When Mozart proposed to librettist Da Ponte in 1786 that they adapt Beaumarchais ‘The Marriage of Figaro, the piece had already been the subject of much controversy in France and in Austria. The libretto was created in secret and completed in just six weeks, and, thanks to the influence of Da Ponte, it received the emperor’s endorsement despite Beaumarchais’ satirical attacks on the feudal society of the time.
“At the end of the opera, I thought that the spectators would not stop applauding and calling for Mozart. All the numbers were encored, which made the performance last almost as long as two operas. Never was there more complete triumph than of Mozart and his Nozze di Figaro.” The same can be said to this day.”
First performance at the Burgtheater in Vienna, May 1, 1786
Published by Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel
supports the choir of the Opéra de LausanneThe works of Richard Wagner are an essential part of Frank Beermann’s repertoire. His performances of Tristan und Isolde, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Der fliegende Holländer as part of the “Minden Wagner” projects have been enthusiastically received by the local and international press. During the years 2015-2019, Frank Beermann conducted no fewer than 36 performances of the four operas in the famous Tetralogy. In recent years, he has devoted himself more intensively to the great symphonic works of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and, in particular, Anton Bruckner. He was soon able to add the “completed” 9th Symphony, including its reconstructed 4th movement, to his repertoire. Over the past ten years, he has conducted complete cycles of symphonic works by Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Mahler (with the exception of the Eighth) and Strauss, as well as the complete Mozart piano concertos with Matthias Kirschnereit and the Bamberger Sinfonikern; he is currently working on the complete Mozart symphonies in a new concert series for the Hamm Klassiksommer, with performances spread over several years. From 2007 to 2016, Frank Beermann was Generalmusik-direktor of the Chemnitz Theater and Principal Conductor of the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie. Recent engagements include debuts at the helm of the Athens National Orchestra and London Philharmonia, as well as in the pits of Essen’s Aalto-Musiktheater and Stuttgart’s Staatstheater. In January 2020, he made his highly successful debut at the Capitole de Toulouse, where he conducted a new production of Parsifal. A new production of Elektra brings him back to the same venue in June 2021, with the same success. His plans for the 2023/24 season include Parsifal in Minden and Die Frau ohne Schatten in Toulouse.
At Opéra de Lausanne:
Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (2014), La bohème (2017), Die Fledermaus (2018), Ariadne auf Naxos (2019) et Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
The American filmmaker is like his films: rich, complex, thoughtful, desperate, but passionate about the human being, his flaws and cracks. The quest for identity and filiation are at the heart of his filmography, often tinged with melancholy. Among his great films: La nuit nous appartient (2007), Two Lovers (2008), The Immigrant (2013). A remarkable director, he tackles all genres and his cinema is acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival as well as at the Venice Film Festival. Influenced by the work of Coppola, the American cinema of the 60s and 70s and post-war European cinema (Fellini, Visconti, the New Wave), he is also a director who has a strong sense of humor.
New Wave), he is also a fan of 19th century Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) and the English classics (Shakespeare). Le nozze di Figaro is the first opera he directed.
