The
supports the choir of the Opéra de Lausanne
supports the choir of the Opéra de LausanneWhen Tatyana declares her love for Onegin, does she suspect for a moment that he will reject her, preferring to flirt with her sister Olga, to the great displeasure of his friend Lensky? However, Onegin does not realize that by refusing, he reaches the point of no return. And when, a few years later, he is overcome with a powerful admiration when he sees Tatyana again, transformed by her social ascension, it is unfortunately too late. Onegin has no choice but to sink into deep despair.
Pushkin’s novel depicts Russian life from the peaceful countryside of the Urals to the worldly world of Moscow. Tchaikovsky found the material for one of his most popular and powerful works. His music, based on a strong emotional aesthetic, is a kind of individual confession that highlights the tortured feelings of the protagonists.
First performance at the Small Theater of the Imperial College of Music in Moscow, March 29, 1879
supports the choir of the Opéra de LausanneGavriel Heine has conducted in the most important theaters of the world: Royal Opera House of Covent Garden in London, Festspielhaus of Baden-Baden, Teatro Regio of Turin, LAC of Lugano, Bolshoi of Moscow, Bunka Kaitan of Tokyo, Grand Theatre of Tientsin in China, Opera of Dubai, Kennedy Center of Washington… He is the first American graduate of the Moscow Conservatory and one of the last students of Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 2007 he was invited to make his debut at the Mariinsky Theatre, where he has since conducted over 850 performances and concerts until March 2022. His repertoire consists of the greatest operas and ballets: Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte, Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, Verdi’s Macbeth, La forza del destino and Otello, Puccini’s La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Il trittico, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake…
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Eugene Onegin (2022).
Lithuanian-born Kostas Smoriginas is one of today’s most promising bass-baritones. He made his debut at the Berliner Staatsoper as Escamillo (Carmen) and has since performed the role with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle (recorded for EMI Classics), the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Santa Fe Music Festival, the Dresden Semperoper, and with the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Recent successes include debuts at the Opernhaus Zurich and Theater an der Wien, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde at the Cologne Opera and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons at Carnegie Hall, Escamillo in Barrie Kosky’s production and Kasper Holten’s new production at the Bregenz Festival, Heerrufer in David Alden’s new Lohengrin and Tchelakov in a new production of Boris Godunov – all three at Covent Garden -, Figaro in Dresden, the Count in Le nozze di Figaro in Malmö, the title roles of Aleko and the Demon at La Monnaie, and his debut as the High Priest in Samson et Dalila in Vilnius.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Don Giovanni (2017).
Originally from Belarus, Pavel Petrov is the winner of the Operalia 2018 First Prize and the Don Plácido Domingo Ferrer de la Zarzuela Prize. He is also a finalist in the Hans Gabor Belvedere and Reine Sonja international competitions. His engagements include Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at the Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra de Paris, Graz and Semperoper Dresden, Lenski (Eugene Onegin) at Teatro Massimo Palermo, Klagenfurt and Lausanne, Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) at the Paris Opera and in Graz, Pong (Turandot) at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House, Alfredo (La traviata) at the Verona Arena, Ferrando (Così fan tutte) in Australia and Chaplitsky (The Queen of Spades) at the Salzburg Festival. Highlights of his 2023/24 season include Alfredo in Florida and concerts with the Orchestre de Paris, the Spanish National Orchestra, the Washington Symphony Orchestra and London’s Royal Philharmonic conducted by Vasily Petrenko. He was a member of the Belarus Bolshoi Theatre between 2012 and 2016. During the 2015/16 season, he was also a member of the Zurich Opera Studio. He graduated from the Belarusian State Music Academy and studied under Piotr Ridiger. He has taken part in master classes given by Dmitry Vdovin, Adrian Kelly, Hedwig Fassbender and Fabio Luisi.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Eugène Onéguine (2022)
A rising star on the international scene, Moldovan soprano Natalia Tanasii was a finalist in the Queen Sonja Competition and won 2nd prize in the Neue Stimmen 2019 competition. An alumna of the prestigious Zurich Opera Studio and the young ensemble of Den Norske Opera & Ballet, she has been heard on the world’s greatest stages – Opernhaus Zurich, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Norwegian Opera, Glyndebourne… The 2021/22 season saw her debut with the company of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège as Tatyana and at the Frankfurt Opera as Micaëla (Carmen). Future engagements include title roles in new productions at the Opernhaus Zurich and her debut at the Hamburg Opera. Other recent appearances include the Fifth Maid in Elektra in Zurich and at the Salzburg Festival, Mimi at the National Theatre Opera, Zerlina in Zurich and with the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, and the Countess at the Netherlands National Opera.
