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the chivalrous Don Quixote dies defeated as a hero of love, his eyes raised to the sky of his dreams, staring at the constellation of his Dulcinea! A universal myth, this endearing and extraordinarily inspiring character comes to us from the pen of Cervantes, whose novel published in 1605 is one of the most widely translated in the world. Jules Massenet brought his version to the Monte-Carlo Opera in 1910: a heroic comedy in which the great bass singer Fiodor Chaliapin triumphed in the title role.
A mature work by the composer, Don Quixote belongs to the series of operas that Massenet drew from literary works, such as Manon and Werther. Based on the play Le Chevalier à la triste figure (The Knight of the Sad Countenance) by Jacques Le Lorrain, it recounts the adventures of the unforgettable pair formed by the knight errant and his servant Sancho Panza; the necklace stolen from the beautiful Dulcinea; as well as tales of Spain, brigands and windmills… At the heart of this Spanish love story, Massenet offers us a grand meditation on love (Don Quixote’s serenade, his duet with Dulcinea, the hero’s death) tinged with melancholy. The great melodist’s flowing, refined score creates shimmering lyrical passages throughout this moving journey to the land of beautiful song, an elegy as much as a eulogy of the imagination.
Following on from the resounding success of William Tell, this new production by Bruno Ravella will take us straight into the hero’s dreams and ideals, playing opposite Dulcinea portrayed as a cabaret star, with Laurent Campellone back at the helm of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra (OCL).
First performance February 24, 1910 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Éditions Alphonse Leduc/Heugel/Hamelle
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne
Opéra de Lausanne Choir
Choir Conductor Alessandro Zuppardo
”Presented for the first time and running until 12 October at the Lausanne Opera House, this heroic comedy is enriched with touching humanity thanks to Bruno Ravella’s vision.”
24 Heures, October 8, 2025
“Jules Massenet’s last opera is transported into a world of enchantment and disenchanted celebration by director Bruno Ravella at the Lausanne Opera. A work with a unique tone that touches the audience with its sincerity.”
Le Temps, October 7, 2025
“A little-known work that is sublimated here by both Bruno Ravella’s staging and the excellent vocal cast, including the Lausanne Opera Choir (…) The return of Jules Massenet’s moving, refined, and accessible music to Lausanne is thus a complete success and was warmly applauded on Sunday evening at the premiere.”
RTS, October 7, 2025
“A very beautiful opera. Magnificently performed in Lausanne. We would like to see this production revived and taken from theater to theater…”
Forum Opéra, October 7, 2025
“All in black, white, and red, the show is beautiful and effective.”
ConcertClassic, October 6, 2025
“In Bruno Ravella’s poetic production, victory for Nicolas Courjal, Stéphanie d’Oustrac and Marc Barrard in the three leading roles! As well as for Laurent Campellone, conducting the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in fine form.”
Diapason, October 8, 2025
“With Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte playing to a packed house, the opening of the new season at the Lausanne Opera confirms the good taste of its new director, Claude Cortese, in his approach of presenting works never before performed in Lausanne.”
ResMusica, October 8, 2025
After studying music and philosophy, Laurent Campellone won first prize in the European Community’s international competition for young conductors in 2001. Appointed Music Director of the Saint-Étienne Opera and Symphony Orchestra in 2004, for more than ten years he spearheaded a policy to rediscover the 19th century French lyrical repertoire, conducting rare works by Massenet (Sapho, Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame, Ariane, Le Mage), Gounod (La Reine de Saba, Polyeucte), and Lalo (Le Roi d’Ys), Saint-Saëns (Les Barbares). He was invited to conduct the French Romantic repertoire, comic opera and the great opera repertoire at the Bolshoi, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the operas of Marseille, Toulon, Nantes, Angers, Bordeaux, Bogotá, Madison, as well as at the Berlioz and La Chaise-Dieu festivals. He also performs in concert with the Bavarian Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, the Orchestres nationaux du Capitole de Toulouse et des Pays de la Loire, the Orchestres philharmoniques de Nice, de Radio France, de Malaisie. His recording “Offenbach colorature” won the 2019 Diapason d’or prize and was awarded a Diamant by Opéra Magazine, a Choc by Classica and is included in the Gramophone magazine selection. Since September 2020, Laurent Campellone has been the General Director of the Opéra de Tours, where he has recreated Grétry’s La Caravane du Caire, in collaboration with the Opéra Royal de Versailles. At the Opéra Comique, he conducted Les Mousquetaires au Couvent, Fantasio and Madame Favart.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : Werther (2022)