Born in Moldova, Valentina Nafornita is one of the most successful sopranos of her generation. Shortly after graduating from the National University of Music in Bucharest, she won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, which launched her international career. As a member of the young ensemble of the Vienna State Opera, she was able to develop a vast repertoire: Musetta (La bohème), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Norina (Don Pasquale), Zerlina, (Don Giovanni), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Najade (Ariadne auf Naxos), Clorinda (La Cenerentola) and Oscar (Un ballo in maschera). This repertoire has evolved with her debut as Iolanta (Tchaikovsky) at the Opéra Garnier, as well as her roles as Desdemona (Otello), Luisa Miller, Maria (Simon Boccanegra) and Mimi (La bohème). Her international career has taken her to the Paris Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, among others. She works regularly with prestigious conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Adám Fischer, Louis Langrée, Franz Welser-Möst and Simone Young. His debut album “Romance”, released in 2020 by Alpha, has received critical acclaim. Among the highlights of her 2022/23 season: her return to the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with a performance as Micaela (Carmen) and her debut as Mimi (La bohème) at the Berlin Staatsoper.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Così fan tutte (2019) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
Canadian baritone, Phillip Addis is known for his “agile and expressive voice” and his “athletic command of the stage”. As one of his most frequently performed roles, Count Almaviva has taken Phillip to the stages of Semperoper Dresden, Opéra de Montréal, Vancouver Opera and Florida Grand Opera, among others. He will soon reprise the role at the Opéra Royal de Versailles. Also recognized as the ideal Pelléas of his generation, he has just reprised the role at the Teatro Regio di Parma, having previously sung it at the BBC Proms, the Staatsoper Hamburg, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, and the Opéra Comique de Paris. His other principal roles include Don Giovanni, Billy Budd, Eugene Onegin and Figaro (Rossini), as well as Marcello in La bohème, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and Jaufré Rudel in L’Amour de loin. Phillip balances his operatic career with extensive concert experience, including Britten’s War Requiem with the Cincinnati May Festival and the Britten LA/100 Festival, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Quebec City and Phoenix Symphony Orchestras, and Carmina Burana with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Phillip often gives recitals accompanied by pianist Emily Hamper, with whom he is also Artistic Director of the Stratford Summer Music Vocal Academy.
Born in Rome, Arianna Vendittelli is a graduate of the Conservatorio Antonio Buzzolla in Adria. She made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in the role of Carmi (Mozart’s La Betulia liberata), conducted by Riccardo Muti. Particularly attached to the Mozart repertoire, she was Zerlina (Don Giovanni) at the Spoleto Festival and Donna Elvira in Beaune and Bremen under Jérémie Rhorer. In Così fan tutte, she sang Fiordiligi in several Italian theaters, and Despina at Turin’s Teatro Regio. She is acclaimed for her interpretations of Rossini in the title role of Ermione and as Amaltea (Mosè in Egitto) at Naples’ San Carlo. Renowned for her work in the Baroque repertoire, Arianna Vendittelli’s most notable roles include Salome in Stradella’s San Giovanni Battista with Vacláv Luks. She sang Hasse’s Semele at Theater an der Wien, Minerva (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) in an Ottavio Dantone/Robert Carsen production in Florence. She brought to life Amantio (Vivaldi’s Il Giustino) conducted by Ottavio Dantone and L’Ange (Pergolesi’s La conversione di San Guglielmo d’Aquitania) with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset. Her solo album of Vivaldi’s soprano cantatas, published in the Naïve Vivaldi edition, was named by the New York Times as one of the “five classical music albums to listen to right now”. Recent and future engagements include the role of Giovanna (Anna Bolena) in a new production by Diego Fasolis/Carmelo Rifici in Lugano, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Piacenza, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) at the Opéra Royal de Versailles and Angelica (Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso) in Ferrara and Modena.
At Opéra de Lausanne: Il Giustino (2019) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021)
Canadian bass-baritone Robert Gleadow continues to make his mark on opera stages around the world after graduating from the Royal Opera House Covent Garden’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme and the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. His performances at the Houston Grand Opera as Talbot in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda with Joyce DiDonato under the direction of Patrick Summers have been highly praised by critics. Most of his engagements are dedicated to Mozart, a repertoire for which he is widely acclaimed. Highlights of his past seasons include appearances at the Auckland Opera, the Opéra de Paris and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Lausanne Opera and the Bremen Music Festival. The critics readily acknowledge his total physical commitment to his roles and his magnetic theatricality, especially as he makes his voice stand out. He has a powerful, expressive, easy vocal style.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Così fan tutte (2018) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
Spotted at the age of 20 by William Christie, Lea Desandre joined the Jardin des Voix in 2015. She was named “Revelation Lyric Artist” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2017. She has been noticed in many roles such as, Urbain (Les Huguenots) at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Despina (Così fan tutte) at the Salzburg Festival. Very attached to chamber music, she regularly performs in concert with Thomas Dunford and his Ensemble Jupiter. Her discography includes “Barricades” with Jean Rondeau (Erato/2020), “Vivaldi” with Ensemble Jupiter (Alpha/2019), “Handel Italian Cantatas” with Sabine Devieilhe and Emmanuelle Haïm/Le Concert d’Astrée (Erato/2018), “Berenice che fai” (Aparté) with Opera Fuoco or “Cities” with Thibault Cauvin (Sony/2018). Released in September 2021, her first CD “Amazone” is published by Erato/Warner Classics.