Born in Russia, Irina Maltseva studied at the Gnessin Academy in Moscow and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She is a laureate of the competitions of Lonigo (Italy), Rostov (Russia), Otto Edelmann in Vienna in 2016 and of the Nuits lyriques de Marmande (France) in 2017. She is a member of the Staatstheater Nuremberg ensemble until the end of the 2021/22 season, where she portrays, among others, Hänsel, Dorabella, Suzuki, Hélène Besuchova (War and Peace), the first viola in Rihm’s Jakob Lenz, Zulma (L’italiana in Algeri), Mercedes, Rossweisse, and the second lady in Zauberflöte. Current and future engagements for 2022/23 include Lucretia (The Rape of Lucretia) and Ramiro (La finta giardiniera) at the Salzburg Mozarteum, Olga and Cherubino in Moscow, concerts in Budapest, La traviata at the Rheinsberg Festival, the Second Lady in Regensburg, Polina (The Queen of Spades) in Riga and Krzystina in Weinberg’s Passagierin in Innsbruck.
Born in Munich, Susanne Gritschneder began her training with Veronika Castiglione. She later joined the class of Elisabeth Glauser at the Bern University of Music, where she obtained her teaching and concert diplomas with honors and furthered her studies in master classes with Brigitte Fassbaender, Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Rieger. Since 2016 she has been living with her family in Lausanne. She made her stage debut at the Stadttheater Freiburg in 2010 in The Cunning Little Vixen. She then played Linette in Prokofiev’s The Love of Three Oranges at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and participated in Heiner Goebbels’ production of John Cage’s Europeras I&II at the Ruhr Triennale 2012. From 2012 to 2018, she was a member of the St. Gallen Theatre company, appearing as Mary in Der fliegende Holländer, Cieca in La Gioconda, Brigitta in Die tote Stadt, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Afra in La Wally, the second and third lady in Die Zauberflöte, Ramiro in La finta giardiniera, Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos, Olga in Eugene Onegin, and Fenena in Nabucco, among others. In 2015/16, she can be heard at the Leipzig Opera as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Flosshilde in Das Rheingold, Schwerleite in Die Walküre, Mother Goose in The Rake’s Progress, the solo viola in Parsifal and the Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Eugene Onegin (2022).
Trained in China, Qiulin Zhang won the grand prize at the Voix lyriques Marmande competition and continued her training at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris with Andréa Guiot and Jacques Doucet. She performed in France, Dublin, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Munich, at the Reiseopera, in Lausanne, at the Avenches Festival, and at La Monnaie in Brussels. But it was at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse that she took part in several landmark productions: Médée, Les contes d’Hoffmann, Das Rheingold, Siegfried and Die Götterdämmerung, Die Frau ohne Schatten, OEdipe, Die Zauberflöte, Les Dialogues des Carmélites. A true contralto, Qiulin Zhang is particularly associated with the role of Erda in Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Capitole (directed by Nicolas Joël), at the Châtelet in Paris (directed by Bob Wilson), at the Opéra Bastille (directed by Günter Krämer). At the Beijing Opera, she interpreted the roles of Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera), Filipievna (Eugene Onegin) and Azucena (Il trovatore). She also participated in a premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Solaris at the Cologne Opera and premiered Bright Cheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber in San Francisco, which she revived at the Hong Kong Festival.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Les contes d’Hoffmann (2019).
