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Its emblematic Va, pensiero in the third act resounds forever in the stone of a resurgent Italy and in the blood of its proud inhabitants. Yet however powerful it may be in all its subtle nostalgia, this Slave Chorus alone cannot sum up Giuseppe Verdi’s first triumph: this Nabucco, which premiered on 9 March 1842 on the stage of La Scala in Milan, which suddenly propelled an almost unknown composer not yet 30 into the limelight and ignited a legend. It nonetheless represented a powerful stunt: to stage the bravery shown by a people of slaves openly demanding their independence (the famous biblical episode of the Hebrews of Babylon) in the heart of a city (Milan) marked by centuries of violent covetousness of continental powers and at that very time under the tight grip of the very polite Austro-Hungarian Empire… While subsequently – at the time of the great conflict of 1848 and the irresistible ascent of the Risorgimento – this work was very (too) quickly elevated to the status of the first “patriotic opera”, it would indeed seem in light of recent studies that neither the audience at the premiere, nor even the composer himself, were aware at the time of the potentially “revolutionary” character of the subject. One need only consider the work in its entirety: a stunning biblical show brimming with all opera’s cherished narrative devices – confrontations between the weak and the powerful; ardent yet impossible love; an exotic setting – that was immediately and spontaneously appreciated by its initial audiences in Milan.
First performance at Teatro alla Scala on March 9, 1842
Published by G. Ricordi & Co. Bühnen – und Musikverlag GmbH, Berlin
Winner of the Mozart Competition at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, the Mascagni Prize at the Cascina Lirica Competition and a special prize at the Toti dal Monte Competition in Treviso, Gabriele Viviani has distinguished himself in the roles of Belcore (L’elisir d’amore), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Marcello (La bohème) and Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor). Since 2004, he has appeared at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, La Scala in Milan, the opera houses of Dallas, Paris and San Francisco, Covent Garden, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. In recent seasons he has sung in La bohème at Covent Garden and Zurich; Un ballo in maschera at La Scala and in Tokyo (in a tour with the Teatro Regio in Turin); La traviata in Oviedo and Barcelona; Attila in Shanghai, Madama Butterfly at the Opéra Bastille; I puritani in Bilbao; Andrea Chénier in Naples; À l’Opéra de Lausanne : Lucia di Lammermoor (2007) and Francesca di Rimini at La Scala; Pagliacci and Macbeth at the Teatro Regio; L’elisir d’amore and La forza del destino at the Opéra de Paris; La Gioconda at the Liceu in Barcelona; Nabucco at the Teatro Real in Madrid and Simon Boccanegra at the Teatro Massimo of Palermo. He has sung under the direction of the best conductors, including Nicola Luisotti, Daniel Oren, Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti.
At the Opéra de Lausanne : À l’Opéra de Lausanne : Lucia di Lammermoor (2007)
The 2022/23 season of the dramatic spinto soprano Irina Moreva began at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo with the role of Abigail in Nabucco. In June 2022 she made a successful debut as Andrea Chénier’s Maddalena at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Her 2019/20 season opened with a resounding performance at the Teatro Verdi in Salerno, where she played Leonora in Il trovatore under the direction of Daniel Oren. She made her debut a little later in Aida in a new production at the Mikhailovsky Theatre St Petersburg directed by Alexander Vedernikov. Irina Moreva’s international career was launched in February 2019 at Tel Aviv Opera with the role of Amelia from Un ballo in maschera conducted by Daniel Oren. At the Novaya Opera Theatre of Moscow, she has performed as Nedda in Pagliacci, Micaëla in Carmen, Salome in Massenet’s Herodiade, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Iolanta, Jaroslavna in Prince Igor and Zemfira in Rachmaninov’s Aleko. She trained with Badri Maisuradze at the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center in Moscow.
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. On the publishing front, his Meistersinger von Nürnberg was released on DVD by Naxos with Berlin’s Deutsche Oper.
