Little red riding hood

Guy-François Leuenberger is a pianist and composer born in 1983. He trained at HEMU Lausanne and he is regularly called upon by the Opéra de Lausanne and the Rudra Béjart School. He works alongside many classical singers and choral groups, and collaborates with various orchestras in Switzerland and France. He has directed the Cossonay School of Music since 2018, where he also teaches music theory, and is accompanist of the musical theatre class at the Conservatoire de Lausanne. Le Ruisseau Noir (2015) and Avec toi (five melodies for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, 2018) are among his latest work. Guy-François Leuenberger was awarded the Leenaards Scholarship in 2011.

Born in 1976 in Fribourg, Stefania Pinnelli obtained a degree in Art Drama at the Université du Québec in Montréal in 2001. She then became involved in the creation, production and management of theatre and film projects as a director, scriptwriter and actress. In 2011, she created, with Denis Correvon, The Divine Company, in which she pursues and develops a creative work, based on a cinematographic vision of theatre. These experiences have enabled her to direct and participate in ambitious projects (show for the Fête du Blé et du Pain in Echallens in August 2018) and to develop a deep and central human sense in her work. Since 2006 she has collaborated in all of Yvette Théraulaz’s tours de chant as a playwright, then director, on the show Histoires d’ILS created at the Théâtre de Carouge and the Théâtre Benno Besson in January 2020. Since  July 1, 2016, she has directed the Alambic Theatre and the Martigny Theatre School.

Born in France, Paola Landolt trained in Lausanne, first in visual arts and singing, then in dramatic art at the École supérieure de théâtre les Teintureries. She has since performed in Switzerland and France in various theatrical and musical genres. She also writes for the stage. Her first show, entitled Il est temps d’être drunk about the life of the surrealist poet Robert Desnos, premiered in 2004 at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne. Since 2006, she has been writing and working regularly with her Lausanne colleagues from the company Qu’est-ce t’as toi?. Paola Landolt also accompanies and coaches many singers and groups, in order to refine, energize and/or highlight artists and projects.

Trained at the Aix-en-Provence Conservatory, where he made his debut under the baton of Darius Milhaud, Patrick Marie Aubert won first prize in orchestral conducting in the class of Pierre Villette. He also received a prize in singing and in opera, as well as in chamber music. He taught choral singing before becoming the director of the Léo Delibes Conservatory in Clichy, artistic director of the vocal ensemble Vox Hominis, musical director of the Divertimento orchestra and conductor of the Choirs of the Opéra de Nantes, and director of the Choir of the French Army until 2000.

He participated for nearly twenty years in major national events and conducted numerous concerts in France and abroad. He was the conductor of the Choir du Capitole de Toulouse from 2003 to 2009, then director of the Choir of the Opéra national de Paris from 2009 to 2014. He has collaborated with the conductors Maurizio Arena, Serge Baudo, Roberto Benzi, Marc Minkowski, Evelino Pidò, Michel Plasson, Georges Prêtre, Yutaka Sado, Jeffrey Tate, as well as with the directors Robert Carsen, Georges Lavaudant, Jorge Lavelli, Laurent Pelly, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Olivier Py, Robert Wilson. He will direct the choir on Orfeo ed Euridice (2019) at the Opéra de Lausanne, and will be the conductor for the exceptional concert of the Choir of the Opéra de Lausanne in February 2020.

After studying the piano at length, Anne Sophie Petit discovered singing at the Maîtrise de Sainte-Anne d’Auray in Brittany. At the same time as obtaining her Master’s degree in anglophone language and civilization, she obtained her Diploma in Music Studies (Singing) at the Paris regional conservatory before joining Stephan MacLeod’s class at Lausanne’s University of Music, where she is currently studying a Master’s degree course in solo performance. She has interpreted roles such as the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, Sister Constance in Dialogues of the Carmelites and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. She regularly performs with the group Gli Angeli Genève, singing the solo soprano part in Mass in C minor as well as some of Mozart’s concert arias. More recently, she sang non-religious cantatas by Rameau at the Utrecht Early Music Festival. At the Opéra de Lausanne: Musetta in La Bohème (2017), and La Fée in Cendrillon (2018).

Lydia Spyra began her musical education at the Conservatory of Winterthur where she enrolled in a preliminary study programme at the same time as obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Law. After this, she dedicated herself extensively to music and studied with Prof. Frédéric Gindraux at the Hauté Ecole de Musique in Lausanne, where she completed a Master’s degree in classical singing (Master en interprétation).

During her studies, she interpreted different roles, for example Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro. In the season 2019-2020, she was engaged as a soloist at the Opera of Lausanne in the „Atélier pour le Jeune Public“, a program for children. At the Opera of Lausanne, she sang the role of Irene la de Pinto in Doña Francisquita at the beginning of 2020.

Apart from opera, the young soprano is interested in the genre of lied and songs. In May 2018 she won the Concours Mahler which is a lied competition in Geneva.

After getting two Master’s degrees in Musical Writing and in Musicology in Geneva, Benoît Capt completed his singing training thanks to several scholarships (Leenaards, Migros, Mosetti and Marescotti), first with Marga Liskutin and Gilles Cachemaille in Geneva, then with Hans-Joachim Beyer and Phillip Moll in Leipzig, and finally with Gary Magby in Lausanne. He won several international competitions (Lyon, Marmande, Toulouse, Dortmund, Graz, Weiden) and received the Circle of Friends of the OSR Prize in 2008. He performs regularly in concerts and recitals and founded the Lied et Mélodie association in Geneva. At the Lausanne Opera, he interprets the title role in Telemann’s Pimpinone (2010), Papageno in Die Zauberflöte (2010 and 2015), Wagner in Faust (2016), and Schaunard in La Bohème (2017).

Born in Lausanne, David Deppierraz first trained in Architecture at EPFL, and then in Cultural Management at the University of Lausanne. He has been involved in the creation, production, and management of theatrical or cinematic projects as a scenographer, screenwriter or director for over 20 years. His career led him to work for various directors, theatres, museums, and festivals, while pursuing personal writing and directing work. From 2007 to 2014, he co-directed the street arts festival Le Castrum in Yverdon-les-Bains and, from 2008 to 2010, he was the artistic co-director of the arts event produced by the magazine L’Illustré. In 2018, he created the show Solstices as part of the Fête du Blé et du Pain in Echallens, as author, scenographer, and project manager.

After her formation as a theatre costume designer, Amélie Reymond was hired at the Lausanne Opera as a seamstress and stylist from 2002 to 2009. She is involved in the costume production for various opera productions. Early in her career she was also entrusted with the complete production of the costumes for Les moutons bleus, in 2008, and for L’enfant et les sortilèges, in 2010. She opened her own studio in 2007, where she creates and directs costumes for various theatres, musicals, dances and exhibitions. She was appointed Assistant Manager of the Costumes Department at the Opéra de Lausanne in 2009, then Head of the Costumes Department in 2016. From 2012 to 2016, she was also directing the costumes for Avenches Opéra; she worked as costume assistant for Carmen, in 2014, and signed her first opera costume creation in 2015 for Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra de Lausanne: she created the costumes for La Belle de Cadix (Route Lyrique 2016), Les Zoocrates (2017) and Les chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019).