Press Kit Season 2091 – 20 - Opéra National de Lyon · a libretto by Atiq Rahimi, inspired by a great classic of Persian literature. There are two rarities at the Théâtre de

Press Kit

Season2019 – 20

opera • danceconcert

The Opéra national de LyonAs part of a dense national and international network of artistic and cultural partners, the Opéra National de Lyon is an institution based on excellence, constituting a complete pole of creation, production and training, with its Orchestra, Choruses, Ballet, Children’s Choir, Studio, set and costume workshops.

As the second opera house in France, it now benefits from a considerable outreach. In 1996, the Ministry of Culture awarded it the first label of a regional National Opera house.January 1st 2019 marks the beginning of a new four-year agreement between the Opéra National de Lyon and its public partners: the State, with the Ministry of Culture, the City of Lyon, the Lyon Metropolis and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region.

This agreement confirms the support of these public partners, as well as the missions that constitute the identity of the Opéra National de Lyon, and in particular:

– artistic excellence, with an attention paid to the operatic repertoire, choreographic writing in its full extent and diversity, diversified expressions and a permeability of genres;– the development of national and international partners (co-productions, tours…);– a policy of innovative, civic cultural mediation, oriented towards an openness to the broadest possible publics;– a territorial commitment to decentralized productions and diffusion, based on the development of new means of diffusion.

Thus, the 2019 / 2022 agreement confirms the artistic, cultural and civic vocation of the Opéra National de Lyon, attached to promoting and developing a policy of openness to all publics, accessibility and sustainable development. Its identity, moulded day by day by all of its teams, means that the Opéra National de Lyon is one of the most dynamic and inventive opera houses in France and in Europe.

The Prefect of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, the Prefect of the Rhône

The Mayor of Lyon

The President of the Lyon Metropolis

The President of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region

The Board of Directors of the Opéra National de LyonComposition on 1st January 2019

PresidentRémy Weber

Vice-PresidentJean-François Carenco

Associate Members

Representative of the StatePascal Mailhos

Representatives of the City of LyonRichard BrummLoïc Graber

Representative of the Lyon MetropolisMyriam Picot

Representative of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes RegionFlorence Verney-Carron

Qualified MembersPaul-Henry WatineJacques GéraultRaymond Soubie

The Opéra National de Lyon is approved by the Ministry of Culture, the City of Lyon, Auvergne Rhône-Alpes council and Lyon Metropole.

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 3 Editorial

This season, our stage will be welcoming three of the most often-performed operas in the world: Tosca, Rigoletto and The Marriage of Figaro. They are three blockbusters, two of which have not been staged in Lyon for a long time – Rigoletto in 1976, Tosca in 1979. The exploitation of the most famous works should be inseparable from exploring and enriching the repertoire: entailing a reworking of major titles, putting on rarer works while also promoting creation and operas of today. It is this balance between the past, present and future which gives us our artistic legitimacy.The 2019-2020 season perfectly illustrates this.For, alongside these three major titles, we will be putting on William Tell, Rossini’s last opera, premiered in 1829; he was no longer to write for the stage until his death in 1868. This Grand Opéra à la française, preceding those of Meyerbeer or Halévy, is rarely staged, especially in its original French version. It will open our season.Even rarer is Franz Schreker’s Irrelohe, which has never been performed in France, which with Rigoletto will be one of the titles featuring in our annual festival - The Night will be Red and Black.Two terrifying stories in which family ties are made up of secrets, death and love. The festival programme will be completed with Carl Orff’s Der Mond (The Moon), based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm. It is a littleknown, colourful, appealing work.After Claude, Thierry Escaich is presenting his second opera, Shirine (commissioned by the Opéra de Lyon), with a libretto by Atiq Rahimi, inspired by a great classic of Persian literature. There are two rarities at the Théâtre de la Croix-Rousse: The Pajama Game, one of the great musical comedies from the golden age of Broadway – though little known in France and John Adams’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, a songplay – or sort of musical comedy – mingling with virtuosity rock, jazz and blues. We are also reviving L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and, for the Christmas period, Le Roi Carotte, rediscovered with delight in 2015. We are offering a new production of Gretel et Hansel, the fine French adaptation of Humperdinck’s work.

Stage directorsThis season we will be seeing again some of the close artistic partners of the Opéra de Lyon, with whom we have established deep and lasting ties. They are, in alphabetical order, David Bösch (Irrelohe), Richard Brunel (Shirine), Christophe Honoré (Tosca), Jean Lacornerie (The Pajama Game), Macha Makeieff (I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky), Laurent Pelly (Le Roi Carotte) and Grégoire Pont and James Bonas (L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and La Lune). Along with some newcomers, whom I am delighted to welcome: Tobias Kratzer for William Tell, which he will direct just after Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth festival this summer; Samuel Achache who, with Jeanne Candel, has recently taken up the direction of the Théâtre de l’Aquarium at the Cartoucherie in Vincennes, will be responsible for directing Gretel et Hansel; Axel Ranisch is an actor, man of the theatre, cinema and television. Rigoletto will be his debut as a director of an opera in France; Olivier Assayas – Irma Vep, Sils Maria, Les Destinées sentimentales… – is debuting as a director of an opera with The Marriage of Figaro. These artists will surely put the works they are recounting through their stage directions into a resonance with our contemporary sensitivity and modernity.

The conductorsDaniele Rustioni, our chief conductor, will be conducting William Tell, Ernani and Tosca. We will also be seeing again conductors who are our regular partners – Bernhard Kontarsky for Irrelohe, Martyn Brabbins for Shirine and Stefano Montanari for The Marriage of Figaro; there are also some young talents at the beginning of their careers, and who will be much talked of – Adrien Perruchon will be on the rostrum for Le Roi Carotte, Michele Spotti for Rigoletto and Marc Leroy-Catalayud who will be directing a baroque programme for the Ballet, with pieces by Russell Maliphant.

DanceThe Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon is offering this season modern-day classics and works by young choreographers: with creations – Russell Maliphant, Pierre Pontvianne, Lukas Timulak, Yuval Pick, Pockemon Crew – entries into the repertoire and revivals – Russell Maliphant, Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Johan Inger, Maguy Marin, or Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The company’s dancers will also be plying their trade on the stages of France and abroad, from Paris to New York, and from Moscow to Adelaide.

ConcertsApart from Ernani, in its concert format, Daniele Rustioni will be conducting two symphonic programmes with very varied horizons: Mendelssohn and Mahler ; Chausson, Messiaen and Tchaikovsky. Stefano Montanari and the Orchestra of the Opéra, I Bollenti Spiriti, accompanying Marie-Nicole Lemieux in an all Vivaldi programme. For the Christmas period, we will be putting on our traditional Christmas concert with the Children’s Choir. Without forgetting concerts of chamber music in the Grand Studio de Danse, and Opera Underground – fearuting today’s music, jazz and world music – played in the amphitheatre, under the peristyle and on the main stage.

2019, a new agreementThe Opéra de Lyon was the first house to receive the label “Opéra National” in 1996. Over twenty years later, a new “Opéra National” funding agreement is covering the period from 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2022. This funding agreement guarantees that the Opéra National de Lyon will continue to be supported by the public authorities: the Ministry of Culture, the City of Lyon, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region and the Lyon Metropolis.The new agreement also confirms the Opéra de Lyon’s missions, in their artistic, cultural and social fields: a quest for artistic excellence through the choice of artists and repertoires; helping promoting the city and region on an international level, creating access to the widest possible audience while being a ressource for a local community.This season 2019-20 is continuing to foster partnerships with a large number of cultural institutions in the Metropolis; along with a social and environmental responsibility. The Opéra de Lyon is thus a theatre of art while also being a civic institution.

Serge DornyGeneral Director of the Opéra de Lyon

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 Opera4

Guillaume TellGioachino Rossini

A Swan Song and the Birth of a NationOn 3rd August 1829, at the age of 37, the Swan of Pesaro retired from the operatic scene with William Tell. Commissioned by the Opéra de Paris, William Tell was adapted from a play by Schiller (1804) by the Legitimist Etienne de Jouy, was then lightened by the Liberal Hippolyte-Louis-Florent Bis, before being retouched by the Republican Armand Marrast. As had already been the case in 1791, with Gretry’s eponymous opera, this legendary Swiss expressed himself in the language of Molière. Adolphe Nourrit was Arnold. The birth at the end of the 18th century of the Swiss Confederation, under Austrian domination, formed the backdrop for a familial and romantic daily life (the fictional trio Tell / Arnold / Mathilde) on the horns of a dilemma, shifting from one side to another (the historical duo of Switzerland / Austria). The work, a vibrant call for the right of peoples to self-determination, closes on a key word: Freedom.

Rossini’s Wagnerian OperaDespite the laurels of the press, the public and its sponsors (Charles X gave the composer the legion d’honneur), the author’s longest work was soon to be mutilated by the history of music. In Great Britain, Nourrit, put out by the aria Asile hereditaire, dropped it as of the third performance. There was a shift from four acts to three, while keeping intact only Act II (“What? An entire act?”, Rossini would have said in irony) which was turned into a ballet. In 1833, in an Italy under Austrian domination, Tell was delocalised to Scotland, re-baptized

Guglielmo Vallace by Milan, Rodolfo di Sterlinga (and even Giuda Maccabeo) by Rome, while London entitled it Hofer or the Tell of Tyrol and Saint-Petersburg Karl der Kühne! In 1831, William Tell had emigrated to Lucca in an Italian version. Gilbert-Louis Duprez sang Arnold, inaugurating a keen rivalry between the pro-Nourrit and pro-Duprez camps. This demanding symphonic, soloist, choreographic and choral cosmogony, a real “opera-fleuve”, with its measured tempi, stood out from the entertainments that had established its composer’s renown. Wagner was quite right to bow before it (“Here you have written music for all time”) because this work was unique in its genre. Its bewitching length clearly struck a decisive cord with the operatic master of Bayreuth.

