A resounding success that Lausanne’s University of Music (HEMU) hopes to meet with again this year in 2019. This lyric song competition continues in memory of Claire and Willy Kattenburg, who were great friends of the arts and music lovers, and supports the HEMU’s talents and alumni. Directed by American John Fiore, the HEMU orchestra will again accompany the finalists, who will have 20 minutes to convince the jury and audience with two opera arias from different periods. The winner of this second edition will be made known on the same evening, after over a month of intense emotion experienced by the candidates; the public will have the opportunity to discover the participants at the semi-final on the 27th and 28th of September, 2019 at the BCV Concert Hall (Flon).
2017 Winners
At the end of the Kattenburg Competition final, organised for the first time on October 5, 2017 at the Opéra de Lausanne, the Swiss mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti, holder of a Master of Arts degree in solo music performance from the HEMU, was awarded 1st prize. The 2nd and 3rd prizes were awarded to the Belgian-Indian soprano Turiya Haudenhuyse and to the French soprano Laurène Paternò.
The Swiss baritone studied at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in the class of Frédéric Gindraux, before moving to London to work with Prof. Rudolf Piernay at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he obtained an Artist Diploma with distinction. He also worked with Dame Felicity Lott, François Le Roux, Eugene Asti and Graham Johnson, whom he assisted in his latest book on the life of Francis Poulenc, “Poulenc: The Life in the Songs”, published by Liveright. He sings several roles for the Opéra de Lausanne, including the title role in Christiné’s operetta Dédé, Melchior in Menotti’s Amahl et les Visiteurs du Soir, Maximilian in Bernstein’s Candide, and Urbain in Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne. He also creates recitals for children and a workshop during the Lausanne Youth Olympic Games in 2020. He is also heard singing Weill’s Berliner Requiem during the exceptional concert of the Opera Choir. He has worked for the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra) on several occasions (Discovery Day on the music of Michael Tippett, soloist for Haydn’s Nelson Mass or curator of a recital in the series “Future: the musical voices of our time”), the BBC (“Immersion in the music of Detlev Glanert”) or the Wigmore Hall (study groups on the vocal music of Schumann, Ravel, a recital of contemporary music and a recital of French melodies). 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 and return regularly to perform. The singer, a Samling Foundation Artist, is awarded the title of Ambassador of Melody by the Oxford Lieder Festival for the year 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. He participated in the final of the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Competition in London and was also a finalist of the Young Classical Artist Trust in 2022. He won the English Song Prize in 2020, Second Prize and Audience Prize at the Kattenburg Competition in 2019, Third Prize and all Special Prizes in 2022, and Second Prize at the Somerset Song Prize. Future engagements include SongStudio 2023 at Carnegie Hall in New York with Renée Fleming, a recital series in England and Canada with pianist Cole Knutson for the Oxford Lieder Festival, the role of Maximilian in Bernstein’s Candide at the Opéra de Lausanne, and a revival of My Fair Lady.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: My fair Lady (2015), La Belle de Cadix (Route Lyrique 2016), L’Orfeo (2016), La vie parisienne (2016), Amahl et les visiteurs du soir (2017), Les chevaliers de la table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021) and Candide (2022).
Cécile Houillon est diplômée d’un Master en Interprétation musicale à l’HEMU auprès de Brigitte Balleys et d’une licence en Socio-économie des territoires de l’Université de Sciences Economiques d’Aix-en-Provence. Elle interprète de nombreux rôles tels que la Princesse dans Le Chat Botté de Cui, Miss Jessel dans Turn of the Screw de Britten, Ulana dans Manru de Paderewski, ainsi que la Première Dame dans La Flûte enchantée de Mozart.
En 2016, elle participe à l’émission radiophonique « Des Masters sur les Ondes » en direct sur RTS-Espace 2 où elle chante des extraits de L’Ombra de Bottacchiari avant d’incarner le rôle-titre du même opéra à Bienne puis, avec orchestre, à l’occasion du festival Va Jouer Dehors! à Cheverny, en France. Elle interprète les Rückertlieder de Mahler avec orchestre au Konzerthaus de Berlin et elle fait la clôture du festival Les ArtScènes de Nantes. Elle est finaliste du Concours International de Chant de Mâcon, en France, de Città di Magenta en Italie, ainsi que de la sélection de l’Opera Studio à Rome. Enfin, elle reçoit le Prix jeune public lors de la première édition du Concours Kattenburg en 2017.
