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La belle Hélène is the work that confirmed Offenbach’s international renown. The libretto caricatures the conventions of Greek mythology and mocks contemporary society; in addition, you only have to hear the arias once, and they will never leave you again. There was no lack of erotic or political scandal to liven up the creation of this work, guaranteeing it immediate and unfailing success. We are carried away by music that is always new and inventive, interspersed with snapshots: the dream couple of Helen and Paris, the patriotic trio, mimicking Guillaume Tell’s Rossini, the ensemble in “l’homme à la pomme” (the man with the apple) or the waltz of the “vil séducteur” (the vile charmer)… Not forgetting the exquisite humour in the language, including the reunion, the “creases of valour” and the “queen’s lice” as part of the lexical background. In this celebration of Offenbach, we are constantly swinging between laughter and beauty, indulging all our senses in pleasure.
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
First performance at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, December 17, 1864
Editions Heugel & Cie, represented by Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag AG, Zurich
New production of the Opéra de Lausanne
Co-Production with Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, Théâtre national de l’Opéra Comique
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
Pierre Dumoussaud won 1st prize in the ADAMI Talents Chefs d’Orchestre, and the first international competition for opera conductors, organised by the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège. At the Opéra National de Bordeaux he conducted the productions of Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Carlo, The Turn of the Screw and El retablo de maese Pedro (de Falla). He premiered the Concerto for piano by Thomas Enhco in Pau, and the opera La princesse légère by Violeta Cruz at the Lille Opera. Pierre Dumoussaud has conducted the great ballets Roméo et Juliette and Giselle and accompanied several choreographic creations, including El amor brujo, Histoire du soldat, Le festin de l’araignée and Folksongs by Berio. In Europe, he has conducted the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Real Filharmonia de Galicia, the Hungarian State Opera and the big French names such as the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre d’Auvergne, Orchestre National de Lorraine and Orchestre National de Montpellier. He received the Grand Prix du Livre Jeunesse and an award from the Académie Charles Cros for the premiere and its recording with The Orchestre de Chambre de Paris of two of Roald Dahl’s stories, put to music by Isabelle Aboulker and read by François Morel.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
After studying with Yves Pignot and Julie Ravix, Michel Fau enrolled at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in classes with Pierre Vial, Michel Bouquet and Gérard Desarthe. His meeting with Olivier Py was a decisive moment (L’apocalypse joyeuse, The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel, Illusions comiques). In theatre, Michel Fau directed and acted in Le Misanthrope by Molière with Julie Depardieu and Edith Scob, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen with Audrey Tautou, Fleur de cactus et peau de vache by Barillet and Grédy, and his show Névrotik-hôtel. In opera, Michel Fau has directed numerous productions, including Dardanus, Ciboulette, Bastien und Bastienne, Madama Butterfly, Eugène Onéguine, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, Tosca, Le condamné à mort by Philippe Capdenat after Genet. He has worked with directors Juliette Deschamps (Symposium by Plato), Olivier Desbordes (Der Silbersee by Kurt Weill, Dédé by Christiné), Jean Gillibert (Athalie), and Stéphane Braunschweig (The Merchant of Venice). He has also been seen in various films (such as Requiem pour une tueuse, Golden Years, and Marguerite). In 1998 he received the Paris Gérard Philipe Prize and in 2006 the prize for best actor from the Syndicat professionnel de la critique.
Julien Dran discovered singing thanks to his parents, themselves both opera singers. He studied at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux and the CNIPAL in Marseille. After graduating from the latter, he was quickly engaged to sing increasingly important roles such as Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Fenton (Falstaff), Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi). He won the Concours international Gayarre in Pamplona under the presidency of Teresa Berganza in 2013 and, in the same year, the Prix de l’Opéra de Paris at the Salle Gaveau in the male singer category. He has performed in France and abroad in Les Pêcheurs de perles, Fra Diavolo (where he played the title role), L’italiana in Algeri (Lindoro), Béatrice et Bénédict (Benedict) and Carlotta ou la Vaticane (Tiberius), a world premiere by Dominique Gesseney-Rappo at the Opéra de Fribourg. Among the highlights of his last seasons: Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) in Marseille, Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) in Quebec, the title role in Gounod’s Faust and Alfredo (La traviata) at the opera houses of Marseille, Toulouse, Vichy and Limoges, the Viceroy of Naples in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Le Soulier de satin at the Opéra Bastille and Mireille at the Opéra de Metz.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La Belle Hélène (2019), L’Auberge du Cheval-Blanc (2021) and My Fair Lady (2022).