A Production for all Time As the author of a stunning Twilight of the Gods, Tobias Kratzer, back from the Grüner Hügel, where he directed Tannhäuser, is installing this galvanising manifesto in a modernity haunted by the fear of barbary, as part of a virtually abandoned reflexion concerning folkloric ambition and in the timelessness of a setting dominated by a photographic treatment of a smothering, smothered nature. The four hours of William Tell, in its original version, were awaiting just such a providential protagonist (like Tell himself) as Tobias Kratzer, a marvellous director of actors who, just before his magistral work on the Ring in Karlsruhe, declared: “The first mistake would be to be scared of the piece’s length.” Jean-Luc Clairet

Guillaume TellOpera in four acts, 1829 (Opéra de Paris)Libretto by Victor Joseph Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Louis Florent Bis After the play by Friedrich von Schiller

Conductor: Daniele RustioniStage direction: Tobias KratzerSets and costumes: Rainer SellmaierLighting: Reinhard TraubDramaturgy: Bettina BartzChorus Master: Johannes Knecht

William Tell: Nicola Alaimo Hedwige, his wife: Enkeledja Shkoza Jemmy, their son: Jennifer Courcier Arnold, suitor of Mathilde: John Osborn Gesler, governor: Jean Teitgen Mathilde, Gesler’s sister: Jane Archibald Rodolphe, captain of the guard: François Piolino Walter Furst: Patrick Bolleire Ruedi, a fisherman: Philippe Talbot

Orchestra and Choruses of the Opéra de Lyon

New productionAs a co-production with the Staatstheater of Karlsruhe

October 2019Saturday 5th 7pmMonday 7th 7pmWednesday 9th 7pmFriday 11th 7pmSunday 13th 3pmTuesday 15th 7pmThursday 17th 7pm

In French

Length: 4h approximately


In the Auditorium-Orchestra National of Lyon

Concert opera

ErnaniOpera in four acts, 1844 (Teatro La Fenice)Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, after Hernani by Victor Hugo

Conductor: Daniele RustioniChorus Master: Johannes Knecht

Ernani : Francesco Meli Don Carlo, King of Spain: Amartuvshin Enkhbat Don Ruy Gomez De Silva, Grandee of Spain: Roberto Tagliavini Elvira : Carmen Giannattasio

Orchestra, Studio and Choruses of the Opéra de Lyon

New productionAs a co-production with the Theâtre des Champs-Élysees In partnership with the Auditorium Orchestra National de Lyon

ErnaniGiuseppe Verdi

A Little-Known WorkErnani remains little known in France. This opera premiered at the Theâtre Italien, under the title “Il proscritto”; Victor Hugo had demanded this change of title and of identities of the characters, even though two other operas (by then forgotten) had already been composed since the premiere of his play Hernani in 1830: Ernani by Vincenzo Gabussi in 1834, at the Italiens de Paris, and another by Alberto Mazzucato in 1843 in Genoa. It is around the character of Carlo, the future Charles Quint, that the differences between the original Hernani and Verdi’s adaptation are crystallized; Hugo’s king is cynical and evil. But an operatic king cannot cut a negative or ridiculous figure, especially in the Venice of the Habsburgs, of whom Charles Quint was a distant ancestor, where Ernani premiered in 1844. So it is that Verdi developed his Carlo: the young king, full of desire, becomes an Emperor who dominates his passions and knows how to exploit clemency, the sign of a true sovereign. Ernani is classified as an “early work”, but there can already clearly be seen in it the characteristics of his maturity.

A Work which is More Original Than Once Thought Ernani is weighed down by everything that is seen to make up passionate, messy romanticism, in reference to the stylistic break created by Hugo’s Hernani, in particular in the use of the classical alexandrine metre and in a mixture of genres. Yet, Verdi was not mistaken about it: the play’s solid architecture made adaptation easy, thanks to a concentration around singular characters with powerful egos, in which love and honour are confronted; even though this is perhaps less spectacular than in Nabucco

or I Lombardi, the preceding pieces in Verdi’s body of work. Thus, by focusing on the characters’ destinies, without exploiting a historical situation or a religious backdrop, Verdi turned it into a more intimist drama of a great intensity, through a concentration of the action, by merging the first and second acts – so avoiding the absurdity of the initial scene in which Don Carlos is shut up in a cupboard – and by opening the piece with Ernani, the fallen Grandee (Don Juan of Aragon) who has become a bandit, amidst his men. As with Hugo, the acts have titles, and the first one is called “Il bandito”, just like Hugo’s Act II.

A Singular Vocal QuartetDuring the exchanges with Francesco Maria Piave, with whom he was collaborating for the first time, and their hesitations on this subject (they had been thinking of using Cromwell, another play by Hugo), the vocal cast had been planning to use a mezzo-soprano cross-dressed in the role of Ernani, as in Rossini’s practice, but Verdi returned to the idea of a tenor Ernani with a luminous voice, a baritone Carlo, with that habitual Verdian voice, and a basso profondo Silva, facing a soprano Elvira, using formidable agilities and intervals. So it is that the cast brought together in Lyon is one of the most beautiful ones imaginable, for Ernani will be Francesco Meli, a reference in this role, while the star couple of Nabucco in 2018, Carmen Giannattasio and the young, incredible baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat, will respectively be Elvira and Carlo, and Roberto Tagliavini, one of the new generation’s most interesting basses, will be Silva, led by the passionate energy of Daniele Rustioni.Guy Cherqui

November 2019Wednesday 6th 8pm

In Italian

Length: 2h30 approximately


L’Enfant et les SortilègesMaurice Ravel

A Musical FantasyJacques Rouche, then director of the Opéra National de Paris, gave the idea to Colette to offer Ravel an adaptation of what was to become L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, the French composer’s 1925 masterpiece. To begin with, the famous writer drafted an “Entertainment for [her] daughter”, which was to go down to posterity as one of Maurice Ravel’s greatest successes. Rightly considered as the opera par excellence for children, it is also a genuine marvel for all music lovers: it is one of the scores in which the composer displayed his orchestral genius, his taste for the fantastical and dream universes, but with a precision in the orchestration. This can be seen in the fact that, between accepting this proposition and finishing it, 10 years went by, including the Great War. L’Enfant et les Sortilèges premiered on 21st March 1925 in Monte-Carlo, but the public reception was very lukewarm, as usual when faced by atypical pieces. For, in its spirit, this piece is closer to today’s musical comedies than the operas of the time.

Lightly Applied Special EffectsThis revival of the 2016 production, conceived by Grégoire Pont and James Bonas with the soloists of the Studio and Choruses of the Opéra de Lyon, is a wonderful piece of news for lovers of digital images and music. Not only did Ravel display his orchestral talent, but he injected it with a refreshing note of fantasy introducing unusual instruments

into the orchestra, along with less academic forms of music, such as the polka, jazz or that irresistible meowing duet which must be unique in music history. In this “musical fantasy”, chairs dance, cups converse with teapots, small inanimate shepherds emerge from the hangings where they had been fixed, numbers talk nonsense and animals complain. In this version, the orchestra is placed at the back of the stage, protected by a tulle, which acts as a screen. The images come alive as if by magic, then vanish as furtively as they had appeared: the outline of a clock, little characters, stars, plays of light, an entire virtual world is born. Some performers sprout wings, others launch lightning bolts when opening their mouths, while clouds surround them.

Singular Voices and SoundsThis approach to staging has the huge advantage of being pared-back. At once delicate and luxuriant, Grégoire Pont’s images invade the stage like a swirl of sounds, like that diabolical saraband of numbers which spin around and are disseminated all over the set, from the pin rails to the floor. Without any visual overload, voices can express themselves in their pristine purity. And the orchestra can develop the rich range of sonorities of this musical work, which occupies a special place in this French musician’s repertoire.Gallia Valette-Pilenko

L’Enfant et les SortilègesOperatic fantasy in two parts, 1925 (Opéra de Monte-Carlo)Libretto by Colette

Conductor: Titus EngelConcept and video: Grégoire PontSpatial installation: James BonasSets and costumes: Thibault VancraenenbrœckLighting: Christophe ChaupinChorus Master: Karine Locatelli

Soloists of the Studio of the Opéra de Lyon Orchestra and Choruses of the Opéra de Lyon

Revival of the 2016 production of the Opéra de Lyon In partnership with the Auditori of Barcelona

November 2019Thursday 14th 7.30pmFriday 15th 7.30pmSaturday 16th 3pm Saturday 16th 7.30pm Sunday 17th 11amSunday 17th 4pmTuesday 19th 7.30pm

In French

Length: 1h approximately


The Pajama GameLibretto by George Abbott and Richard Bissell Music and songs by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross

George Abbott and his ProtégésGeorge Abbott (1887-1995) was a man with flair… This brilliant director, with a long career lasting seventy seasons, had already become enamoured of the “kids” (as he called them) of On the Town (1944): Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.But it was Frank Loesser (the composer and lyricist of the extraordinary Guys and Dolls in 1950) who, not wishing to be associated with “7½ Project”, introduced Abbott to a new team of talents: Richard Adler and Jerry Ross.

A Collective Work with a Dream TeamThe idea of transforming 7½ Cents, a short story by Richard Bissell published in 1953, into a musical comedy was suggested to Abbott by his assistants, Harold Prince and Robert E. Griffith. Abbott initially refused to direct this project, but changed his mind once he had found the title: The Pajama Game.Before starting work on The Pajama Game, Adler and Ross had written the songs for just one revue, John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, in 1953. However, Loesser had identified the potential of this duo, who knew how to write hits, and whose particularity was that, turn by turn or else together, each of them took in hand the entirety of the lyrics or of the music. Jerome Robbins wanted to direct the show, along with Abbott, and so put forward his assistant, Bob Fosse, as the choreographer. Finally, Abbott asked Richard Bissell – whose story 7½ Cents told the tale of his family company, a manufacturer of pyjamas – to co-write the libretto with him. In all of this splendid team, only Abbot had any experience. Adler and Ross

had never written a musical, Robbins was not yet a director, Bob Fosse was signing his first choreography and Prince and Griffith had not the slightest experience as producers. And yet…

The Greatest Broadway Success of 1954 Bissell and Abbott highlighted two love stories, so that the show would not be taken for a Communist plea during McCarthyism – with unionized female workers demanding a pay rise and going on strike, while a dishonest boss is cooking the books, all of which could have seemed a little too revolutionary!This musical premiered on 13th May 1954 and was a success right from its first weekend on stage. Prince and Griffith had pulled off a challenge, and then brought together more or less the same team – minus Jerome Robbins – a year later for Damn Yankees (May 1955). Both shows ran for over a thousand performances. Jean Lacornerie, the director of this new production at the Theâtre de la Croix-Rousse, has clearly understood the work’s social reach and, notwithstanding the undeniable comic nature of the situations, he has taken a delight in the gallery of portraits that the libretto can reveal. He is right to emphasize that the characters have “a salutary energy which enters into resonance with our preoccupations today”. Gerard Lecointe, the conductor, has decided to create an instrumental trio and “enrich the sonorities of this combination with the instrumental plays of the singers”, while respecting the spirit of the original score…Patrick Niedo Author, specialist in musical comedies

At the Theâtre de la Renaissance, Oullins, and the Theâtre de la Croix-Rousse, Lyon 4e

The Pajama GameMusical comedy, 1954, (St. James Theater, New York)Libretto after Richard Bissell

The Pajama Game is presented in agreement with Music Theatre International (Europe) (www.mtishows.co.uk) and the Agency Drama – Paris (www.dramaparis.com)

Conductor, arrangements and percussions: Gerard LecointeStage direction: Jean Lacornerie and Raphaël Cottin Scenography: Marc Laine and Stephan ZimmerliCostumes : Marion BenagèsLighting: David DebrinayPiano: Sébastien JaudonDouble bass: NN

New productionAs a co-production with the Theâtre de la Croix-Rousse, the Theâtre de La Renaissance and Angers Nantes Opera

December 2019 At the Theâtre de la RenaissanceThursday 12th 8pmFriday 13th 8pmSaturday 14th 7pm

December 2019 At the Theâtre de la Croix-Rousse Wednesday 18th 8pmThursday 19th 8pmFriday 20th 8pmSaturday 21st 7.30pmSunday 22nd 3pmFriday 27th 8pmSaturday 28th 7.30pmSunday 29th 3pm

In French and in English



Le Roi CarotteJacques Offenbach

A Sumptuous, Long-Forgotten Work Born in 1869 from the encounter between Offenbach and Victorien Sardou (the author of the play La Tosca), Le Roi Carotte, an opera-bouffe féerie, premiered at the Theâtre de la Gaîte in Paris on 15th January 1872. Despite an obligatory interruption, due to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the work of both the composer and the librettist was particularly fecund given that the piece, originally performed in four acts, lasted almost six hours on its premiere! The performance required 30 actors, 45 dancers, 150 extras and an orchestra of 45 musicians. Zulma Bouffar, nicknamed the “Patti des Operettes”, who was very close to Offenbach and had played Gabrielle in La Vie Parisienne, created with success the role of Robin-Luron. The sumptuousness that was deployed won over the public but, after 1877, this work which had successfully been put on in London, New York and Vienna, left the stage, not to return until the 20th century. But it was then reduced to three acts, and it is an even more reduced adaptation, by Agathe Melinand, which is being revived at the Opéra de Lyon, where it was performed for the first time in 2015.

