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Conciseness, sense of drama, orchestral colours and the importance of the choir characterise this opera, which is now appreciated more for itself than for its place in history. It’s no surprise that the success of the first version in Italian convinced Gluck to make the French adaptation presented in this production.
Tragedy opera in 3 acts
Version of Paris by Pierre-Louis Moline, based on Raniero de’ Calzabigi
First performed in la Salle des Tuileries (Opéra), Paris, August 2nd, 1774
Editions Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel
Equally at ease in both the great French and Italian repertoires, Philippe Talbot has distinguished himself in the title roles of Hippolyte et Aricie, Platée, Béatrice et Bénédict, Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles), Gérald (Lakmé), Wilhelm Meister (Mignon), Il Duca di Mantova (Rigoletto), Ferran- do (Così fan tutte), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Amenhotep (Moses and Pharoah), Lindoro (L’Italiana in Algieri), the title role in Count Ory and Piquillo (La Périchole). He performed at the Opéra Comique, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Semperoper in Dresden, Theater an der Wien, Berlin Philharmonic, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège and the opera houses of Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux. He has sung under the direction of Alberto Zedda, Roberto Abbado, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Emmanuelle Haïm, Kent Nagano, Carlo Rizzi, Marc Minkowski, Paolo Arrivabeni, Christophe Rousset and Frédéric Chaslin, in productions by Emilio Sagi, Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier, Jérôme Deschamps, Macha Makeïeff, Damiano Michieletto, Denis Podalydès, Vincent Boussard and Laurent Pelly.
At the Opéra de Lausanne, he has performed in: La vie parisienne (2016) and Orphée et Eurydice (2019).
Since winning 2nd prize at the Reine Elisabeth de Belgique Competition in 2004, Hélène Guilmette has led an international career. She is known for her diverse repertoire (baroque, classical, French) and has performed works by Haendel, Rameau, Gluck, Mozart, Massenet, Poulenc and Gounod, on the most prestigious stages.
She has performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, the Opéra de Montréal, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Opéra de Paris, La Monnaie, Covent Garden and the National Opera of the Netherlands, working with well-known conductors Alain Altinoglu, Sylvain Cambreling, Bernard Labadie, Kent Nagano, Michel Plasson, Mark Elder and directors Robert Carsen, Laurent Pelly, Dmitri Tcherniakov and Guy Joosten.
Born in Switzerland, Marie Lys trained in Lausanne and at the Royal College of Music in London, where she obtained a master’s degree with distinction as well as a diploma in opera. She won a first prize at the Vincenzo Bellini belcanto competition in 2017, as well as at the Cesti baroque opera competition in 2018. She has sung under the direction of Michel Corboz, Laurence Cummings, Giampaolo Bisanti and Daniel Reuss. Her operatic appearances include Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) at Bury Court Opera, Adelaide (Lotario) at the Handel Festival in Göttingen, Dalinda (Ariodante) at the London Handel Festival and Asteria (Tamerlano) at the Buxton Festival. With the Abchordis Ensemble, she won first prize at the Göttinger Reihe Historischer Musik competition and released two recordings on Sony DHM. She has received sponsorship from the Migros Culture Percentage and the Samling, Leenaards, Dénéréaz, Colette Mosetti and Friedl Wald Foundations, as well as the Drake Calleja Trust. At the Opéra de Lausanne, she has performed in: Orlando Paladino (2017), La Sonnambula (2018), Die Fledermaus (2018), Orphée et Eurydice (2019) and Alcina (2022).
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
Aurélien Bory founded Compagnie 111 in 2000 in Toulouse, developing a physical theatre that combines circus, drama, dance, music and visual arts. Driven by the question of space, his composite and uniquely aesthetic works are influenced by his interest in the sciences, and are strongly based on the scenography. By turns scenographer, director, choreographer and visual artist, he thinks of his work as renewing form. Aurélien Bory’s shows have been performed worldwide. Of his twelve creations on the repertoire, seven have been shown at the Vidy-Lausanne Theatre. Orphée et Eurydice, created at the Opéra Comique in Paris and conducted by Raphaël Pichon, is the second time he has directed opera, after Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók and Il Prigioniero by Luigi Dallapiccola in 2015 at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. He will return there in January 2020 to direct Parsifal by Wagner.
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is a core group of about forty chorists who are, for the most part, students from singing or professional specialisation classes at the Lausanne Conservatory or other conservatories in Western Switzerland. Chorists are selected by audition and periodically reviewed. Choir directors are chosen from among the most experienced and vary for each performance.