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
After studying with Yves Pignot and Julie Ravix, Michel Fau enrolled at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in classes with Pierre Vial, Michel Bouquet and Gérard Desarthe. His meeting with Olivier Py was a decisive moment (L’apocalypse joyeuse, The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel, Illusions comiques). In theatre, Michel Fau directed and acted in Le Misanthrope by Molière with Julie Depardieu and Edith Scob, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen with Audrey Tautou, Fleur de cactus et peau de vache by Barillet and Grédy, and his show Névrotik-hôtel. In opera, Michel Fau has directed numerous productions, including Dardanus, Ciboulette, Bastien und Bastienne, Madama Butterfly, Eugène Onéguine, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, Tosca, Le condamné à mort by Philippe Capdenat after Genet. He has worked with directors Juliette Deschamps (Symposium by Plato), Olivier Desbordes (Der Silbersee by Kurt Weill, Dédé by Christiné), Jean Gillibert (Athalie), and Stéphane Braunschweig (The Merchant of Venice). He has also been seen in various films (such as Requiem pour une tueuse, Golden Years, and Marguerite). In 1998 he received the Paris Gérard Philipe Prize and in 2006 the prize for best actor from the Syndicat professionnel de la critique.
Trained in theater, the French baritone Lacassagne played for seven years the classical and contemporary repertoire: Molière, Ionesco, Tardieu, Marivaux… Following his prize from the Paris Conservatory, he was hired for five years in the soloist company of the National Opera of Lyon. He made his debut with Papageno and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro. Since then, he has performed on international stages such as La Monnaie in Brussels, the Opéra Comique in Paris, the Bunkamura in Tokyo and La Scala in Milan. He has worked with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Peter Eötvös, Paolo Olmi, David Robertson, and directors such as Klaus Mikael Grubber, Tamas Asscher, Michel Fau, Jean-Pierre Vincent and Robert Carsen. Christophe Lacassagne has performed more than sixty operatic roles, including the Count of Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Escamillo, Falstaff, the Four Devils of The Tales of Hoffmann, Macbeth and Rigoletto (title roles).
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La belle Hélène (2019).
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).
Having studied under Blandine de Saint-Sauveur and Leontina Vaduva, Hoël Troadec recently completed his training at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne. He has already taken on many roles, such as Nathanaël (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Beppe (Rita), Silvio (Le Docteur Miracle), Benedict (Béatrice et Bénédict), Gardefeu (La Vie parisienne), the Chevalier de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites), Paris (La Belle Hélène), Roland (Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde), Schmidt (Werther), Tonio (La Fille du régiment) and Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore). His roles have taken him to prestigious stages such as the Bregenzer Festspiele, the Opéra de Massy, the Opéra de Clermont-Ferrand, the Opéra de Vichy, the Opéra de Lausanne and, recently, the Opéra de Lyon.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), La Belle Hélène (2019), Le Petit Chaperon rouge (2021), Candide (2022), and L’Île de Tulipatan (Route Lyrique 2023)
Of Lebanese origin, Marie Daher studied the oud and oriental classical singing in Beirut, while completing a degree in education. In France since 1999, she began classical music studies and obtained a diploma in opera singing and interpretation from the Conservatoire de Besançon, as well as a prize for perfection. Winner of the Concours supérieur interrégional, she is regularly invited to collaborate with choirs and orchestras in French-speaking Switzerland, France, Poland and Lebanon. She has recently sung under the direction of the Argentinean composer Martin Palmeri in his Misatango and the Lebanese composer Wassim Soubra in his Beirut Oratorio. She has been a member of the Opéra de Lausanne Choir since 2013. She often organizes her own recitals, where she unites the West and the East, performing opera arias, lieder and French melodies as well as works from the Arabic repertoire.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La fille du régiment (2016), La belle Hélène (2019), My fair Lady (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).