Lucia Cirillo began her career by winning several competitions such as ASLICO and the prestigious Toti dal Monte International Competition. Her rich and unique voice has taken her to the most important theaters, festivals and concert halls in Europe: Salzburg Festival, La Scala in Milan, Paris Opera, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Chopin Festival in Warsaw, Glyndebourne Festival, Mozart Festival in A Coruña, La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro Regio in Turin, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Real in Madrid, Vlaamse Oper in Antwerp. .. She has worked with world-renowned conductors such as Fabio Biondi, Sylvain Cambreling, Ottavio Dantone, Diego Fasolis, Daniele Gatti, Vladimir Jurowski, Alexander Lazarev, and directors such as Robert Carsen, Fabio Ceresa, Gilbert Deflo, Sir Peter Hall, Davide Livermore and Pier Luigi Pizzi. She has recorded important audio and video projects for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Opus Arte and Naïve (The Vivaldi Edition). With Diego Fasolis, she has performed the roles of Alcina (Orlando furioso), Elmiro (Dorilla in Tempe), Caio (Ottone in villa) and Berenice (Farnace) by Vivaldi.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Dorilla in Tempe (2014), Don Giovanni (2017) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
Rubén Amoretti honed his musical skills in Switzerland and the United States with his teachers Dennis Hall, Carlos Montané and Nicolai Gedda. He has won prizes in various international competitions in Spain, Bloomington and Palermo. His intense career has taken him to the stages of New York, Bern, Moscow, Zurich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Geneva, Palm Beach, Paris, Prague, Mexico City, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. He has worked with great conductors, including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Anton Guadagno, Marcello Viotti, Nello Santi, Zubin Mehta, Alberto Zedda, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Ramón Tebar, Karel Mark Chichon, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Miquel Ortega, Óliver Díaz and Giuseppe Sabbatini. His repertoire includes the main bass roles: Mesphistopheles (Faust), Don Giovanni and Leporello (Don Giovanni), Mustafá (L’italiana in Algeri), Filippo II (Don Carlos), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Ferrando (Il trovatore), Sparafucile (Rigoletto), Colline (La bohème), Scarpia (Tosca), Capulet (Romeo and Juliet) and Balthazar (La favorita). His interest in the Spanish opera repertoire for which he is regularly invited to sing at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid is particularly noteworthy. In recent seasons he has sung Escamillo in Naples with Zubin Mehta and Mustafá at the Metropolitan in New York. In 2021, Rubén Amoretti performed in Falla’s La tempranica and La vida breve at the Teatro de la Zarzuela and in Rigoletto in San Sebastian. He has just made his debut at La Scala in Milan in Andrea Chénier.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Rigoletto (2005), Pan y Toros (2009), Don Giovanni (2017) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
Born in Cordoba, Andalusian tenor Pablo García López began his vocal studies at his hometown conservatory with tenor Juan Luque. He went on to perfect his vocal skills at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Plácido Domingo Advanced Training Center at the Palacio de las Artes in Valencia. He completed his training in Berlin with John Norris. In recent years, he has made acclaimed appearances on Spain’s main stages, leading to international debuts at opera houses such as the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, the Opéra Royal de Muscat, the Palais des Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia and the Capitole de Toulouse. He has collaborated with Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly, Jesús López Cobos and Omer Meir Wellber, among others. In the 2023/24 season, he reprises the role of Pedro in Jesús Torres’ contemporary opera Tránsito in Valencia, which he premiered in Madrid in 2021, portrays Paco Vegellana in Marisa Machado’s La Regenta at Madrid’s Teatro Real, and performs baroque repertoire in concert with the Forma Antiqva ensemble at the Santander Festival, as well as Spanish songs with the orchestra of his native Cordoba. His fresh, delicately expressive voice naturally associates him with the Mozartean repertoire: he was Ferrando in Così fan tutte at Málaga’s Teatro Cervantes, Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at Córdoba’s Gran Teatro, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at Oviedo Opera. In summer 2022, he performed the role of the First Senator in Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian at the Teatro Real and the Castell de Peralada Festival. His first solo album entitled “Rutas” with pianist Aurelio Viribay was released in 2020, featuring 20th-century Spanish melodies. Her discography also includes Turandot conducted by Zubin Mehta (Decca), La bohème conducted by Riccardo Chailly (Accentus) and Lorenzo Palomo’s Sinfonía Córdoba conducted by Jesús López Cobos (Naxos).
