozart at the Opéra de Rouen, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in Avignon and Toulon, and the operette L’Auberge du Cheval-Blanc by Benatzsky in Lausanne and Marseille. As a librettist, Gilles Rico wrote the libretto of Violetta Cruz’s La Princesse légère for the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra de Lille, and the libretto of Fabian Panisello’s chamber opera Les Rois mages, which he also directed in Madrid, Nice and Tel Aviv. His directing projects include Offenbach’s L’Île de Tulipatan at the Opéra de Lausanne (Route Lyrique), Zingarelli’s Giulietta e Romeo at the Opéra royal de Versailles, Gounod’s Le Tribut de Zamora at the Opéra de Saint-Etienne and the world premiere of Zad Moultaka’s Hémon at the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Cendrillon by Pauline Viardot (2018), Le nozze di Figaro (2021), L’Auberge du Cheval-Blanc (2021) and L’Île de Tulipatan (Route Lyrique 2023).
Born in France, tenor Maxence Billiemaz began singing in Paris with the Manécanterie des Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois. He continued his musical studies at the Haute école de musique de Genève in Stuart Patterson’s class. He has appeared on stage as Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore), Bastien (Bastien und Bastienne) and Demo (Il Giasone). He also participated in the recording of Ascanio by Camille Saint-Saëns at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and has performed in musicals, playing Bill Calhoun in Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate and Clifford Bradshaw in John Kander’s Cabaret. He sings as a soloist in ensembles such as La Cappella Mediterranea, the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, the Chœur de Chambre de Namur and Les Talens Lyriques.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021), Werther (2022), My Fair Lady (2022), Cendrillon (2023).
Aurélie Brémond obtained her Master’s degree from the Haute école de musique de Lausanne with Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet in June 2022. She is a prizewinner in several international competitions: the Concours international de Mâcon-Symphonies d’automne, the Concours international de Béziers, and the Concours Leopold Bellan. Her stage credits include Philomèle in Delibes’ Le Roi l’a dit and Princess Laoula in Chabrier’s L’Étoile at Opéra d’Avignon, Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at Opéra de Lausanne and Nouvel Opéra de Fribourg, and Giannetta in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at Opéra de Lausanne.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: L’elisir d’amore (2022), My Fair Lady (2022) and Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (2023).
Ludmila Schwartzwalder is a French mezzo-soprano, who graduated from the HEMU in 2021 with a Master of Arts in Music Performance and specifically concerts (Brigitte Balleys’s class). Passionate about foreign languages, she also holds a Bachelor’s degree in English, German and Swedish. She sings regularly with the self-run women’s Diaphane ensemble, as well as the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne and the Cappella Amsterdam, directed by DanielReuss; and is a soloist for contemporary music creations in an oratorio repertoire. In 2020, she was a finalist in the Nuits lyriques de Marmande competition in the melodies category. In 2021, she won the special Prix Fauré-Séverac at the Concours d’interprétation de la mélodie française in Toulouse. In September 2021, she sang the role of Dorabella (Così fan tutte) at the Opéra de Lausanne and at the Opéra de Fribourg (a co-production of the HEMU, HEM Genève and Opéra de Fribourg). In May 2022, she premiered the title role of Le Chat botté by Etienne Crausaz at the Opéra des Champs.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Alcina (2022).
The daughter of a musician, Emma Delannoy soon discovered her love of opera singing. At the age of 15, she entered the Geneva Conservatory of Music in Juliette Galstian’s Musimax class. She then joined Hiroko Kawamichi’s singing class at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne, obtaining her bachelor’s degree in June 2020, and joined Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet’s class, graduating with a master’s degree in concert performance in June 2022. In May 2022, she plays La Princesse in Le Chat botté, a creation by Étienne Crausaz and Jacques Doutaz in collaboration with Opéra des Champs. In July 2022, she was Poppea in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Trentino Music Festival. Since September 2022, she has been a member of the Opéra de Lausanne Chorus, regularly leading its opera workshops. She was Oscar in Un ballo in maschera in January 2023 with Operami. In August 2023, she sings alongside Emiliano Gonzalez Toro and his ensemble I Gemelli at the Festival du Toûno. Alongside her musical career, Emma Delannoy also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Musicology from the University of Geneva.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: L’Île de Tulipatan (Route Lyrique 2023) and Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (2023).