In search of a rigorous aesthetic and conceptual unity for a theater founded on all the arts, Stefano Poda has always developed his own language, combining the functions of director, set and costume designer, lighting designer and choreographer. He has directed over a hundred productions worldwide, including : the opening of the Verona Arena Centenary Festival in the summer of 2023, with a new production of Verdi’s Aida, broadcast worldwide (with a record 12,000 spectators at 13 performances, to be repeated in the 2024 and 2025 seasons); the opening of the Pesaro Rossini Festival 2023 with the first modern performance in the critical edition of Eduardo e Cristina; the launch of the 2023/24 season at Turin’s Teatro Regio with Halévy’s La Juive, which was awarded the Prix Abbiati 2024, the highest distinction of Italian critics; Enesco’s Œdipe at the 2023 Enesco Festival in Bucharest; Rusalka (2022) at the Capitole in Toulouse and in Tel Aviv (2024); the new production of Tosca (2021) at the Bolshoi in Moscow; Nabucco for the inauguration of the National Theater of Korea in 2021 and at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (2020, 2022); Romeo and Juliet (2018, 2024) at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing; Boris Godounov (2017) and Andrea Chénier (2015) at the Korean National Opera; L’elisir d’amore in Strasbourg (2016); Otello in Budapest (2015); Tristan und Isolde at the opening of the 77th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. His Faust (2015), Turandot (2018) and Thaïs at Turin’s Teatro Regio, have been shown in cinemas worldwide. In 2019, he receives the Prix Claude Rostand for his production of Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe-Bleue at the Capitole de Toulouse.
At Opéra de Lausanne: Ariodante and Faust (2016), Lucia di Lammermoor (2017), Les contes d’Hoffmann (2019), Alcina (2022) and Norma (2023)
Born in La Laguna, on the island of Tenerife, Airam Hernandez Delgado studied French horn at the Conservatorio Superior de Tenerife, then voice at the Conservatorio del Liceu in Barcelona. He began his career at Zurich’s Opernhaus, first as a member of the Opernstudio, then as part of the solo ensemble. There, he played Pollione (Norma), Rodolfo (La bohème), Alfredo (La traviata), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Fenton (Falstaff), Faust (Faust), Ulysse (Penelope), Tebaldo (I Capuleti e I Montecchi) and Arcadio (Florencia en el Amazonas). He took part in the recreation of Franz Liszt’s recently rediscovered opera Sardanapalo with the Staatskapelle Weimar, and played the title roles in two world premieres: Enrico Caruso in Micha Hamel’s Caruso a Cuba and Federico García Lorca in Luis de Pablo’s El Abrecartas at Madrid’s Teatro Real. His international career has taken him to the Capitole de Toulouse, Dallas Opera, LAC Lugano, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, La Fenice Venice, Teatro Filarmonico Verona, Liceu Barcelona, Müpa Budapest and Philharmonie de Paris, collaborating with conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Teodor Currentzis, Markus Poschner, Fabio Luisi, Francesco Ivan Ciampa, Giovanni Antonini, Nello Santi, Riccardo Frizza, Marco Armiliato, Ivor Bolton, Stéphane Denève, Kirill Karabits, Pablo Héras-Casado and Jesús López Cobos. This season, he makes his debut as Grigori (Boris Godounov) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Capitole de Toulouse, and as Jason in Cherubini’s Médée at Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki. Future projects: Leicester (Maria Stuarda), Erik (Der fliegende Holländer), Carlo VII (Giovanna d’Arco) and Roméo (Roméo et Juliette).
At Opéra de Lausanne: Lucia de Lammermoor (2017).
Nicolas Courjal studied with Jane Berbié and is now continuing his training with Didier Laclau-Barrère. After a stint with the Opéra-Comique and Wiesbaden troupes, he has performed at the Opéra Bastille, the Théâtre du Châtelet and the main French theatres, in Venice, Macerata, Seville, Covent Garden, Japan, the Chorégies d’Orange, Geneva, Monte-Carlo, Lausanne, Moscow, La Scala in Milan and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. He can be heard with Antoine Palloc in recitals. As a soloist, he shares the stage with the great French orchestras, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Orchestra, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductors such as Alain Altinoglu, Serge Baudo, James Conlon, Myung-Whun Chung and Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Michel Plasson, Antonio Pappano, Pascal Rophée, Leonard Slatkin, John Eliott Gardiner, François-Xavier Roth, Raphaël Pichon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marc Minkowski, Mikko Franck, John Nelson and Michael Tilson-Thomas. At the Opéra de Paris, he recently made his mark in Alcina. Nicolas Courjal has appeared in several works in Marseille, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, La Monnaie in Brussels, in Monte-Carlo, Toulouse, Rouen, Strasbourg, Oslo and at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, in the grand roles written by Verdi, Berlioz, Gounod, Massenet, Wagner, Meyerbeer, Boito, or Donizetti.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: La sonnambula (2018), Les contes d’Hoffmann (2019).