At Opéra de Lausanne: La Traviata (2015) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021)
After completing his vocal studies at the Lausanne Conservatory and the Guildhall School in London, François Piolino, a Swiss tenor born in Basel, obtained a Premier Prix at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. He has been working on his voice for many years with the tenor Guy Flechter. A first career in baroque music, mainly with William Christie, allowed him to acquire a solid foundation for the rest of his career, which was oriented towards opera. Specialized in character roles, he travels the world, performing on the greatest stages: Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Amsterdam, La Monnaie, Glyndebourne Festival, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Opéras National Lyon, Opéra National de Lorraine (Nancy), Opéra National du Rhin, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Grand Théâtre de Genève. Among the roles he has performed are Don Basilio (Le nozze di Figaro), Goro (Butterfly), Caius (Falstaff), Pang (Turandot), and Monsieur Triquet (Eugene Onegin), not to mention Billy Budd’s Novice, in which he has been particularly successful at the Opéra Bastille. Thanks to his perfect command of German, François Piolino is very comfortable in roles such as the Jews (Salome), Mr. Mole (Capriccio), Scaramuccio (Ariadne auf Naxos), or Monostatos (Die Zauberflöte), one of his favorite roles which he has sung more than 80 times throughout the world. Future engagements include Salome at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Falstaff in Montpellier, Die Fledermaus in Nantes, Angers and Avignon, as well as concerts with L’Heure espagnole in Tel Aviv.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Scaramuccio (Ariadne auf Naxos) 2019.
After a bachelor’s degree with Brigitte Balleys at the HEMU, Sophie Negoïta completed her master’s degree with Barbara Bonney at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She made her debut as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and Mrs. Coyle (Owen Wingrave by Britten). Under the direction of Philippe Huttenlocher, the Swiss-Romanian singer sang Cupid in Venus and Adonis, Venus in The British Worthy and Quivera in The Indian Queen.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
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 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.
Pascal Mayer conducts the Pro Arte Choir of Lausanne, the Chamber Choir of the University of Fribourg and the Collegium Musicum of Lucerne. For a long time he was in charge of teaching music at the Collège Sainte-Croix in Fribourg, and today he teaches choral conducting at the Hoch-schule-Musik in Lucerne. With his various ensembles, he explores the great works, from Monteverdi’s Vespers and Bach’s Mass in B to Britten’s War Requiem and Favre’s Requiem. He has also premiered numerous new works (Mettraux, Charrière, Michel, Haselbach, Rütti, Flury). Pascal Mayer collaborates regularly with the OCL, the OCF, the Sinfonietta de Lausanne as well as with early music ensembles. He regularly prepares choirs for the Opéra de Lausanne and for Lyrica in Neuchâtel.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Ariodante (2006), Don Giovanni (2017), Die Zauberflöte (2015), La Clemenza di Tito (2018), Così fan tutte (2018).
