Le premier parle là où le second chante ; le premier cultive une forme de familiarité et de (fausse) simplicité, là où le second, volontiers spectaculaire, nécessite une technique vocale hors de portée des amateurs. L’un préfère les bars et les salles intimistes, tandis que le deuxième évolue sous les ors des théâtres.
Et pourtant ! Sous ces dehors incompatibles, ces deux genres ont en partage l’essentiel : la parole. Les mots véhiculés par les slameurs et ceux portés par les chanteurs lyriques se révèlent singulièrement identiques. Ils évoquent, avec des
sensibilités certes différentes, les vérités intemporelles, celles de l’intériorité, de la quête de soi. L’amour, l’amitié, la trahison, le deuil, la joie. Les éléments simples et primordiaux qui font de nous des humains, en proie au réel. Quel que soit le média privilégié, le langage est direct et intéresse le cœur. La sensibilité de chacun, c’est son génie.
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).
The Swiss baritone studied at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in the class of Frédéric Gindraux, before moving to London to work with Prof. Rudolf Piernay at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he obtained an Artist Diploma with distinction. He also worked with Dame Felicity Lott, François Le Roux, Eugene Asti and Graham Johnson, whom he assisted in his latest book on the life of Francis Poulenc, “Poulenc: The Life in the Songs”, published by Liveright. He sings several roles for the Opéra de Lausanne, including the title role in Christiné’s operetta Dédé, Melchior in Menotti’s Amahl et les Visiteurs du Soir, Maximilian in Bernstein’s Candide, and Urbain in Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne. He also creates recitals for children and a workshop during the Lausanne Youth Olympic Games in 2020. He is also heard singing Weill’s Berliner Requiem during the exceptional concert of the Opera Choir. He has worked for the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra) on several occasions (Discovery Day on the music of Michael Tippett, soloist for Haydn’s Nelson Mass or curator of a recital in the series “Future: the musical voices of our time”), the BBC (“Immersion in the music of Detlev Glanert”) or the Wigmore Hall (study groups on the vocal music of Schumann, Ravel, a recital of contemporary music and a recital of French melodies). He is part of the French Song Exchange between the Wigmore Hall and the Salle Cortot in Paris, where he has the chance to make his debut in 2019 and return regularly to perform. The singer, a Samling Foundation Artist, is awarded the title of Ambassador of Melody by the Oxford Lieder Festival for the year 2020. He enters the concert placement of the Migros Culture Percentage, of which he is also a scholarship holder, as well as the Friedl-Wald and Colette Mosetti foundations. He participated in the final of the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Competition in London and was also a finalist of the Young Classical Artist Trust in 2022. He won the English Song Prize in 2020, Second Prize and Audience Prize at the Kattenburg Competition in 2019, Third Prize and all Special Prizes in 2022, and Second Prize at the Somerset Song Prize. Future engagements include SongStudio 2023 at Carnegie Hall in New York with Renée Fleming, a recital series in England and Canada with pianist Cole Knutson for the Oxford Lieder Festival, the role of Maximilian in Bernstein’s Candide at the Opéra de Lausanne, and a revival of My Fair Lady.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: My fair Lady (2015), La Belle de Cadix (Route Lyrique 2016), L’Orfeo (2016), La vie parisienne (2016), Amahl et les visiteurs du soir (2017), Les chevaliers de la table ronde (Route Lyrique 2019), Dédé (Route Lyrique 2021) and Candide (2022).
Born in Lausanne to a French father and a Bolivian mother, Marc Leroy-Calatayud was recently appointed associate conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève for the 2022/23 season, after having held the position of artist-in-residence at the Orchestre national de Cannes during the 2021/22 season. He worked as assistant conductor at the Opéra national de Bordeaux from 2016 to 2019. A recipient of a scholarship from the Akademie Musiktheater Heute (2018-2021), he studied conducting in Vienna and Zurich with Mark Stringer and Johannes Schlaefli. His symphonic projects for the 2022/23 season include debuts with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and the Kanazawa Orchestra Ensemble, as well as re-invitations to the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. A passionate devotee of opera, he is developing a vast repertoire ranging from Handel and Mozart to Ravel, Weill and Rihm. He will soon be conducting Reynaldo Hahn’s musical Ô mon bel inconnu at the Opéra de Tours and at the Opéra de Rouen. Recent collaborations include L’Elisir d’amore at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, La Légende du Roi Dragon by Arthur Lavandier, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Mârouf, savetier du Caire by Henri Rabaud at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, and Die sieben Todsünden by Kurt Weill with the Ensemble Nomade. He has also worked as an assistant on numerous productions, such as Les Troyens at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Daniele Rustioni), Platée and Œdipe at the Opéra de Paris (Marc Minkowski, Ingo Metzmacher), and Jakob Lenz at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (Ingo Metzmacher). Marc Leroy-Calatayud is a fervent advocate of music education and outreach projects. In 2009, he founded a youth orchestra, the Orchestre Quipasseparlà, with the aim of finding new ways of making music accessible to all. He has organised concerts in hospitals, old people’s homes and homeless shelters.