Nicolas Courjal studied with Jane Berbié and is now continuing his training with Didier Laclau-Barrère. After a stint with the Opéra-Comique and Wiesbaden troupes, he has performed at the Opéra Bastille, the Théâtre du Châtelet and the main French theatres, in Venice, Macerata, Seville, Covent Garden, Japan, the Chorégies d’Orange, Geneva, Monte-Carlo, Lausanne, Moscow, La Scala in Milan and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. He can be heard with Antoine Palloc in recitals. As a soloist, he shares the stage with the great French orchestras, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Orchestra, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductors such as Alain Altinoglu, Serge Baudo, James Conlon, Myung-Whun Chung and Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Michel Plasson, Antonio Pappano, Pascal Rophée, Leonard Slatkin, John Eliott Gardiner, François-Xavier Roth, Raphaël Pichon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marc Minkowski, Mikko Franck, John Nelson and Michael Tilson-Thomas. At the Opéra de Paris, he recently made his mark in Alcina. Nicolas Courjal has appeared in several works in Marseille, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, La Monnaie in Brussels, in Monte-Carlo, Toulouse, Rouen, Strasbourg, Oslo and at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, in the grand roles written by Verdi, Berlioz, Gounod, Massenet, Wagner, Meyerbeer, Boito, or Donizetti.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La sonnambula (2018), Les contes d’Hoffmann (2019).
Franco-Swiss tenor Maxence Billiemaz studies singing at the Haute école de musique in Geneva. He has appeared on stage in roles such as. Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) and Bastien (Bastien et Bastienne). He took part in recordings of Saint-Saëns’s Ascanio at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Erlanger’s La Sorcière at Victoria Hall. He sings as soloist in ensembles such as Cappella Mediterranea, Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, Chœur de Chambre de Na- mur, Orlando and Les Talens Lyriques. He also performs in musicals such as Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (as Bill Calhoun) and John Kander’s Cabaret (as Clifford Bradshaw).
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) and Die Zauberflöte (2024).
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).
Born in Lausanne, Romain Favre started playing music with the violin at the age of six. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in 2019 at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne in the class of Gyula Stuller. In parallel to his activity as a violinist, his passion for vocal art pushed him to study opera singing. In 2020, he was admitted to the Master of Singing program in Brigitte Balleys’ class. During his studies, he also received advice from Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau and Edwin Crossley-Mercer, as well as from director Christof Loy and conductor John Fiore. As a member of the Opéra de Lausanne Choir and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, he works regularly with renowned conductors such as John Nelson, Diego Fasolis, Daniel Reuss and Christophe Rousset. He performs as a soloist at the Rosey Concert Hall and at the Grange au Lac in Evian under the batons of Pieter-Jelle de Boer and Kaspar Zehnder. In November 2023, he will play Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra du Rhône.
Pier-Yves Têtu studied singing with Paul Guigue at the conservatories of Grenoble and Nevers, as well as with Vivianne Zlomke-Dallinges, disciple of Rudolf Knoll, in Geneva. He also studied harmony and counterpoint with François Lusignan, in parallel with classical accordion studies at the André Thépaz Institute in Chambéry. In 2010, he joined the choirs of the Lausanne Opera and the Avenches Opera Festival. Regularly solicited as a soloist or chorister in various oratorio concerts in the Rhône-Alpes region and in Switzerland, he sings under the direction of Michel Corboz, Celso Antunes, Laurent Touche, Emmanuel Krivine, David Reiland, Arie van Beek, Philippe Bérand and Jesús López Cobos. He interprets Menelaus in La belle Hélène, Beppe in Rita ou le mari battu, a brother of Anna in The Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Un ballo in maschera (2010), Les mousquetaires au couvent (2013), Die lustige Wittwe (2014), La Traviata (2015), My fair Lady (2015), La fille du régiment (2016), Lucia di Lammermoor (2017) and La belle Hélène (2019).
Born in Lebanon, Mohamed pursued his musical studies in Switzerland at the Geneva and Lausanne music schools with Marcin Habela and Stephan MacLeod. He made his debut at the Lausanne Opera as Ramirez in La Belle de Cadiz by Francis Lopez. Among the roles he has played on stage: Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Belcore in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore as well as various roles in contemporary opera creations.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La Belle de Cadix (2016), La bohème (2017), Les Contes d’Hoffmann (2019), Doña Francisquita (2020) and Davel (2023)