SANTO LOQUASTO (Set and Costume Design) made his LA Opera debut designing both sets and costumes for Gianni Schicchi, most recently performed at La Scala. His work for the Metropolitan Opera includes Luisa Miller, Faust, Salome and A View From the Bridge. His Broadway credits include Hello, Dolly! (Tony Award for costume design); Cafe Crown (Tony for set design); The Cherry Orchard (Tony for costume design); Grand Hotel (Tony for costume design); and has received an additional 19 Tony Award nominations. He has collaborated with Woody Allen on over 30 films, including Radio Days (Academy Award nomination for production design), Bullets Over Broadway (Academy Award nomination for production design) and Zelig (Academy Award nomination for costume design). He has worked with most major international dance companies and has collaborated with Mark Morris, Jerome Robbins, Agnes de Mille, James Kudelka, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2004, and received the Governor’s Award for the Arts in 2006, and the Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. He is a graduate of King’s College and Yale Drama School.
Born in Arles in 1951, and after studying art history, Christian Lacroix turned to the stage, his childhood dream, after a long detour in the world of haute couture (1980 to 2009), which he undertook at the same time as his work as a costume and set designer for the theatre, opera and ballet, at the Opéra Garnier, the Monnaie in Brussels, the Comédie-Française, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Bouffes du Nord, the Metropolitan in New York, the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra Comique, the Capitole in Toulouse, as well as the opera houses of Strasbourg, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Graz, St. Gallen, Frankfurt and Salzburg. He was awarded the Molière for costume design for Phèdre in 1996 and for Cyrano de Bergerac in 2007. In parallel, he developed an activity as an industrial designer (TGV Atlantique, tramways in Montpellier) and as an exhibition designer. In 2021, with La vie parisienne, he embarked on his first opera production, in collaboration with Laurent Delvert, director, Romain Gilbert, author of numerous productions, and Glyslein Lefever, choreographer. In 2022, he designed the sets and costumes for Cinderella at the Stockholm Opera.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : Le nozze di Figaro (2021) and Werther (2022).
Bertrand Couderc creates the lighting for numerous shows, both in the theater and in the opera. In this field, he collaborates with the greatest stages in the world, such as the Berlin Staastoper, the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Bolshoi of Moscow, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan and the Vienna Opera. A regular guest at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, he has performed in Prokofiev’s The Love of Three Oranges, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Patrice Chéreau’s productions in Aix. In 2005, Chéreau asked him to light Così fan tutte at the Aix Festival and at the Opéra national de Paris. This was followed by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at La Scala in Milan under the musical direction of Daniel Barenboim, as well as the play La Nuit juste avant les forêts by Bernard-Marie Koltès. Bertrand Couderc lit the last two shows of Luc Bondy, Charlotte Salomon at the Salzburg Festival in 2014 and Ivanov at the Odéon Theatre in 2015. Since 2015, he has been associated with Bartabas and the Académie équestre de Versailles for the choreographies of Davide penitente, Requiem at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg, and recently for Le Sacre du Printemps at the Seine 22 Musicale. In opera and theater, his work has recently been seen in Manon and La Cenerentola at the Opéra national de Paris, Pelléas et Mélisande and Les noces de Figaro at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Anna Bolena at La Scala, Vespro della Beata Vergine at Versailles, La Femme sans ombre at the Vienna Opera, La Vie de Galilée and Angels in America at the Comédie- Française
Glysleïn Lefever trained as a choreographer at the Centre international de danse Rosella Hightower in Cannes. Her meeting with choreographer Blanca Li in 1994 was decisive: first as a performer, then as a collaborator, she has since assisted her in directing and choreographing (Robot, Le Jardin des Délices, Elektro Kif, Macadam Macadam, Solstice, Dido et Enée). At the same time, she took acting classes and was accepted into the Cours Florent in Paris, where she met Eric Ruf of the Comédie-Française; since then, she has participated in all his creations as an actor or choreographer: Peer Gynt, Romeo and Juliet, Le Pré aux clercs, La Vie de Galilée, Pelléas et Mélisande, La bohème… She collaborates as a choreographer with many directors: Jérôme Deschamps, Katharina Thalbach, Anne Kessler, Olivier Desbordes, James Gray, Thomas Ostermeier, Christophe Perton, David Lescot. In June 2021, she directed Musichall by Jean-Luc Lagarce at the Studio Théâtre of the Comédie-Française, which will be revived from December 2021 to January 2022.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Les Mousquetaires au couvent (2013) and Le nozze di Figaro (2021).
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).