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).
After a bachelor’s degree in Italian, Laurène Paternò entered the Haute école de musique de Lausanne and obtained a master’s degree as a soloist in 2019. In this context, she participates in a Swiss musical creation given in Rio de Janeiro on the occasion of the 2016 Olympic Games. She also performed the roles of Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro). She then made her debut as Serpina (La serva padrona) in an Opéra de Lausanne production given in Bhutan in 2018. She performed at the Nouvel Opéra de Fribourg as Sofiya, Yelena and a KGB agent in Russell Hepplewhite’s Laika, the Dog in Space. In 2020, she is part of the program of the Opéra Comique de Paris for a revival of Laika, the Dog in Space. She is also Fille-Fleur in Parsifal at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2021, and Mélusine in a revival of Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde at the Opéra Grand Avignon. She made her debut in 2022 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and at the Théâtre de Caen in the role of Despina (Così fan tutte), a new production by Laurent Pelly and Emmanuelle Haïn, as well as at the Glyndebourne Festival to double the role of Thérèse in Les mamelles de Tirésias by Poulenc (directed by Laurent Pelly). She won the 1st prize in the Kattenburg competition at the Opéra de Lausanne in 2019 and the 2nd prize in the Corsica Lirica competition in 2021.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La serva padrona (Bouthan 2018), Les chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), La belle Hélène (2020) and Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021).
Mezzo-soprano Julia Deit-Ferrand trained at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne, where she obtained a soloist’s master’s degree from Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet and a master’s degree in interpretation from Hiroko Kawamichi. At the Grand Théâtre de Genève, she performed the title role in a French adaptation of La Cenerentola, the Mezzo in Der goldene Drache by Péter Eötvös, and Bianca in the young audience creation Rosa Bianca to music by Donizetti. She played Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) under the direction of Leonardo García Alarcón and, at the Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Le Nain Chouquette and Un Animal (Snow White by Marius-Felix Lange), as well as Chérubin (Sholololo!). In the musical comedy repertoire, she plays Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Fantine in Les Misérables and Hattie in Kiss Me, Kate. She puts contemporary creation and performative art forms at the heart of her research, and practices sassy, a style born of urban dance with Lausanne choreographer Daya Jones. She created Laissez durer la nuit, a project based on traditional Turkish and Greek songs and baroque pieces. She performs at L’Arsenic in Lausanne in Louis Bonard’s performance L’Apocalypse, with music by Nicholas Stücklin. She won the young audience prize and the prize for best contemporary interpretation at the Kattenburg competition, and is a laureate of the Fritz Bach Foundation. She won 3rd prize at the Concours international Léopold Bellan in Paris and was a finalist in the Voix Nouvelles competition in Switzerland in 2018. She holds a master’s degree in sociology from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III). This season, she has just made her debut at Opéra du Rhin in Simon Steen-Andersen’s Don Giovanni’s Inferno (world premiere), as part of the Musica festival, and at Opéra d’Avignon in Die Zauberflöte (Papagena). Future projects include the title role in Handel’s Lotario, Cherubino and a world premiere role.
At Opéra de Lausanne: Le Domino noir (2023)
Born into a musical family in New York, John Fiore entered the professional music world at the Seattle Opera at the age of 14. Here he gained an excellent reputation as a pianist and coach, including the annual repeat performance of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen. He continued his studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and went on to become one of the most sought-after assistants for the three major opera companies in North America: the San Fracisco Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Met in New York. Taking the musical direction of Gounod’s Faust in 1986 at the San Francisco Opera marked the beginning of his career as a conductor. This was followed by numerous invitations to conduct in North America, Europe and Australia, including the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Semperoper in Dresden, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Royal Swedish Opera and the Grand Théâtre de Genève. From 1999 to 2009 he was Principal Conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, working with the companies of the two neighbouring Rhine cities of Düsseldorf and Duisburg. In addition to this position, he is also Music Director of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker. From 2009 to 2015 he was also the artistic and musical director of the Norske Opera & Ballett. In the symphonic realm, he has distinguished himself at the helm of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.