From the Fantastic to the Comic and the MarvellousInitially inspired by a tale by Hoffmann, Petit Zacharie, appelé Cinabre (whose character provided the theme for the Chanson de Kleinzach in The Tales of Hoffmann), the libretto soon shifts away from this fantastical universe, instead favouring a comic, marvellous dimension. Answering to the three characteristics as announced in the generic term, “opera-

bouffe féerie”, the work juggles with a quest for musical and vocal virtuosity, the parody of a tale (the loves of a brazen Cunégonde with a prince disguised as a student) and the story of the destitution of a king who is supplanted by a carrot, whose court is made up of turnips, beetroots and radishes, who have been brought to life and given the gift of charming others by a witch. Politically, there are also a series of allusions to Napoleon III and his councillors, whose timeless aspects remain effective (criticisms of power and authority, of indecision and incompetence). Musically, it is a compendium of all the facets of Offenbach’s music, with his tried and tested procedures and recipes, which began with La Vie Parisienne. The score, rich in contrasts, has to keep up its surprises and underline sentimental effusions before deriding them.

A Promising RevivalThis revival of the 2015 production will mean being able to relive the enchantment of a succession of scenes which draw us into the trail of the adventures of King Fridolin XXIV of Krokodyne, with magnificent costumes conceived by Laurent Pelly, giving root vegetables an absolutely gripping dramatic presence, and Chantal Thomas’s sets – huge books, from which the characters emerge, in pivoting bookcases that open the spaces of the imagination, with the crates and boxes of new furnishings, as imposed in the palace by Le Roi Carotte, in a reconstitution of an antique Pompeii leading to hilarious living tableaux.Fabrice Malkani

Le Roi CarotteOpera-bouffe-féerie in three acts, 1872 (Theâtre de la Gaîte de Paris)Libretto by Victorien Sardou after a tale by Hoffmann Critical edition by Jean-Christophe Keck, Boosey & Hawkes

Conductor: Adrien PerruchonStage direction and costumes: Laurent Pelly New version of the dialogues and staging: Agathe MélinandSets: Chantal ThomasLighting: Joël AdamChorus Master: Lionel Sow

Le Roi Carotte: Christophe Mortagne Robin Luron: Julie Boulianne Fridolin: Yann Beuron Truck: Christophe Gay Pipertrunck: Boris Grappe Rosée du soir: Chloé Briot Cunégonde: Catherine Trottmann Coloquinte: Lydie Pruvot

Orchestra, Choruses and Studio of the Opéra de Lyon

Revival of the 2015 production of the Opéra de Lyon

December 2019Friday 13th 7.30pm Sunday 15th 4pm Tuesday 17th 7.30pmThursday 19th 7.30pmFriday 20th 7.30pmSunday 22nd 4pmFriday 27th 7.30pmTuesday 31st 7pm

January 2020Wednesday 1st 4pm

In French

Length: 2h45


ToscaGiacomo Puccini

A Long GestationPremiering on 14th January in 1900 in Rome – which is the sole scene of its action – Tosca is the fifth opera by Giacomo Puccini, who was 41 on its opening night. The work’s gestation was complicated: Puccini had discovered Victorien Sardou’s play, La Tosca, written for Sarah Bernhardt, ten years before. The negotiations with the playwright to obtain the rights for the adaptation were tense – Sardou did not like Puccini’s music; the work of the librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, was long and arduous. Did such a violent, dark plot have a place on the operatic stage? As for Puccini, he saw in it the guarantee of a maximal musical expressiveness; he sacrificed some characters and sub-plots so as to focus on the drama: an opera singer who, because she has doubts about her lover, the painter Cavaradossi, falls into the trap of Baron Scarpia, who is madly in love with her. While, in the distance, the Battle of Marengo is deciding the fate of Rome, with a Napoleonic conquest or else a city left in the hands of the Neapolitans, Flora Tosca has only a few hours to save her lover, who is being tortured by the Baron’s henchmen. And perhaps to save herself too…

Maria Callas’s Great RoleIf, as of the beginning of the century, Tosca toured the world – over fifty towns put on this opera before the Great War in 1914 – it was no doubt because the public appreciated the points that shocked the critics. “A ferocious, laboriously terrifying story,” wrote Paul Dukas, after the Parisian premiere at the Opera-Comique, in 1903.

But it is more like a genuine musical thriller, which transfigures the codes of the then fashionable verismo, by using Wagnerian leitmotivs. With arias that have become extremely famous: Vissi d’arte for soprano, or E lucevan le stelle for tenor. Of course, the most famous Tosca was Maria Callas: she took on the role in 1942 and made her farewell to the opera as Tosca, in 1965, alongside her friend Tito Gobbi as Scarpia, in Franco Zeffirelli’s famous production.

A Legendary Opera, a Legend of OperaTosca is the fourth opera to be presented in Lyon by the filmmaker and playwright Christophe Honoré (born in 1970). He has chosen to construct his production around the figure of an aged Prima Donna, who will be embodied by Catherine Malfitano, a legendary singer of the role – in particular in a Tosca filmed outdoors in Rome, in 1992 – who has now retired from the operatic stage. “This diva has invited to her home some singers who are preparing a gala in her honour: a concert version of Tosca,” Honoré explains. “She gets them to sing Tosca in her salon, which plunges her back into her past, and this creates a circulation of human relationships, with jealousy, distrust and desire, which are the libretto’s themes.” The credits of this “salon” Tosca, which will show that life is just as cruel as opera, feature the American soprano Angel Blue, the Italian tenor Massimo Giordano, the Russian baritone Alexey Markov and Daniele Rustioni at the head of the Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon.

ToscaOpera in three acts, 1900, (Teatro Costanzi de Rome)Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, after the play by Victorien Sardou

Conductor: Daniele Rustioni Stage direction and video: Christophe HonoréSets: Alban Ho VanCostumes: Olivier BériotLighting: Dominique BruguièreVideo collaborator: Baptiste KleinChorus Master: Hugo Peraldo

Floria Tosca, a celebrated singer: Angel BlueLa Prima Donna: Catherine MalfitanoMario Cavaradossi: Massimo Giordano Baron Scarpia: Alexey MarkovCesare Angelotti: Simon Shibambu A Sacristan: Leonardo Galeazzi Spoletta: Michael SmallwoodSciarrone: Jean-Gabriel Saint-Martin

Orchestra, Choruses and Children’s Choir of the Opéra de Lyon

New production As a co-production with the Festival International d’Art Lyrique of Aix-en-Provence

January 2020Monday 20th 7.30pmWednesday 22nd 7.30pmFriday 24th 7.30pmSunday 26th 4pmTuesday 28th 7.30pmThursday 30th 7.30pm

February 2020Saturday 1st 7.30pmMonday 3rd 7.30pmWednesday 5th 7.30pm

In Italian



I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the SkyJohn Adams

After premiering on 13th May, 1995 at the Zellerbach Playhouse of the University of Berkeley (California) with Grant Gershon at the head of the Ensemble Paul Drescher, and directed by Peter Sellars, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, John Adams’s third operatic opus was first performed in Europe the next autumn, at MC93 Bobigny (27/09-15/10) – the co-producer of the show along with the Festival of Helsinki, the Lincoln Center of New York and the Thalia Theatre of Hamburg. Neither a grand opera nor a Broadway musical comedy, this frenetic “songplay” signed by the poet June Jordan brings together twenty numbers, whose varied styles are inspired by the rock “concept album” of the late 1960s – Abbey Road by the Beatles, Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan…

An Earthquake / Romance Situated in Los AngelesWithout going back to the political dimension of his two previous operatic works, Nixon in China (1985-87) and The Death of Klinghoffer (1990-91), in I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky John Adams combines social drama – the action takes place in modern Los Angeles, with seven characters, all of whom are young and from different origins (African American, White, Asian or Hispanic), whose destinies are to be shaken up by an earthquake– and a love story, projected into the swirl of a novelistic fiction worthy of the European tradition. The title, I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky is taken from an eye witness report by an inhabitant of Los Angeles, who saw her roof… take off.

A Light Structure Based on a pop instrumentation – three keyboards (piano and synthesisers), two wind players (clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone), two guitars – acoustic and electric – a double bass, electric bass guitar and MIDI drumkit – the work’s light structure has been conceived for six players on the stage, handling with ease both song and dance: trois mezzos, two baritones and a tenor.

American ModelsSpicing up his score with popular styles (jazz, swing, gospel, rap, rock…), the composer positions himself in the line of great American models who use vernacular language, such as Gershwin who, in the 1930s, nourished his Porgy and Bess with negro spirituals, blues and jazz, or Bernstein, of course, whose Hispanic and cool jazz rhythms buoyed up his West Side Story two decades later (1957). This is a typically American affiliation, a genetic code proper to Adams, who associates popular and classical languages in a common artistic sphere of showtime.

Staging a Crossing of Genres Ever loyal to the Opéra de Lyon (Moscow, Cherry Town; The Merry Widow; Le Bœuf sur le Toit; Les Mamelles de Tiresias), Macha Makeïeff, who became renowned thanks to the now unforgettable gang of the Deschiens and who, among other things, co-signed the exhibition “Jacques Tati, deux temps, trois mouvements ”, should in this crossing of genres find just the right thing so as to play on realistic drama with passion, in this decidedly Brechtian theatre, as dark and exhilarating as Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera.