Alexandr Bezrukov studied from 2009 to 2011 at the Novosibirsk Conservatory and then from 2011 to 2015 at the Moscow Choral Academy, where he won the Viktor Popov Prize for the best diploma. Winner in November 2013 of the Dvořák competition in Karlovy Vary, he joined the Academy for Young Singers of the Monte-Carlo Opera in 2015, following in parallel the master classes of Laurent Campellone, Corrado Rovaris and Ruggero Raimondi. He made his debut on the Monegasque stage in 2016 in the Great Englishman in Prokofiev’s The Player, and the same at the Mikhailovsky (Michael) Theater in St. Petersburg in Hill from La bohème. In December 2017, he performed in recital on the stage of the Opera Grand Avignon in a Russian and French repertoire. In June 2018, he was one of the soloists in Mozart’s Requiem at the Nice Opera alongside the Klassika Orchestra. At the Mikhailovsky Theater, he was heard as Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Prince Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Don Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), René (Iolanta), the Pharaoh (Aida), Daland (Der fliegende Holländer) and De Brogni (La Juive).
Alexandre Diakoff won first prize for singing in the class of Eric Tappy at the Geneva Conservatory of Music. He regularly performs character roles in opera. He has performed Amida (L’Ormindo), Simone (La finta semplice), Don Magnifico (La Cenerentola), Bartolo (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Bruschino père (Il signor Bruschino), Slook (La cambiale di matrimonio), Benedict (La bohème), the doctor Grenvil (La traviata), the doctor (The Nose), Amantio di Nicolao and Maestro Spinelloccio (Gianni Schicchi). As an oratorio singer, he has interpreted the great works of the repertoire. At the Opéra de Lausanne: Le Chat botté (2009), Monsieur Choufleuri (Route Lyrique 2012), Le Petit Prince (2014), La Cenerentola (2015), My fair Lady (2015), La Fille du régiment (2016), Hamlet (2017), Les Zoocrates (2017), Simon Boccanegra (2018) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
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).
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is young, made up of students of singing from Lausanne’s University of Music and the Geneva HEM, and professional singers. Its members are selected by audition and periodically reheard. For each opera, they are distributed depending on their voice and/or aptitudes. Thanks mainly to their talent on stage, supported by an infectious enthusiasm, they are highly appreciated by all the theatre directors invited. For a few years the choir has benefitted from preparation by several experienced choir masters from different backgrounds, chosen depending on the works being sung and their specific interest.
Born in St. Petersburg, Gleb Skvortsov began his musical studies at the age of seven at the famous Glinka College, before entering the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, from which he graduated with a diploma in choral conducting with distinction. After winning the prestigious Evgeny Mravinsky Prize, he continued his studies at the Geneva Conservatory in the conducting class. In 2001, he was awarded a scholarship from the Cercle romand Richard Wagner. He worked as an assistant to Michel Corboz, Dmitri Kitaïenko, Emmanuel Krivine and Fabio Luisi. Between 1998 and 2008, he directed the Chœur de l’Université de Genève, which during his tenure became one of the most prominent choral groups in Geneva. During the same period, he directed the University of Geneva Orchestra, which he himself founded. He has been the instigator and the artistic and musical director of several opera productions, including the Swiss premieres of the musical Moskva, Shostakovich by Cheriomushki, and The Story of the Pope and his Servant Balda by the same composer, as well as a French version of Nino Rota’s Il cappello di paglia di Firenze – an opera that he was also called upon to conduct, at a moment’s notice and in its original version, at the Opéra de Lausanne. In 2009, he created the Camerata Venia, an orchestral ensemble composed of young musicians of the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which performs regularly in Geneva.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (2006) and Eugene Onegin (2022).