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is regularly hired by orchestras and festivals in Switzerland and abroad: Création by Haydn (December 2003 – conductor Jerzy Semkow) and Stabat Mater by Rossini (February 2006 – conductor Corrado Rovaris) as a part of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra season, Roland by Lully (concert version) at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, at the Opéra de Montpellier and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Bruxelles (January 2004 – Talens Lyriques orchestra – conductor Christophe Rousset), Die Entführung aus dem Serail concert version at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (January 2005), La grotta di Trofonio (concert version) at the Théâtre de Poissy (March 2005 – Talens Lyriques, conductor Christophe Rousset), Nocturnes by Debussy at the 2007 Montreux Septembre musical (RSO Berlin – conductor Marek Janowski).
In 2008 and 2010 the choir performed as part of the OCL season under the baton of Christian Zacharias: Te Deum by Bruckner (February 2008), Les Noces by Stravinski (December 2008, also in Saint-Gall) and Beethoven’s IXe Symphony (April 2010).
The Choir has also been on many tours with Opéra de Lausanne productions: Opéra de Vichy (Rigoletto in 2005, Il Turco in Italia in 2006, La veuve joyeuse in 2007, Carmen in 2008, Amelia al ballo in 2008 under the direction of Arie Van Beek and La Traviata in 2009 conducted by Roberto Rizzi Brignoli), Opéra Comique (Amelia al ballo by Menotti in March 2007). In October 2008, the Opéra de Lausanne and its choir toured Japan for five performances of Carmen.
The Opéra de Lausanne Choir is featured on several CDs: Le Nez by Chostakovitch, Roland by Lully and La grotta di Trofonio by Salieri. The Choir was also involved in televised performances on RTS of La fille de Madame Angot, La Belle Hélène and, for the reopening of the Opéra, L’elisir d’amore.
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.
Diego Fasolis began his career as a concert organist before turning to conducting. A regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, he conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Musikverein with the Vienna Concentus Musicus and the Arnold Schönberg Choir. More recently, La Scala entrusted him with the creation of an orchestra playing on period instruments which he then conducted in Handel’s Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. In 2017, he also conducted Tamerlano there with Plácido Domingo. Among his recent or upcoming engagements: La finta giardiniera at La Scala and Shanghai, L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Berlin Staatsoper, La sonnambula at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Paër’s Agnese and Così fan tutte at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Dorilla in Tempe at La Fenice, Il turco in Italia at La Scala, Cherubini’s Lo sposo di tre, e marito di nessuna at the Florence Opera, Vivaldi’s Farnace at the Teatro Malibran in Venice, Handel’s Alessandro with the Kammerorchester Basel in Göttingen, Paris and Basel. In 2019, Diego Fasolis was nominated in the category “Conductor of the Year” at the International Opera Awards.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Faramondo (2009), Rinaldo (2011), Farnace (2011), L’Artaserse (2012), Dorilla in Tempe (2014), Die Zauberflöte (2015), Ariodante (2016), La clemenza di Tito (2018), Orpheus and Eurydice (2019), and Meyerbeer’s Gli amori di Teolinda (2019).
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
Pierre Dequivre began his career as a set builder and designer before joining the world of cinema, primarily as layout and visual artist for the film To Kill a Priest by Agneskia Holland. For two decades, he worked as a set builder, stagehand and chief set builder for numerous feature films and films for television. He created his first theatre scenography for the director Sarah Eigerman in 1990, then worked with Mladen Materic, Michel Mathieu and Aurélien Bory, among others, carrying out the creation and realization of their scenography.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
After training as a dancer, Manuela Agnesini gained experience in contemporary Italian dance and in butoh dance with the choreographer Ko Murobushi. She obtained a Master of Arts in the DAMS (disciplines of Art, Music and Spectacle) at the University of Bologna, Italy. In 1990 she moved to Paris and worked with the choreographers Paco Dècina, Bouvier-Obadia, Elsa Wolliaston and the director Didier-Georges Gabily. In 2000, she moved to Toulouse and in 2002 participated in the founding of Lato sensu museum, a label of stage forms that she co-directed until 2015. She has worked as both dancer and choreographer. Now an actress and playwright, she is fascinated by the representations of the body and the polysemous potential of the characters, and also works as a costume designer.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
Arno Veyrat is a self-taught artist. After working as a show technician, his love of beautiful things led to him developing a graphic, poetic and sensitive universe, combining scenography, lighting, image projection and video. He has since created the lighting for numerous shows and worked with artists in dance, theatre, opera and music. His eclecticismhas also enabled him to create installations where the physical phenomena are his source of inspiration. He has been working with Aurélien Bory for many years.
For the first time at the Opéra de Lausanne.
Psychoanalyst, playwright and artistic coordinator, Taïcyr Fadel has worked with Aurélien Bory on several productions, including Plexus, Espæce, Bluebeard’s Castle, Il Prigionieroand Ash.