Strasbourg-born French mezzo-soprano Marie Karall has won several distinctions and first prizes at international opera competitions, including Clermont-Ferrand, the Centre français de promotion lyrique competition and the New York International Opera Auditions. She also holds degrees in law and literature (Master 2). She has performed on the stages of numerous French opera houses (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lille, Rouen…) as well as abroad. Her roles include Mallika in Lakmé at the Opéra de Montpellier, La Mère, La Tasse chinoise and La Libellule in L’Enfant et les sortilèges performed and recorded at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Catherine in Jeanne au bûcher at the Opéra de Lyon and at the Enesco Festival in Romania. She was Fenena in Nabucco at the Avenches arena. She has taken part in concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Gala Verdi), the Salle Gaveau, the Chorégies d’Orange (“Musiques en fête” broadcast on France Télévision), and in Turkey at the Théâtre Antique d’Aspendos. More recently, she has been Carmen at the Latvian National Opera, Hong Kong Opera in 2018 and Theater Winterthur (co-production with Dortmund Opera) in 2020. She played La Périchole at Opéra d’Avignon in 2019 and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly at Opéra du Rhin in 2021. She was heard in Liège in an opera by César Franck and at the Musikverein in Graz as Fenena alongside Placido Domingo in 2022. She began the current season at the Opéra d’Avignon, then made her debut at the Opéra de Nice. She has just performed the role of Carmen at the Cairo Opera in March 2024.
At Opéra de Lausanne: Norma (2011), Luisa Miller (2014)
Adrien Djouadou began singing in Avignon in Beatrix Tarchini’s class, and went on to perfect his vocal skills in the Atelier Lyrique classes of Valérie Marestin and Pierre Catala. He obtained his DEM from the CRR de Paris in Guillemette Laurens’ class. He obtained his master’s degree in singing from the Haute école de musique de Lausanne in the class of Frédéric Gindraux and Jean-Philippe Clerc. He has also worked with Regina Werner, Françoise Tillard and Élène Golgevit. He sings as a soloist at the Opéra d’Avignon (L’Ancien in Charpentier’s La Pastorale de Noël in 2017 and Judas in Éric Breton’s Le Messie du peuple chauve in 2020, at the Grand Palais in Paris (Tahua in Colson’s L’Esprit du feu in 2018), at the Fabrique Opéra Avignon Provence (Zuniga in Carmen in 2018) and in Lugano (bass solo in Stravinsky’s Threni in 2021). In 2023, he is soloist in Stravinsky’s Les Noces, conducted by Daniel Reuss.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Doña Francisquita (2019) and Die Zauberflöte (2024)
Franco-Swiss tenor Maxence Billiemaz studies singing at the Haute école de musique in Geneva. He has appeared on stage in roles such as. Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) and Bastien (Bastien et Bastienne). He took part in recordings of Saint-Saëns’s Ascanio at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Erlanger’s La Sorcière at Victoria Hall. He sings as soloist in ensembles such as Cappella Mediterranea, Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, Chœur de Chambre de Na- mur, Orlando and Les Talens Lyriques. He also performs in musicals such as Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (as Bill Calhoun) and John Kander’s Cabaret (as Clifford Bradshaw).
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021), Werther (2022), My Fair Lady (2022), Cendrillon (2023) and Die Zauberflöte (2024).
Born in 1998, French soprano Nuada Le Drève began her musical studies on the violin. She continued her lyric studies in the class of Frédéric Gindraux and Jean-Philippe Clerc at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, where she obtained her Master’s degree in 2023. She is currently studying with Hedwig Fassbender and Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet.