After receiving a grant from the French Ministry of Culture in 1982 and 1983 for training in opera directing, Éric Vigié worked as assistant and director at the Opéra de Nice under Pierre Médecin between 1983 and 1992, and at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence between 1986 and 1990. He has worked with some of the most famous opera directors, including Margarita Wallmann, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Georges Lavaudant, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Pet Halmen, Daniel Mesguich and Nicolas Joel. Since 1991, he has directed over a hundred productions in France and abroad: Opéra de Nice, Festival de Strasbourg, Capitole de Toulouse, Teatro Colón (centenary show in 2008), Teatro Municipal de Santiago del Chile, Teatro de la Zarzuela, Dublin Opera, Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky in St. Petersburg, Buka Kaikan in Tokyo, Opéra Comique, Opéra royal de Wallonie, Kingdom of Bhutan. .. At Madrid’s Teatro Real, he directed and staged the 150th anniversary show in July 2000. From March 1997 to September 2002, Éric Vigié was artistic coordinator and assistant to the General Director of the Teatro Real. From 2002 to 2004, he was the first foreign artistic director to head one of Italy’s twelve national theaters, Teatro Verdi in Trieste. Since July 1, 2005, he has been Director of the Opéra de Lausanne. In 2010, he created the Opéra de Lausanne’s Route Lyrique, and was artistic director of the Avenches Opera Festival from 2011 to 2016.
Working for both opera and theater, Gary McCann has designed sets and costumes for numerous productions around the world. His work has been exhibited three times at the V&A Museum in London. He has designed the sets for Freischütz and Macbeth in Vienna, Die Fledermaus in Oslo, Carmen in Philadelphia and Seattle, La traviata, Madama Butterfly, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Voix humaine, Ariadne auf Naxos, Fidelio… He has also toured the United Kingdom with Three Days in May, Dangerous Corner, The Shawshank Redemption, La Cage aux folles, The Sound of Music, Saturday Night Fever and Cilla the Musical. At the Opéra de Lausanne: La clemenza di Tito (2018) and Anna Bolena (2019).
Jean-Philippe Guilois entered the National School of the Paris Opera in 1997 and then joined the Rudra Béjart School, with which he participated in several shows and international tours. He made his first professional experience with the Compagnie Buissonnière in Parce que je t’aime, presented at the Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne. While multiplying his contracts as a dancer, he was introduced to the world of opera as a stage manager, and then became assistant director for La bohème, Nabucco, Carmen and Madame Butterfly at the Avenches Opera Festival, L’Aiglon and La Traviata at the Opéra de Marseille, Armide and Cendrillon at the Opéra de Nancy, Falstaff at the Opéra de Montpellier. Recently, he created the choreographies of My fair Lady at the Opéra de Marseille, Un ballo in maschera at the Opéra de Nancy and Tannhäuser at the Opéra national de Lyon. He currently devotes himself to the creation of choreographies, plays and stage productions.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Alcina (2011), My fair Lady (2015), La vie parisienne (2016), Don Giovanni (2017), Così fan tutte (2018), Les chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), L’auberge du Cheval Blanc (2019) and Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021), My Fair Lady (2022) and Davel (2023)
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.
Gianfranco Bianchi is a multidisciplinary visual artist. After starting out in Miami creating virtual spaces for architects and illustrators, he began experimenting with other means of storytelling. He collaborated with various artists through the David Lynch Foundation and worked on an animated graphic novel that toured film festivals and illustrated an accompanying comic strip that was published. After working in fashion photography between Miami, New York and Tokyo, he began to merge the digital world with the practical world in which he worked. He worked on projection mapping for live events and directed a short hybrid film that led him into the field of visual effects. Combining the skills he had acquired over the past few years, he was able to work on a number of award-winning animated films, as chief illustrator, animator and creative director on various projects with Kijik Multimedia. His next focus was the interactive medium, and by combining everything he learned, he was able to create interactive experiences based on augmented reality and real-time animation projects. He now creates animations, visual effects and interactive experiences on the Opéra de Lausanne’s mobile app.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Semiramide (2022) et Eugène Onéguine (2022)