The French tenor Jean Miannay studied singing in Lausanne with Brigitte Balleys and in Berlin in the class of Scot Weir. He distinguished himself in 2018 at the 4th Raymond Duffaut Competition, where he won the grand prize. Following this, he won various awards at the Clermont-Ferrand Competition, the Kattenburg Competition, as well as the 2nd Vienna International Music Competition. His young lyric voice leads him to interpret roles such as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Beppe (Pagliacci), Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore), Alfredo (La traviata), Vincent (Mireille), or Des Grieux (Manon). In 2018, he made his first steps at the Lausanne Opera, where he performs regularly thereafter. He sings in France at the operas of Massy, Avignon and Clermont-Ferrand, as well as at the Chorégies d’Orange for the fourth consecutive year. In 2022, he made his German debut at the Theater Magdeburg in a production of Orpheus in der Unterwelt. Curious by nature, he also flourishes in contemporary creation as well as in chamber music. He has performed Benjamin Britten’s Illuminations and Serenade for horn and tenor, Janáček’s Diary of the Missing and Schumann’s Dichterliebe. He is expected this summer as Remendado (Carmen) at the Chorégies d’Orange and joins the Opéra Studio du Rhin for the 2023/24 season.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon (2018), Les Contes d’Hoffmann (2019), Rinaldo (2020), L’Auberge du Cheval-Blanc (2021), Semiramide, Eugene Onegin and L’elisir d’amore (2022).
A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre in France, Bruno de Lavenère creates stage designs for opera, dance and theatre. In 2014, the Syndicat professionnel de la critique de théâtre, de musique et de danse awarded him the prize for best creator of scenographic elements with the video artist Etienne Guiol in the opera category for the set design of Doctor Atomic in Strasbourg. He has worked with Thomas Jolly, Lucinda Childs, Jean-Louis Grinda, Renée Auphan, Jean-Romain Vesperini, Richard Brunel, Frédéric Roels, Max Emanuel Cencic and Gilles Rico. Among his latest creations are Roméo et Juliette at the Opéra Bastille, Armide at the Opéra-Comique, On purge bébé at La Monnaie, Henry VIII at Bard (New York), L’Avare at the Comédie-Française, Macbeth Underworld at La Monnaie, Norma in Muscat (Oman), Mozart and Salieri in Lyon, Il trovatore in Lille and Luxembourg, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte in Rouen, Quai Ouest and Cav/Pag in Strasbourg, The Sleeping Beauty in Basel, Les Petites Noces at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, La Belle Hélène at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Little Nemo and Maria Republica in Nantes, Re Orso at the Opéra-Comique, Carmen in Hong Kong, La bohème at the Bolshoi, Otello in Monte-Carlo and Akhnaten in Nice.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Siroe (2016), La Vie parisienne (2016), La Donna del lago (2018), Cendrillon (2018) and The White Horse Inn (2021).
Karolina Luisoni studied fashion design at the University of Art and Design in Krakow. She continued her training in costume and textile design at the University of Huddersfield, England. Her graduation project in 2013 won her a special award from actor Sir Patrick Steward, as well as a prize from the Northern Society of Costumes and Textiles. In 2015, she won the international competition organized by Luc Besson, for the costumes in his film Valérian et la Cité des mille planètes. In 2019, her “Mephistopheles” costume was exhibited at the Moscow State Historical Museum as part of the “Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: Next Generation” exhibition.
Since 2015, she has collaborated with several theater companies in Switzerland and abroad, and initiated her collaboration with the Opéra de Lausanne, where she participated in the workshop in the making of several Opéra de Lausanne creations. In 2017, she helped create the costumes for the production of Don Giovanni directed by Éric Vigié, followed by Eugène Onéguine in 2021 at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. Her first production at Opéra de Lausanne was Cendrillon in 2018, followed by L’auberge du Cheval Blanc directed by Gilles Rico in 2021. Karolina Luisoni also works with theaters and theater companies in French-speaking Switzerland, most recently for Les Voyages Extraordinaires, TKM and Petit Théâtre Lausanne, where she will make her latest creation in December 2022 for the show Little Nemo.
After training as an electrician, Denis Foucart ventured into the world of events and designed the lighting for many events around the world, including Jean Michel Jarre’s concert, produced in Egpyt to usher in the year 2000. From 2000 to 2003, he was hired as the lighting director for the international tours of musicals Notre dame de Paris and Roméo et Juliette. At the end of 2003, he became the lighting director of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, and designed his first lighting for ballets with Zarathoustra, La vie du danseur and Le tour du monde en 80 minutes. For the Festival Avenches Opéra, he designed the lighting for La bohème and Nabucco.
Head electrician at the Opéra de Lausanne since 2008, he took over the lighting for Pierre et le loup, Die Zauberflöte, La veuve joyeuse, L’enfant et les sortilèges and created the lighting for Phi-Phi (Route Lyrique 2014), of La Belle de Cadix (Route Lyrique 2016), Les chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019) and Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021) as well as those of the opera for young audiences, Amahl et les visiteurs du soir in 2017 and Cendrillon in 2018 and 2023.