At the Theâtre de la Croix-Rousse, Lyon 4e

I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the SkySongplay in two acts, 1995 (Zellerbach Theater, Berkeley)Libretto by June Jordan

Conductor: Philippe Forget Stage direction, sets and costumes : Macha Makeïeff

Instrumental ensemble Singers of the Studio of the Opéra de Lyon

New production Co-production with the Theâtre de la Croix-Rousse and La Criée, Théâtre National de Marseille

February 2020Thursday 13th 8pmFriday 14th 8pmSaturday 15th 7.30pmSunday 16th 3pmWednesday 19th 8pmThursday 20th 8pmSaturday 22nd 7.30pmSunday 23rd 3pmTuesday 25th 8pm In English



RigolettoGiuseppe Verdi

From Victor Hugo to Verdi, a Mistreated Story Victor Hugo’s play, Le Roi s’amuse (The King Has Fun), has never been successful. After its premiere on 23rd November 1832, it was censored by the Louis-Philippe government, as an affront to moral standards and royalty. After being revived fifty years later, the play once again fell into oblivion. And yet, the plot is quite head-spinning. Francis I’s jester, Triboulet, has the task of entertaining his master and his court. These cynical libertines are serial seducers, in particular of the daughter of Saint-Vallier, Diane de Poitiers. Triboulet makes fun of it all; Saint-Vallier curses him. This imprecation hits home. In turn, Triboulet’s daughter, Blanche, is to be seduced by Francis I. Thanks to a devious ploy, Triboulet then helps in the kidnapping of his own daughter. To take revenge on the seducer, he plots to murder him. But his daughter dies instead of the King. From this play, Verdi conceived a masterpiece of darkness. But he, too, encountered difficulties. Censorship, this time Austrian, set to work. Disturbed to see Francis I represented as a libertine, the names had to be changed and the situations, judged to be too scandalous, toned down. Thus, Triboulet and Blanche became Rigoletto and Gilda, while the King of France was demoted to the Duke of Mantua. Initially entitled La Maledizione, this work, composed and rehearsed in just a few months, triumphed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 11th March 1851.

Verdi’s SoulIn Verdi’s oeuvre, Rigoletto marked the beginning of what was later to be called his “trilogy”, including Il Trovatore and Traviata. The departure point is melodrama. Historical and

gory for the first opera: societal and tearful for the second; cynical and dark for Rigoletto. Though adapting dated plays, Verdi succeeded in majestically turning conventional, even outlandish, situations into masterpieces. He decked the usual pathos of a melodrama with a psychological density never heard before in an opera, be it in a “great romantic opera” or an ornate “bel canto”. A dramaturgical revolution was happening. Wagner succeeded in fully realising this only in 1865, with Tristan. But, Rigoletto is Shakespeare in music. From the overture, of an unheard-of violence, to the final murder, the tension never falters. Whether it be the icy cursing of Rigoletto by Monterone; the rage of the deceived jester; the Duke’s womanising or else the ethereal Caro Nome sung by Gilda, each aria transforms operatic commonplaces. In Rigoletto, the opera genre evolves from fireworks towards introspection; from a cabaletta to confession. Nothing is gratuitous, everything has a meaning. Opera is no longer just there for fun or entertainment; Verdi was now holding out to the public a mirror of its emotions and of humanity, of which La Traviata was to be the summit.

The ProductionAs an adept of the melancholy burlesque, Axel Ranisch, born in Berlin in 1983, is here taking on the production of a Verdi opera. His offbeat tone and his love of the circus have made of this assured jester a man of the theatre who is greatly appreciated in Germany. Before starting to direct operas (La Voix Humaine then Pinocchio for the Munich Opera) Axel Ranisch made several alternative short films in which trash reinvents poetry in a universe midway between John Waters and Fassbinder.

Rigoletto Opera in three acts, 1851 (Teatro La Fenice)Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave

Conductor: Michele SpottiStage direction: Axel RanischSets: Falko HeroldLighting: Michael BauerDrarmaturgy: Rainer KarlitschekChorus Master: Johannes Knecht

The Duke of Mantua: NNRigoletto: Roberto Frontali Gilda: Nina Minasyan Sparafucile: Wenwei ZhangMaddalena: Agata Schmidt Marullo: Daniele Terenzi


New production As a co-production with the Bayerische Staatsoper of Munich

March 2020Friday 13th 8pmSunday 15th 4pmWednesday 18th 8pmSaturday 21st 8pmWednesday 25th 8pmFriday 27th 8pmSunday 29th 4pmTuesday 31st 8pm

April 2020 Thursday 2nd 8pm

In Italian


Festival


IrreloheFranz Schreker

Il Trovatore in the Weimar RepublicIn the castle of Irrelohe, Count Heinrich is mulling over a family curse. For, now in love with the pure Eva, he fears succumbing to murderous madness if he has carnal knowledge of her. Didn’t his father once rape the fiancée of Christobald, the innkeeper? Meanwhile, his neurotic love enflames the consuming jealousy of Peter, Eva’s suitor, and the hostility of Christobald. Their struggles lead to the burning of the accursed castle. Irrelohe (“crazy flame”), which premiered in Cologne in 1924 with Otto Klemperer, is a singular work whose characters act like those of Il Trovatore and who end their destinies in flames, like heroes of a Twilight of the Gods.

Schreker, between Wagner and SchoenbergFranz Schreker (1878-1934) is, with Korngold and Zemlinsky, one of the main musical representatives of “Jugendstil”, that luxuriant, accursed Art Nouveau, which was deeply influenced by Wagner. The son of a Jewish photographer, in 1920 he became one of the intellectual leaders of the Hochschule, Berlin’s highest music academy. It was at the time an avant-garde centre for music teaching, around which many famous names gravitated: Furtwängler, Fritz Busch, Arthur Schnabel, Edwin Fischer or Hermann Scherchen. In 1921, Schreker published a caustic, premonitory self-portrait, in which he stated: “I am an impressionist, expressionist, internationalist, musical futurist; I am a Jew who has succeeded thanks to Jewish power and a Christian who was launched by a Catholic ‘clique’ placed under the patronage of an ultra-Catholic Viennese princess (…) I am a symbolist belonging to the most left-leaning wing of modernity (Schoenberg,

Debussy); I am a cinematographic dramaturge, a man who draws his strength from languor and morbidity; my music is pure and authentic, convoluted, ruminated, affected; it is an ocean of harmony, a greyish accumulation of cacophonies (…) I am the sole successor of Wagner, a competitor of Strauss and Puccini, I flatter the public (…) I am a grandiose illustration of the decline of our civilisation.”His arrival at the head of a Berlin institution ruffled the feathers of the German extreme right-wing. For the nationalists, his operas, which were at the time more popular than those of Richard Strauss, represented the perfect example of internationalism in art. 1924 saw the premiere of Irrelohe; and 1925 that of Berg’s Wozzeck. Seven years later, when the Nazis took power, Schrecker was stripped of all his functions. In search of a land of exile, he tried in vain to move to Vienna, Paris and the USA. But he was to die in Berlin on 21st March 1934. Irrelohe, one of his final works, rings out like the swan song of an extraordinarily fertile period.

The ProductionThe Lyon resurrection of this venomous work has been entrusted to David Bösch. Born in 1978, responsible for an incisive trilogy of Mozart and Da Ponte operas for the theatres of Geneva and Amsterdam, he is a true connoisseur of so-called “degenerate” composers. His productions of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane and Die Tote Stadt, staged in Ghent and Dresden, were epoch-making. Strauss (Elektra) and Wagner (The Flying Dutchman, Die Meistersinger) also figure among his preferred composers. He will bring to this new production the dark gravitas required for the work of Schreker, that brilliant outcast.

IrreloheOpera in three acts, 1924 (Cologne Opera)Libretto by the composer

Conductor: Bernhard KontarskyStage direction: David BöschSets: Falko HeroldCostumes: Moana StembergerLighting: Michael BauerChorus Master: Johannes Knecht

Count Heinrich: Stephan RügamerThe Forester: Piotr MicinskiEva: Deirdre AngenentOld Lola: Janina BaechlePeter, Lola’s son: Julian OrlishauseChristobald: James KryshakFünkchen, a musician: Alexander GelahStrahlbusch, a musician: Piotr MicinskiRatzekahl, a musician: Martin Hässler


New production

March 2020Saturday 14th 8pmTuesday 17th 8pmFriday 20th 8pmSunday 22nd 4pmTuesday 24th 8pmSaturday 28th 8pmSunday 29th 4pm

In German


Festival


The MoonCarl Orff

An opera for the largest numberPremiering in Munich in February 1939 under the baton of Clemens Krauss, The Moon is subtitled “a little world theatre”. This singular opera takes its inspiration from a tale by the Brothers Grimm, adapted by Car Orff. Both plain and jovial, it recreates the archaic style of the narratives of yesteryear. A Storyteller presents the tale of four boys from the country of eternal night. Hanging from a tree, they discover a luminous ball, which they take back home, so that it can give them its brightness. Once they become men, the four of them share this magical object. Then, on their death, they go down into the kingdom of shadows, each with a quarter of the moon. Their disappearance plunges the country back into darkness, but Hell is now lit up, leading to some amusing situations. When Saint Peter is alerted, he rushes to the other world, recovers the Moon and hangs it from a star. Hell goes back to its gloomy shadows. And the world now has a heavenly body to enlighten its dreams and soothe its darkest terrors.

A composer without influencesOrff, who was neither Wagnerian nor atonal, produced music which was far distant from the sophistications of postromantic operas. This Bavarian, based in Munich all his life, sought to give back a simplicity of expression to musical theatre so as to reach the largest possible audience. To do so, Orff turned to medieval mysteries, of which Carmina Burana (1937) is the best-known adaptation, along with Catulli Burana (1943) and Trionfo di Afrodite (1953). An independent spirit, Carl Orff, like Richard Strauss, conducted a part of his career under the Third Reich. From 1933 to 1939, his aesthetic choices

corresponded to Nazi aspirations. They matched the communitarian enthusiasms which were part of the regime’s fantasies. But after 1939, Orff was snubbed, because he did not display enough ideological zeal. With hindsight, this pedagogical master could be seen as one of the initiators of the renewal of ancient music, like his contemporaries Nadia Boulanger, Francis Poulenc, or even Ottorino Respighi. In 1958, Orff adapted and revived Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and the Lamento d’Arianna. His universe is based on creative freedom. As early as 1924, with the foundation of the Güntherschule, an academy of music and dance devoted to children, a refusal of dogma remained his watchword. His conception of a musical show merged music, words, dramaturgy and instrumental surprises. Der Mond, the result of frequenting ancient music and working with children, stands as an object with a great rhythmic and vocal modernity.

The production For this work, which acts as an initiatory tale, the Opéra de Lyon is turning once more to the British director James Bonas and the videomaker and illustrator Grégoire Pont. The visual magic of their Ravel productions (presented in 2016 and 2018) derives from a jubilatory and finely measured interaction with video projections. The music becomes a living matter, in perpetual creation. Thus, each performer turns into a festival of ideas in which humour, dreams and comic strips draw the spectators into an emotional swirl. Orff’s work, conceived with a variable geometry, will be staged in a reduced version for a small orchestral ensemble.