A Franco-Italian mezzo-soprano born in Milan, Béatrice Nani joined Brigitte Balleys’ class at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne in 2014, graduating with a Master of Singing in 2019. She is currently perfecting her vocal skills with Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet. Passionate about theater, she trained with Gaëlle Bourgeois and Fiona Chauvin in Paris, and received invaluable advice from Thierry Pillon, Jean-Yves Ruf and Shin Iglesias. In 2016, she made her Geneva debut, creating the role of Ella Maillart in Guy-François Leuenberger’s Le Ruisseau noir at the Théâtre du Grütli. She then played Lois in Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate at the Théâtre du Galpon. She was also heard in Bottesini’s Requiem at the Victoria Hall. In 2022, she made her French debut as La Mère in Guy-François Leuenberger’s contemporary children’s opera Le Petit Chaperon rouge at the Opéra de Tours. In 2023, she sings the title role in Bizet’s Carmen on tour in Switzerland. In the 2023/24 season, she is Mercedes in Carmen and Didon in Dido and Aeneas. She can also be heard in Palmeri’s Misa a Buenos Aires and in concert with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne conducted by Marc Leroy-Calatayud. A committed artist, she founded the Les Rocambolantes company with pianist Émilie Roulet, and is involved in a number of performance and mediation projects for young audiences and the disadvantaged. The show Mimi and the Blondies, which she staged with soprano Anne-Sophie Petit, won the Lavaux Classic prize.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La Vie Parisienne (2016), Le Chanteur de Mexico (2017), Cendrillon (2018), Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021), Candide (2022), Orphée aux Enfers (2023).
Trained for acting at the E.N.S.A.T.T and the Ecole Florent, Richard Lahady also studied singing. He made his debut at the Saint-Etienne Opera and, in the same city, participated in the Massenet Festival. In recent years, the Opéra de Lausanne has offered him numerous roles. He was heard as Langlois in Les Mousquetaires au couvent at the Opéra Comique. He also regularly participates in productions of the Opéra de Paris and the Opéra de Lyon, as well as in numerous French and Swiss festivals.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Die lustige Wittwe (2014), My fair Lady (2015), La vie parisienne (2016), Le chanteur de Mexico (2017), Les chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), La belle Hélène (2019) and Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021).
Jean-Raphaël Lavandier has a degree in Musicology and holds a DEM in Singing and Choral Conducting in Savoie. He taught singing for 8 years before giving up teaching to join the choir of the Opéra de Lausanne. Since 2009, he has been doing all the seasons both as a chorister and for the small roles entrusted to him.
Nevertheless, he remains attached to the direction of vocal ensembles with Muances and its 17 singers, revisiting the choral repertoire with them in an unique way.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : Bogdanovitch in La veuve joyeuse (2014), Harry in My Fair Lady (2015), A Corporal in La fille du régiment (2016), L’hôtelier in Manon (2014), Alessio in La sonnambula (2018).
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.
Jacques Blanc studied the piano at the Conservatoire National de Marseille, and orchestra conducting with Jésus Etcheverry. He began as a singing master then became choir master at the Nantes and Strasbourg Operas. He supported Jeffrey Tate and George Prêtre, before becoming a conductor himself in Bordeaux, Montpellier, Limoges, Nice and Nantes. Between 1986 and 1988 he was director of vocal studies at the CNIPAL national opera centre in Marseille. From 1999 to 2010, he became the permanent chorus master and director of vocal studies of the Opéra National de Bordeaux, and contributed to performances such as Turandot, Carmen and La Bohème. He now devotes himself to conducting and the study of repertoire with young singers to guide them in their careers. He recently conducted La Traviata while on tour with the Opéra en Plein Air. At the Opéra de Lausanne: Die Zauberflöte (1991) assisting Armin Jordan; Phi-Phi (2014) and La belle de Cadix (2016) as conductor; Manon (2014), Die lustige Witwe (2014), My Fair Lady (2015), Les mamelles de Tirésias (2016), La vie parisienne (2016), La Bohème, Hamlet and Lucia di Lammermoor (2017), Die Fledermaus (2018) as chorus master.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
After studying with Yves Pignot and Julie Ravix, Michel Fau enrolled at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in classes with Pierre Vial, Michel Bouquet and Gérard Desarthe. His meeting with Olivier Py was a decisive moment (L’apocalypse joyeuse, The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel, Illusions comiques). In theatre, Michel Fau directed and acted in Le Misanthrope by Molière with Julie Depardieu and Edith Scob, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen with Audrey Tautou, Fleur de cactus et peau de vache by Barillet and Grédy, and his show Névrotik-hôtel. In opera, Michel Fau has directed numerous productions, including Dardanus, Ciboulette, Bastien und Bastienne, Madama Butterfly, Eugène Onéguine, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, Tosca, Le condamné à mort by Philippe Capdenat after Genet. He has worked with directors Juliette Deschamps (Symposium by Plato), Olivier Desbordes (Der Silbersee by Kurt Weill, Dédé by Christiné), Jean Gillibert (Athalie), and Stéphane Braunschweig (The Merchant of Venice). He has also been seen in various films (such as Requiem pour une tueuse, Golden Years, and Marguerite). In 1998 he received the Paris Gérard Philipe Prize and in 2006 the prize for best actor from the Syndicat professionnel de la critique.