Curious about the German language and repertoire, she studied for a semester in Rainer Trost’s class at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (MDW).
She perfected her technique in Master Classes with Birgid Steinberger, Jennifer Larmore, Véronique Gens, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Matthias Lademann, Markus Hadulla and Stephan McLeod. In April 2024, she took part in the Master Class of the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie (IMA) directed by Edith Wiens and Tobias Truniger in Neumarkt, Germany.
She was awarded the Prix Tremplin 2023 by the Leenaards Foundation. She has won several prizes in competitions such as 3rd prize at the Concours international de chant de Nîmes in 2023, the Jeune talent prize at the 35th Concours international de chant de Béziers and the Jeune espoir prize from the Centre français de promotion lyrique in 2019.
She made her debut as a soloist in the role of Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte directed by Pierre Bleuse in Sion (CH), La Fée in Pinocchio by Gloria Bruni at the Opéra de Lausanne and La Fiancée in Les Noces by Stravinsky under the baton of Daniel Reuss at the Théâtre du Jorat.
For the 2023/24 season, she sings the title role in Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon at the Opéra de Lausanne, Zweite Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco at the same opera house. She performs in concert and recital at numerous venues, including the Opéra de Montpellier, and collaborates regularly with the Grand Théâtre de Genève.
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.
Trained at the Conservatoire d’Aix-en-Provence, where he began his career under the baton of Darius Milhaud, Patrick Marie Aubert obtained a first prize in orchestral conducting in the class of Pierre Villette. He also won a prize for singing, a prize for lyric art and a prize for chamber music. He was a professor of the choral singing class and then director of the Léo Delibes Conservatory in Clichy, artistic director of the Vox Hominis vocal ensemble, musical director of the Divertimento orchestra and conductor of the choirs of the Nantes Opera. Conductor of the French Army Choir until 2000, he has participated for nearly twenty years in major national events and has conducted numerous concerts in France and abroad. He was the conductor of the Chœur du Capitole de Toulouse from 2003 to 2009, then director of the Chœur de l’Opéra national de Paris from 2009 to 2014. He has collaborated with conductors Maurizio Arena, Serge Baudo, Roberto Benzi, Marc Minkowski, Evelino Pidò, Michel Plasson, Georges Prêtre, Yutaka Sado, Jeffrey Tate… and directors Robert Carsen, Georges Lavaudant, Jorge Lavelli, Laurent Pelly, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Olivier Py, Robert Wilson…
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Orpheus and Eurydice (2019), The Tales of Hoffmann (2019), Little Red Riding Hood (2021), Candide (2022), Le domino noir (2023), Orphée aux Enfers (2023)
Born in Turin, Paolo Giani Cei has been assisting Stefano Poda all over the world since 2008 in the areas of staging, sets, costumes and lighting, basing his work on a theater that merges all the arts. He works on Aïda for the 100th festival at the Arena di Verona in 2023, as well as on Tristan und Isolde conducted by Zubin Mehta for the opening of the 77th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and – as dramaturge – on Titan, a choreographic show based on Mahler’s First Symphony presented by the National Dance Company of Sao Paulo, and Fosca by Antonio Carlos Gomes at the Sao Paulo Municipal Theatre. In recent years, he has directed Madama Butterfly, La traviata, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, La bohème, Cenerentola, Don Giovanni, Barber of Seville at the Teatro Verdi in Padua, La Voix humaine at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and, in 2021, Die lustige Wittwe at the Teatro Mario del Monaco in Treviso. As an assistant, he is working on Tosca at the Bolshoi in 2021, Nabucco at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 2020/22, Ariane et Barbe-Bleue at the Capitole de Toulouse in 2019, Turandot and Faust at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 2018 and 2015, Otello at the Budapest National Opera in 2015, Boris Godounov and Andrea Chénier at the Coree National Opera in 2017 and 2015, La forza del destino at the Parma Verdi Festival in 2014.
At Opéra de Lausanne: Ariodante and Faust (2016), Lucia di Lammermoor (2017), Les contes d’Hoffmann (2019) and Alcina (2022).