At the Théâtre du Point du Jour, Lyon 5e

The Moon, by Carl Orff (1895-1982)A little world theatre in one actLibretto by the composer, after a tale by the Brothers Grimm, 1939Version for two pianos, organ and percussion by Friederich K. Wanek

Concept and video: Grégoire PontStage direction: James BonasSets and costumes: Thibault VancraenenbroeckLighting: Christophe Chaupin

Orchestra and singers of the Studio of the Opéra de Lyon

April 2020Sunday 15th 4pmTuesday 17th 8pmWednesday 17th 8pmThursday 19th 8pmFriday 20th 8pmSaturdday 21st 8pmSunday 22th 4pm

In German



Gretel and Hansel Engelbert Humperdinck / Sergio Menozzi

A cruel tale of gourmandiseEngelbert Humperdinck’s opera is a toned-down version of a gory tale, Nennillo e Nennella, compiled for the first time by the Neapolitan writer Giambattista Basile in the 17th century. Reworked by the Brothers Grimm, the story became more acceptable and its underlying cannibalism vanished. With Humperdinck, the myth turned into pastry. Adelheid Wette, the sister’s composer, adopted it to write a libretto for what was intended for purely domestic performances on birthdays: a sketch with songs destined to the composer’s family circle. Humperdinck was a fan of the sorcerer of Bayreuth. The creative approach of Hansel et Gretel is rather reminiscent of the gestation of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, a domestic gift for Cosima and her children. During its writing, the work took on the proportions of a tale-cum-opera. When it premiered on 23rd December 1893 in Weimar, Richard Strauss was the first to point to its opulent orchestration.

Transposed for todayAs with all tales, several readings of Hansel et Gretel are possible. With its great semantic richness, this Neapolitan fable was able to express the unsayable: two children abandoned by their parents find once more a pathway through life after having to defeat a cannibal witch. She is a

figure of the crimes and perversion that fester in the world of grown-ups, or adults. Gretel et Hansel proposes a different interpretation. By inverting the order, the composer Sergio Menozzi and the writer Henri-Alexis Baatsch focus on Gretel, whose cunning successfully vanquishes the evil fairy. Formally, the work returns to its origins, as a family entertainment. The stunning romantic orchestra is transposed into a sextet for flute, clarinet, horn, violin, cello and piano. “The score thus gains more clarity. Other melodic lines emerge. Hansel et Gretel can take on the shades of a Pierrot Lunaire, minus the atonality,” Sergio Menozzi points out, concerning his transcription. The two heroes, as well as the Sandman and the Dew Fairy, have been entrusted to children. To draw closer to the tale.

The productionPerformed by young soloists selected from the Studio and the Children’s Choir of the Opéra de Lyon, Gretel et Hansel is being conducted by Karine Locatelli. It is being directed by Samuel Achache, of the Comédie de Valence, who in 2013 was awarded the Molière for the best musical show for Le Crocodile trompeur / Didon et Énée. He makes his own this world of childhood and perils, in which anxieties about hunger and abandon can also be expressed. With family cruelty lurking in the background.

At the Theâtre de la Renaissance, Oullins

Hänsel und Gretel Opera after Engelbert Humperdinck French adaptation by Sergio Menozzi, 1995 (Opéra de Lyon)

Conductor: Karine Locatelli Stage direction: Samuel AchacheSets: Lisa NavarroCostumes: Pauline KiefferLighting: César GodefroyDramaturgy: Sarah le Picard

Orchestra, Children’s Choir and Soloists of the Opéra de Lyon

April 2020Wednesday 15th 3pmFriday 17th 7pmSaturday 18th 4pmMonday 20th 4pmTuesday 21st 4pmTuesday 21st 7pm

In French



ShirineThierry Escaich Libretto by Atiq Rahimi

In the world of the opera, creation is exalting: it is always exciting to discover new, freshly written works, by today’s composers for today’s public. The Opéra de Lyon has for a long time been regularly staging new operas, which nourish and enrich the operatic repertoire. The public knows this, and is always present.Thus, after Lessons in Love and Violence, an opera by George Benjamin which premiered in May 2019, Shirine will be the creation for the 2019/2020 season, composed by Thierry Escaich with a libretto by Atiq Rahimi. In 2013, Thierry Escaich had reserved for the Opéra de Lyon his first opera, Claude, with a libretto by Robert Badinter. Born in 1965, Thierry Escaich now occupies a dominant place in French and international musical life, as an organist – a post he holds at Saint Etienne-du-Mont – an improvisor and, of course, a composer. His three Concertos for Organ, in particular, are known worldwide. The idea of composing a second opera came to him during the rehearsals of Claude: Thierry Escaich then imagined a work which would contrast with Claude. After the realistic world of prison, there would come a universe of tales and legends: Shirine.

Persian FantasyIt was originally a story by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, translated and adapted by Atiq Rahimi. Well-known to French readers, Atiq Rahimi is a Franco-Afghan writer and filmmaker,

and the winner of the 2008 Prix Goncourt for his novel Syngue sabour - Pierre de patience (The Patience Stone). With Thierry Escaich, they form an unexpected and particularly inspiring duo. Shirine tells the story of the impossible – insane – love that unites Khosrow, King of Persia, and Shirine, a Christian princess from Armenia. It is an epic stretching over three generations, rich with thousands of twists and turns, punctuated with highly powerful images, and marked by the sign of a curse and death. It is a magnificent subject for an opera, along with a reflexion about representation – Shirine firstly falls in love with a portrait of Khosrow – thus favouring the birth of a major, contemporary operatic work.

An Immediate, Metaphoric ArtClaude and Shirine have in common Thierry Escaich’s characteristic writing: music as a “liturgy of anxiety”, with a great richness and an immediate impact on the listener. In this respect, a critic has spoken of “music for the ears”, underlining its sensitivity. But Shirine also reveals an original dimension in Escaich’s art: celestial melodies, reinvented oriental colours, inspired by traditional Iranian music, a writing that the composer himself defines as “ornate, metaphorical, contrasted”. To which could easily be added “fantastical”, as reflected in Richard Brunel’s stage direction and the cast of singers, highlighting a team of great, young talents.

ShirineOpera in twelve tableaux, 2019 (Opéra de Lyon)Libretto by Atiq Rahimi, after Khosrow and Shirin by Nizami Ganjavi (1141-1209)

Conductor: Martyn BrabbinsStage direction: Richard Brunel Sets: NNCostumes: Wojciech DziedzicChorus Master: Denis Comtet

Khosrow: Julien Behr Shirine: Hélène Guilmette Farhâd, Chapou: Jean-Sébastien Bou Chamira: Elodie MéchainRoi Hormoz: Laurent Alvaro

Orchestra, Studio and Choruses of the Opéra de Lyon

New production World premiere, commissioned by the Opéra de Lyon

May 202Saturday 2nd 8pmMonday 4th 8pmWednesday 6th 8pmFriday 8th 8pmSunday 10th 4pmTuesday 12th 8pm

In French



The Marriage of FigaroWolfgang Amadeus Mozart

BetrayingAware of the success (67 performances in Paris in 1784) of Beaumarchais’s play La Folle Journee or Le Mariage de Figaro, Emmanuel Schikaneder, the director of the Theatre of Vienna, wanted to stage a German version of it: the opening was planned for 4th February 1785. But the Emperor Joseph II, concerned about his interests and appearances, banned it. Mozart, then aged 29, subsequently contacted Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist and defrocked abbot (whom he had met in 1783 at Baron Wetzlar’s), and told him about the triumph of the Barber of Seville (1782) by Pasisiello, who had succeeded where his friend Schikaneder had failed. A collaboration? Da Ponte talks about it in his Memoirs: “As I wrote the words, Mozart composed the music, in 6 weeks it was finished”. What about censorship? To quote Da Ponte again: “By turning this comedy into an opera, I cut entire scenes, I abridged others, and I above all paid attention to removing anything that might shock social convention or good taste”.And the result? Cut up in this way (4 acts instead of 5, 11 characters against 16 to begin with, the disappearance of Figaro’s monologue and Marcellina’s trial…), and – a decisive point! – turning it into Italian, the opera was accepted by the Emperor.

Inventing1st May 1786, at the Burgtheater in Vienna. A sparkling cast (Francesco Benucci as Figaro, Nancy Storace as Suzanna, Stefano and Maria Mandini as the Count and Marcellina, Luisa Laschi-Mombelli as the Countess, Michael Kelly as Basilio and Don Curzio, Francesco Bussani as Bartolo and Antonio, Dorotea Sardi-Bussani as Cherubino, Anna Gottlieb as Barberina…),

a standing ovation, an immediate success – despite a few reservations among the nobility. An “event” (M. Kelly), doubtlessly coming from Mozart’s audacity. While extending the piece (jealousy, trickery, unjust justice…), the composer effected a shift, with a crucial lightness: the music now spoke. It reflected and delved into individual psychologies (“Non più andrai” for Figaro, “Non so più” and “Voi che sapete” for Cherubino, “Porgi amor” for the Countess (or in collective movements (Act I, Sc.9; Act I, Sc 11; Act II, Sc 5; Act II, Sc 5…) underlining human stupidity and – above all! – the resistance of women. Their beauty. Their triumph. Lucia Popp, who sang the Countess and Susanna several times, confirmed this: “Mozart and we other women, we other singers, it was a story of work and love, an endless story”.

ExtendingFrom Desordre (1986) to Personal Shopper (2016), Olivier Assayas has thought and lived through his films as open spaces, in which images and sounds are mingled, occasionally pushing each other back, often answering to one other. This is an agitated, organic alliance with Bergmanian aspects (the impact of his Magic Flute, 1975), embodied by various actress-muses (M. Cheung, J. Binoche, K. Stewart…) and distinct musical choices (Sonic Youth, punk rock…), always turned towards an era, our present. This present is now to be delved into in The Marriage, the first opera he has directed, with an intention to “speak about contemporary psychologies without betraying Mozart’s masterpiece”.Guillaume Sbalchiero

Le nozze di FigaroOpera buffa in four acts, 1786 (Burgtheater of Vienna) Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, inspired by Beaumarchais’s comedy, Le Mariage de Figaro

Conductor: Stefano MontanariStage direction: Olivier AssayasSets: Magda WilliCostumes: Anaïs RomandLighting: Carsten SanderArtistic collaboration: Sybille WilsonChorus Master: Hugo Peraldo

Count Almaviva: Nikolay BorchevCountess Almaviva: Mandy FredrichFigaro: Alexander MiminoshviliSusanna: Katharina KonradiCherubino: Giuseppina BridelliMarcellina: Agata SchmidtBartolo: Piotr Micinski

Orchestra and Studio of the Opéra de LyonVocal ensemble

New productionAs a coproduction with the Opéra des Flandres

June 2020Saturday 6th 8pmMonday 8th 8pmWednesday 10th 8pm Friday 12th 8pm Sunday 14th 4pmTuesday 16th 8pmThursday 18th 8pmSaturday 20th 8pm

In Italian


Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 17 Dance

Russell MaliphantSpiral Pass / Creation

Russell Maliphant is making a striking return to the stage of the Opéra de Lyon. After the revival, last season, of the duet Critical Mass, the British choreographer’s first piece to enter the repertoire of the Ballet in 2002, and which the public will be able to see (again) next November, this is a long-awaited evening entirely devoted to a choreographer enthused by form and movement.

A luminous pas de deux For long a favourite of Sylvie Guillem, who contributed to his international success, the choreographer trained at the Royal Ballet School, thus obtaining a solid classical base, before gradually disappearing from the French scene, to pursue a brilliant career on the other side of the Channel. He is now returning majestically to Lyon with two pieces unknown to the French public. With good reason, for one of them is a creation for the Ballet, the second after Twelvetwentyone, which he composed in 2004. The other is a revival of a piece for seven female and seven male dancers, conceived for the Bayerisches Staatsballett in 2014, Spiral Pass, which is entering the repertoire. The dance critic of the Guardian, Judith Mackrell made no bones about stating that it is one of the most beautiful pieces of this choreographer and resident of DanceEast in Ipswich, who is also an associate artist of the world-famous London company, Sadler’s Wells. This piece presents seven couples and toys with the classical codes of the pas de deux, while keeping the constitutive

parts of Maliphant’s techniques. With sinuous, fluid lines, his writing is set in a space of light, playing with it, just as it plays on dance movement. For, over the past 20 years, Russell Maliphant has enjoyed a special relationship with Michael Hulls, a sculptor of light. Together, they have explored “how light affects the body and how the body affects light”, in a permanent dialogue between dance and light, and between movement, shadow and clarity. There thus appear luminous, moving, changing sculptures which fascinate the eyes and sharpen the imagination.

A baroque flowThe second piece on the programme, a creation, is still a work in progress. Planned for about twelve male and female dancers, it will be written around baroque compositions, which will be played by the Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon. The musical choices will determine the initial orientations of the research into movement, and allow Russell Maliphant to explore new avenues. Attached to the qualities of the performers he works with, he tries to develop each particular talent in the service of what he has to say. The singular approach to flows and energy that the choreographer explores, just like the particular relationship with the connections between dance, light and music, which he has been refining since starting out, should release poetic, fantastic images. In a coat of light conceived by Michael Hulls.Gallia Valette-Pilenko

Spiral PassChoregraphy: Russell MaliphantCostumes: Stevie StewartLighting: Michael HullsMusique: Mukul, Spiral Pass (2013)Piece for 14 dancers, 2019 (Bayerisches Staatsballett)

CreationChoregraphy: Russell MaliphantCostumes: Stevie StewartLighting: Lee CurranPiece for 12 dancers, 2019 (Opéra de Lyon)

Ballet of the Opéra de LyonWith the participation of the Orchestra of the Opéra de LyonConductor: Marc Leroy-Catalayud

As part of the Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon

September 2019Monday 9th 8pmTuesday 10th 8pm Thursday 12th 8pm Friday 13th 8pmSaturday 14th 8pmSunday 15th 4pm


Dance / Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon

The Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon is proposing a nicely balanced season, between revivals and arrivals in the repertoire. Russell Maliphant is back with a vengeance, with two new pieces, including a creation for the Ballet, and a revival of his duet Critical Mass. Merce Cunningham is once again being honoured with a high-powered programme: Exchange and Scenario, to conclude this

homage on the hundredth anniversary of the great American master’s birth. The same goes for Lucinda Childs, who will be present for two evenings: the first one to be shared with Russell Maliphant and the second in which her Grosse Fugue will rub shoulders with those of Maguy Marin and Anne-Teresa De Keersmaker and at the end of the season, an evening of creations.


Pockemon CrewMillésime

“A symbol of its birth and a pillar of its success, the Opéra de Lyon is a dream site, for a return to the place where it all began and to celebrate the Company’s 20th birthday.”Riyad Fghani, artistic director

To celebrate its 20 years of activity, the Pockemon Crew Company is moving back to the Opéra. This is far from surprising when you know the story of this “crew” which has won numerous titles in “battles” all over the world, with the pride of being the team with the most titles worldwide, winning the French and European Championship once, and the World Championship twice. For, it was on the dark, smooth floor of the parvis of this honourable house that the members of the group met and decided to found a company. This daringly atypical union was also the chance for the first ties to be made between hip-hop dancers and the institution, which opened its doors to them and hosted them for 10 years, between 2003 and 2013. Thus came about

the creation of Silence, on tourne!, one of the company’s greatest successes, which has already toured across 30,000 km and is still pursuing its adventure in many places in the world.This creation will also be an opportunity to mingle two universes, like a return to the source. After an initial approach in 2014, as part of the Fête des Lumières with dancers from the Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon and dancers from Pockemon Crew, Riyad Fghani is at it again with Millésime, a piece for 20 performers. 15 hip-hoppers and 5 dancers from the Ballet will join together in an opus with multiple lines, between trainers and ballet-shoes. The story of a human adventure, Millésime aims to be generous, open and adventurous. The idea is to confront these universes, examine them, unite then disunite them, and display the evolution of young people who have seen their dreams come true. A tale of encounters! A birthday in every sense of the word!Gallia Valette-Pilenko

MillésimeArtistic and choreographic direction: Riyad FghaniLighting: Rudy Muet and Johan CorrèzeScenography: Riyad FghaniPiece for 20 dancers, 2019 (Opéra de Lyon)

Guests and dancers of the Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon

New productionAs a coproduction with Qui Fait Ça ? Kiffer Ça !

October 2019Wednesday 23rd 8pmThursday 24th 8pm



Merce CunninghamExchange / Scenario

ExchangeDivided into three parts, Exchange begins with half the dancers in the first part, the other half in the second part, and the entire cast closing out the third. Cunningham himself was the only dancer who appeared in all three sections. When asked about his inspiration for the piece, Cunningham said, “I’ve often been struck by the idea of recurrence, ideas, movements, inflections coming back in different guises, never the same; it’s always a new space and a changed moment in time. So I decided to use it in Exchange.” He began by making 64 movement phrases of varying length and complexity, and then used chance operations to determine which phrases would be used in each section, and the order in which the phrases would occur. When a phrase reoccurred, Cunningham altered it in some way – changing the timing; adding jumps, turns, or lifts; shifting from parallel position to turned-out; adding or omitting some movements.

Exchange is a large-scale dance with a distinctly urban milieu. The décor and costumes were designed by Jasper Johns, featuring gritty grays with touches of sooty color. (Johns said he wanted “polluted” colors.) David Tudor’s music, Weatherings, is an electronic score that uses source recordings chopped into fragments and then spatialized in performance “to get the sounds to fly in space.”

ScenarioScenario was Cunningham’s first collaboration with a figure from the world of haute couture, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, known for her innovative, iconoclastic designs. The costumes Kawakubo designed for Scenario were based on her notorious spring/summer 1997 collection called

Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body, which insiders later dubbed the “lumps and bumps” show. They feature down padding that forms irregular bulges on the dancers’ hips, shoulders, chests and backs, radically distorting the appearance of the dancers’ bodies and in some cases limiting their range of motion and altering their balance.

Cunningham did not choreography with these costumes in mind – he simply regarded them as another element in the mix. The dance is in thirteen sections which follow each other without a break. After an opening ensemble section, the dance unfolds as a series of multiple duets and trios variously reconfigured as quartets, quintets and sextets. The full ensemble reappears at the end of the dance. The choreography, made during a period when Cunningham was working with DanceForms computer software, features complex coordination of the legs, arms, torso, and head. The technically demanding movement, performed in outlandish costumes lend a fresh, comic, and at times disorienting tone to the dance.

The décor for the dance, a stark white space with fluorescent lighting, is the realization of a concept by Kawakubo. “I didn’t want a ‘stage’ feeling,” she said, “but more like a room, which the audience would feel they shared with the dancers.”

The music, Wave Code A-Z, was composed by Takehisa Kosugi, then the musical director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. It is an electronic score involving very low frequency electronic waves and “various sounds and realizations instructed by the meanings of 26 single words (A to Z).”Gallia Valette-Pilenko

ExchangeChoreography: Merce CunninghamMusic: David Tudor, WeatheringsSound design: Phil EdelsteinSets, costumes and lighting: D'après Jasper JohnsPiece for 15 danseurs, 1978 (New York)

ScenarioChoreography : Merce CunninghamMusic: Takehisa Kosugi, Wave Code A-ZSets, costumes and lighting: Rei KawakuboConcept and advisor: Davison ScandrettRevived by: Jamie Scott & Andrea Weber, Banu Ogan & Daniel SquirePiece for 15 dancers, 1997 (Brooklyn)

Exchange (1978) et Scénario (1997) par © Merce Cunningham Trust All rights reserved

Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon

November 2019Friday 1st 8pmSaturday 2nd 8pmSunday 3rd 4pm


Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 20

Critical Mass Choreography: Russell MaliphantMusic: Richard English, Andy Cowton Lighting: Michael HullsPiece for 2 dancers, 1998 (London and Die Werkstatt Düsseldorf)

DanceChoreography: Lucinda ChildsMusic: Philip Glass ©1979 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc.Costumes: A. Christina GianniniLighting: Beverly EmmonsOriginal conception of the film: Sol LeWitt, 2016 production: Marie-Helène Rebois Piece for 17 dancers, 1979


Russell Maliphant / Lucinda ChildsCritical Mass / Dance

This is an evening given over to abstraction, between a magnetic duet by Russell Maliphant, Critical Mass and the no less fascinating Dance by Lucinda Childs.

Critical Mass, a magnetic duetCreated in 1998 for himself and the dancer Robert Tannion, this splendid duet entered the repertoire of the Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon four years later. In 2018, it was revived in an exclusively male programme, bringing together William Forsythe, Benjamin Millepied and Russell Maliphant. On this occasion, it can be seen in company with Lucinda Childs’s masterpiece, Dance.A stunning duet, inspired both from martial arts and dance, Critical Mass alternates rapid and slow sequences, sonic moods and evocations. In turn it displays virile bodily contact, or a lascivious, sensual duet, the gentleness of an embracing couple, or the violence of others having a row. Maliphant’s dance is fluid or jolting, tracing out space or melting into the half-light like mist gradually vanishing. From wild fist fights to ambiguous caresses, from academic imbalances to stunning lifts, each of us must use our imaginations to identify a centaur or a bitter struggle, an improbable encounter or a muscular confrontation. The bodily contact is transformed into the unravelling of lines. The fusion of the bodies is perfect, with a rare density.

Dance, sublime and literally hypnoticIn 2016, Lucinda Childs’s Dance entered the repertoire of the Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon. It was an opportunity for the company to become the custodian of this absolute masterpiece of choreographic minimalism. Composed in 1979, this piece, which brings together the talents of a choreographer, a composer and a visual artist, is a concentration of pure dance. Made up of three tableaux, with one daring to offer a solo as the second part, Dance is a unique choreographic phrase, recombined infinitely, for duets, quartets and ensembles. A succession of light, airy traversées gravitate around Philip Glass’s repetitive score, while the film, conceived by Sol Lewitt and re-shot 36 years later by Marie-Helène Rebois with performers from the Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon, runs before our eyes. Like a continuous current, the choreography is deployed exactly without ever being wearying, alternating rhythms up to its final accelerations. The continuous becomes discontinuous, and vice versa, through the optical effects set off by the simultaneous or out-of-sync projection of images with the physical presence of the performers. The eyes are snapped up by this uninterrupted flow, fascinated by gestures which are at once semblable and yet slightly displaced, with a mathematical rigour, while the film, composed from different points of view, invents a new space for dance. It is transformed as much into a subject as an object. Thus reinventing time and space!Gallia Valette-Pilenko

November 2019Thursday 7th 8pmFriday 8th 8pmSaturday 9th 8pm


Dance


Nacho Duato / Mats Ek / Johan IngerRemansos / Solo for Two / I New Then

This evening’s purely male programme should delight all lovers of fine dancing. For it features the magnificent Solo for Two by Mats Ek, the improbable Remansos by Nacho Duato and the ungraspable I New Then by Johan Inger, a piece created in 2012 for the young Ballet du Nederland Dans Theater, or NDT II.

Nacho Duato: the returnRemansos is a piece that has not been seen for some time. It entered the repertoire of the Ballet in 2001, having already had a hectic history, since it has been constructed several times, and in several parts: the first in 1997, in New York, and the second in 1998, with the compania nacional de danza, which Nacho Duato directed at the time. Inspired by a poem by Garcia Lorca, Remansos deploys an exceptional musicality in total symbiosis with Enrique Granados’s score.Solos, duets or trios follow one other, its lines are doubled up, multiplying and vanishing, just like the bodies of the dancers behind the board, as though dissolving, caught up by a space that is summoning them. The male trio in the first part is matched by a female trio in the second, providing an arithmetic of constantly moving pairings.

Mats Ek: permanenceThere is no tiring of this Solo for Two, created for Sylvie Guillem and Niklas Ek, the choreographer’s brother. A duet made up of gentleness and delicacy

which, without being a narrative, evokes the everyday life of a loving relationship. Common gestures and dance steps are combined to reveal in the background a fracture and a reflexion about humanity, which is always present with this Swedish choreographer. These two characters, between male and female, can be seen as a woman and a man, but also as two facets of one individual. Mats Ek explores the meandering of the human soul, by turns choreographing despair, absence, sadness, but also vigour, tenderness, joy and beauty. While Arvo Pärt’s music makes silences and suspensions resonate.

Johan Inger: freshnessThe Lyon public discovered Johan Inger with I New Then, three years ago. Created for the NDT II, with five female and four male dancers using Van Morrison’s cult album, Astral Weeks, I New Then attempts to capture fleeting youth. In costumes with an exquisite fluidity and lightness, the performers leap towards more clement skies. Complex, rigorous gestures are deployed in duets, trios, quartets and ensembles, exuding the freshness and carefree spirit of youth. Flights, rolls, sidesteps and lifts are the motifs that whisk us up into a youthful élan, supported by Van Morrison’s music and the subtle scenography conceived by the choreographer: an abstract forest for hiding in, for taking refuge so as to recover some strength and leap once more towards unsuspected horizons.Gallia Valette-Pilenko

At the Radiant-Bellevue, Caluire

RemansosChoreography, sets and costumes: Nacho DuatoMusic: Enrique Granados, Valses Poeticos, extract from “Granados/Spanish Dances” performed by Alicia de LarrochaLighting: Brad Fields and Nicolás FischtelOrganisation and production: Mediart Production © Nacho DuatoPiece from 1997 (New York)

Solo for twoChoreography and sets: Mats EkMusic: Arvo Pärt For Alina, Variationen Zur Gesundung Von Arinuschka, Mirror in MirrorSets and costumes: Peter FreiijLighting: Erik BerglundPiece for 2 dancers, 1996 (by the Ballet Cullberg)

I New ThenChoreography and sets: Johan IngerMusic: Van MorrisonCostumes: Bregje van BalenLighting: Tom VisserPiece for 9 dancers, 2012 (Nederlands Dans Theater)


January 2020Thursday 30th 8.30pmFriday 31st 8.30pm

February 2020Saturday 1st 8.30pm Monday 3rd 8.30pm


Dance

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 Dance22

Maguy Marin / Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Lucinda ChildsGrande Fugue / Die Grosse Fuge / Grosse Fugue

Three gross fuguesThree grand ladies have been confronted by Beethoven’s Gross Fugue, written from 1824 to 1825, and which is the finale of quartet n°13 in B-flat major. It is a “now free, now elaborate” score, in the words of the composer, who wrote the music a year before his death, when he was already deaf. It is a score that can be read in very varied ways, as can be seen in the propositions of the three major choreographers who are Maguy Marin, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Lucinda Childs, thus making up this exclusively female evening.

A highly nuanced Grosse Fugue by Maguy MarinOriginally created for four dancers of the company in 2001, Maguy Marin’s Grosse Fugue entered the repertoire of the Ballet of the Opéra on 12th February 2006. This piece is deployed like a constant wave of backward and forward flows. Four bright red flames spring up, leap then flatten out, the better to occupy the air and absorb the space. The dance is precise and rigorous, written and calculated and, despite everything, imposes itself as a life force, a joyful, despairing freedom. As the choreographer has written: “an imbrication is embodied between the rising life-force of the female being and the state of enthusiasm and despair of this music. Caught in this teeming effervescence, we advance in an unbridled race”. Without any respite, the dancers inhabit the music, each following their own score, drawing the public into a swirl of forbidden sensations.

A grand, precise, male fugue by Anne Teresa De KeersmaekerIncluded at the start of the piece Erts (1992), this gross fugue has been through

several versions. The first one for six dancers, the second for nine and the third, the one that entered the repertoire of the Ballet at the same time as Maguy Marin’s take, for one female and seven male dancers. This grand fugue is ardent, corresponding to the frantic, precise dances of the Belgian choreographer. The choreographic composition is parallel to the musical composition, exploring the accents of the score, experimenting with movement of all sorts, through repetitions, changes of rhythm and intensity, and modifications of flows and levels. There thus is born a dance which is physical and ludic, martial and vulnerable, as can be seen in the rolls executed in black suits which caress the floor, before picking up again the élan of vertiginous pursuits.

A devilishly classical, arachnoid fugue by Lucinda ChildsIn a set of grey shades, which change with the lighting, the minimalist American choreographer delivers a sparse ballet, like a beach cleansed by the rising tide. Six academically dressed couples, who are just as grey, dance in front of a structure of luminous lace, which is as much reminiscent of a mashrabiya as it is of fretted Indonesian shadow puppetry. While the lightness of the dancing irresistibly brings to mind her masterpiece, Dance, what is striking is its purely academic vocabulary, made up mainly of déboulés, arabesques and other classical steps, coming from a choreographer who is better known for her affiliation with the avant-garde. What emerges is a purity that illumines with a different light this decidedly polysemous score...Gallia Valette-Pilenko

Grande FugueChoreography: Lucinda ChildsAssistant: Caitlin ScrantonMusic: Beethoven, Die Grosse Fuge op.133 Scenography, lighting and costumes: Dominique DrillotPiece for 12 dancers Created by the Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon on 17th November 2016

Die Grosse FugeChoreography: Anne Teresa De KeersmaekerMusic: Ludwig van Beethoven La Grande Fugue, op.133Stage direction: Jean-Luc DucourtSets and lighting: Jan Joris LamersCostumes: RosasDie Grosse Fuge, extract from Erts created on 2nd February 1992, Halles de Schaerbeek, Brussels

Grosse FugueChoreography: Maguy MarinMusic: Beethoven, Die Grosse Fuge op.133Costumes: Chantal CloupetLighting: François RenardPiece for 4 dancersCreated by the Compagnie Maguy Marin at the Espace Jean Poperen in Meyzieu on 17th March 2001


April 2020Wednesday 8th 8pmThursday 9th 8pmFriday 10th 8pmSaturday 11th 8pmMonday 13th 4pmTuesday 14th 8pm



Pierre Pontvianne /Lukas Timulak / Yuval PickBeasts / Creation / Creation

The young generation is being honoured during this evening which brings together two choreographers who are starting to make a name for themselves on the international scene: Pierre Pontvianne, Lukas Timulak and Yuval Pick.

Pierre Pontvianne, whose work is beginning to come to notice, has here created a group piece in a continuity with the investigations he has been conducting into the relationships between dance and music, and then between dance and text. Born in Saint-Étienne, Pierre Pontvianne is deeply attached to his town and it was a natural choice for him to establish his company there and pursue his work of creation. Having trained in the town’s Conservatoire, then at the École Supérieure de Danse Contemporaine Rosella Hightower in Cannes, in 1999 he won the Prix de Lausanne which opened the doors of the Nederlands Dans Theater II to him. There, he would dance in pieces by Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Johan Inger, or Hans Van Manen, among others. He then started an independent career, in particular for the Frankfort Ballet (William Forsythe) and the Norwegian company Carte Blanche, while multiplying alternative projects in Europe, before returning to his native land and founding the Compagnie Parc in 2004. It should not be forgotten that Pierre Pontvianne is also a musician-composer and regularly works with other artists. Just as he carries out the musical creation of many of his own pieces. This will doubtlessly be the case with Beasts, an opus in which he is pursuing his research into the “frictions between

words and dance”, which he initiated with his previous piece, Mass. “How can we speak of something more simply than by speaking of it? How can we act more simply than by acting?” he asks. All the singularity of his explorations is expressed here, while the nature of what his dance might be also arises: a language which is looking for collisions, tipping-points or frictions to ignite a spark and bring forth the world as it is... or otherwise. Placing in space and time a work which is rooted in reality: such for him is the basis of a poetic act which has a genuine political dimension.

Lukas Timulak’s work is almost unknown in these latitudes, even though he is far from being a beginner. A former dancer, like Pierre Pontvianne, at the NDT 2, he pursued his career as a performer at the NDT 1 and the Ballet de Montecarl, before devoting himself entirely to personal projects, producing pieces for the Göteborg Ballet, the Balé da Cidade in São Paulo, the Royal Swedish Ballet among other prestigious houses. Fascinated by animated images, he also studied cinema at the New York Film Academy and, with the scenographer and creator Peter Bilak, with whom he regularly works, set up the Make Move Think Foundation, which explores interdisciplinarity between the visual and performative arts. His work is set between aesthetics and kinetics, visual effects and technical virtuosity, in which light and video take on a dimension which is just as important as the gestures themselves.Gallia Valette-Pilenko

At the Toboggan, Decines

Beasts Choreography and sound conception: Pierre PontvianneSets: Pierre TreilleLighting: Valérie Colas

CreationChoreography: Lukas Timulak

CreationChoreography: Yuval PickSound creation: Max BruckertLighting: Sébastien Lefèvre


April 2020Tuesday 28th 8.30pmWednesday 29th 8.30pmThursday 30th 8.30pm

Length: 1h20

Dance

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 24 Concert

ConcertsMessiaen / Chausson / Tchaikovsky ConcertDaniele Rustioni, conductorOrchestra of the Opéra de Lyon

Olivier MessiaenLes offrandes oubliees Ernest ChaussonPoème de l’amour et de la mer op.19Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky4th Symphony

Saturday 19th October 2019, 8pm

Vivaldi Concert Marie-Nicole Lemieux sings Vivaldi

Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contraltoStefano Montanari, conductor Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon I Bollenti Spiriti

Stabat MaterOrlando finto pazzo – Son due ventiFarnace – Al vezzeggiar d’un voltoAtenaide – Quanto posso a me fo schermo L’Olimpiade – Mentre dormi, amor fomentiTito manlio – Fra le procelle

Sunday 24th November 2019, 4pm

Recital Ian BostridgeIan Bostridge, tenorJulius Drake, piano

Ludwig van BeethovenAn Die Ferne Geliebte Franz SchubertSchwanengesang D.957

Sunday 1st December 2019, 4pm

Christmas ConcertsKarine Locatelli, conductorChildren’s Choir and Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon

At the church of Saint-Bonaventure, Lyon 2e

Saturday 14th December and Sunday 22nd December 2019, 4pm

Concerts Swing in the New YearJamie Phillips, conductorOrchestra of the Opéra de Lyon

Sunday 29th December 2019 at 4pm and Monday 30th December 2019 at 8pm

Mahler / Mendelssohn ConcertDaniele Rustioni,conductorErika Baikoff, soprano

Gustav Mahler 4th SymphonyFelix Mendelssohn4th Symphony

Sunday 2nd February 2020 at 4pm

Recital Maria Joao PiresMaria Joao Pires, piano

Sunday 16th February, 4pm

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 25 Concert

Concert Circé/Desmaret Sébastien d’Hérin, conductorOrchestra and Choir of Nouveaux Caractères

Sunday 17th may 2020, 4pm

Children’s Choir Concert Academic Music, Popular Music

Karine Locatelli, conductorChildren’s Choir and Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon

Gustav HolstHymns from the Rig VedaAntonín DvořákMoravian Songs op.32Sergueï RachmaninovExtracts from 6 Songs, op.15Bob ChilcottCatch a Falling StarGabriel FauréPavaneGeorges BizetExtracts from CarmenJohannes BrahmsWiegenlied / Liebeslieder-WalzerRobert SchumannZigeunerlebenFranz SchubertPsalm 23Béla BartókBolyongàs / CiposütesIgor Stravinsky3 SongsEvgueni RodyguineUral Rowan TreeAlexandre BorodineExtract from Polovtsian Dances Gioachino RossiniLa Regata VenezianaLeonard BernsteinI Feel Pretty

At La Chapelle de la Trinité, Lyon 2e Tueday 19th may 2020, 8pm

Cycle of Chamber MusicSunday 13th October 2020 Gabriel Fauré: La bonne chanson op.61, for tenor and string quartet, piano and double bass, cycle of 9 melodies after the collection by Paul Verlaine Gabriel Fauré: Quintet for piano n°2 in C Minor, op.115

Saturday 23rd November 2019Sunday 24th November 2019Olivier Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du tempsAlexis Ciesla: Les danses de Loo, world premiere

Sunday 15th December 2019 Sunday 21st December 2019 Giuseppe Verdi: extracts of Rigoletto, transcription by Éric Le Chartier André Lafosse: Suite impromptue Anthony Plog: Mosaics Jörg Widmann: Canzone I, X and XII

Sunday 26th January 2020 Saturday 1st February 2020Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov: Sextet, transcription by Camille Bereau Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs, transcription by Camille Bereau

Saturday 21st March 2020 Sunday 29th March 2020 piano Alban Berg: Adagio from Kammerkonzert, transcription by the composer Alban Berg: Four pieces op.5 for clarinet and piano Bela Bartók: Contrastes Sz 111 Galina Oustvolska.a: Trio

Saturday 4th April 2020Sunday 5th April 2020Vocal Ensemble: Mozart, Schubert, Morricone, R.Strauss

Saturday 2nd May 2020Sunday 10th May 2020Joseph Haydn: Trio for flute, cello and piano in G Major Maurice Ravel: Chansons Madecasses, for mezzo, flute, cello and piano Charles Crumb: Vox Ballaenae, for flute, cello and piano

Saturday 6th June 2020 Sunday 14th June 2020 Anton Reicha: Quintet in D Major, op.91 n°3 Leoš Janáček: Mladi for wind quintet and bass clarinetGÿorgy Ligeti: Bagatelles


ToursOperaAix-en-Provence FestivalTosca Christophe Honoré / Daniele RustioniJuly 2019

RuhrtriennaleDidon et Enée, rememberedDavid Marton / Pierre BleuseHenry Purcell / Kalle KalimaVirgil / Interludes d'Erika StuckyAugust 2019

Royal Opera House Muscat, OmanL’Enfant et les Sortilèges Grégoire Pont and James BonasOctober 2019

Ballet of the Opéra de LyonSummerspace, Scenario /ExchangeMerce CunninghamThéâtre du Châtelet, Paris / Festival d’Automne :December 2019

Summerspace / ExchangeMerce CunninghamNouvelle Scène nationale Cergy Pontoise :December 2019

31 Rue VandenbrandenPeeping TomEspace des Arts, Chalon sur Saône :April 2019Dance Inversion Festival, MoscowSeptembre 2020

3 Grandes FugesLucinda Childs, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker et Maguy MarinAdelaide, AustraliaMarch 2020

Jiří KyliánThéâtre les Gémeaux, SceauxMay 2020Montpellier Dance FestivalJune 2020

ConcertsDon GiovanniChoregies d’Orange:August 2019

Ernani Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris :November 2019

Vivaldi ConcertGenève/Moscow/Rouen/VersaillesNovember 2019

Festive Concert for the New Year Théâtre de la Renaissance, OullinsJanuary 2020

MozartOpéra de Vichymay 2020 Site to be defined

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 Underground Opera27

Opéra UndergroundOpéra Underground is now part of the landscape in Lyon. It was born under a year ago from a desire to create links between the Opera and the city, or between Lyon and the world, and between academic and popular music. This new project from the Opéra de Lyon has already presented over sixty concerts - from Nina Hagen to Terry Riley, from Marc Ribot to Melingo, or from Taraf de Haïdouks to Ben Sidran.

This new programme highlights new forms of music that explore their various heritages while allying tradition with iconoclasm, or serious research with sonic pleasure. Whether it is about jazz or forró, electronic music or ethio-jazz, chamber music or a bourrée auvergnate, all of these musicians share the desire to build up new musical languages, which are often based on ancient codes.

So it is that Opéra Underground is continuing its mission during this fresh season and will be present on all of the Opera’s stages. Firstly, at the Amphi, that quite literally underground stage which is at the heart of the project, but also on the Peristyle, during summer, with a festival that last year put on 27 groups for 75 evenings. But also in the main auditorium, for major concert events.

Opéra Underground will also continue its collaborations with many players from Lyon and its region– associations, groups and various emblematic venues or festivals, such as the Periscope, the Marché Gare or Jazz à Vienne.

Stay Tuned!

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 28 Educative actions

Educative actionsOver and above accessibility for all, the Opéra de Lyon’s aim is to defend cultural and educative actions which allow everyone to feel welcome and contribute to the territory’s cultural life. These actions offer a privileged access to the Opéra and to artistic practice. They are mainly addressed at inhabitants of priority neighbourhoods, schoolchildren, and people in programmes linked to the sectors of health, handicap, justice or else socio-professional insertion.

The Opéra de Lyon works in partnership with numerous associations and institutions with which it conceives tailor-made projects in a spirit of dialogue and innovation. Chiming with the Opéra’s artistic identity, artistic practice projects are always multidisciplinary and linked to contemporary creation. The projects associated with spectator-practice favour an appropriation of sites, artistic activity and a sharing of experiences.

Each season, cultural and educative actions bring together between 25,000 and 35,000 people at the Opéra and off-site.The artistic practice workshops are the flagship projects in this offer, with over 1,100 hours during the 2017-2018 season.

Educative actionsSchool seasonComing from the territories of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, over 15,000 pupils from elementary to junior-high schools are welcomed each season to operas, dance shows, concerts... in the main theatre, the Amphi and off-site.

The Children’s Choir open to diversitySpecific actions have been set up in order to facilitate access to this training for children living in priority neighbourhoods. Currently, 32 % of the students live in priority neighbourhoods and benefit from an educational accompaniment.

Cultural actions in the fieldHandicap The Opéra develops actions aimed at facilitating the reception and accessibility to performances and cultural action projects for handicapped people. 550 people were concerned by these actions in 2017-2018.

Health and medico-socialThe Opéra is committed to working with medico-social and health structures to construct artistic and cultural projects, in discovery schemes of the back-stage and of shows, off-site actions, or courses for healthcare personnel. 4 partner establishments and 580 people were concerned by these actions in 2017-2018.

Insertion The Opéra conducts actions for publics on insertion and socio-professional training schemes. This programme mixes the discovery of the Opéra, its professions and artistic practices. 15 partner structures and 691 participants were concerned by these actions in 2017-2018

Justice The Opéra conducts actions in partnership with the services of the SPIP (Service Penitentiaire d’Insertion et de Probation) and state education, in association with penal institutions: concerts, reception at the Opéra of detainees for visits and professional encounters, sensitisation aimed at the personnel of the establishments. 60 people were concerned in 2017-2018.

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 29 Educative actions

With the familyWorkshops and courses DiscoveryThe Opéra offers workshops and courses for an initiation into artistic practices, led by artists, for children aged from 5 to 15 on weekends and during school holidays. 200 participants in 2017-2018.

The Fêtes Escales festivalEvery year during the Fêtes Escales festival in Venissieux, a free Opéra concert in the open air. 500 spectators in 2018.

Open houses:During each season, our open houses provide the opportunity to discover the opera in terms of its crafts and knowhow. The objective of these two days: allowing the Opéra de Lyon to be discovered by a broad public thanks to varied propositions based on dance and music, with in particular practical artistic or technical workshops.Over 17,000 participants in 2017-2018.

Participatory projectsOpera and digitalAn artistic and cultural project in association with a group of digital artists, the Matrice, aimed at 130 children and teenagers in 2018-2019, especially junior-high school students from Lyon and Vaulx-en-Velin. This project is made up of three phrases: actions in schools, courses during the school holidays and artistic residencies.

Opera côte cour An artistic, civic project, which for the 2018-2019 season brings together artists, teachers and students (4 classes including 2 specialised in students from non-French-speaking families) from the classroom to the stage.

EchoO As from the 2018-2019 season, the Opéra de Lyon is initiating a major participatory project around the voice and movement, from song to dance, as universal tools of artistic expression. Citizenship is the central theme of this project. It will take place during 3 seasons, from September 2018 to July 2021, for publics with which the Opéra runs its cultural actions in the Lyon Metropolis and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region: inhabitants of priority neighbourhoods, elementary, junior-high and senior-high schools, users of partner associations of the Opéra de Lyon, young people and adults in socio-professional insertion, as well as hospitals and penal institutions

Professional networksPREAC Opera/Expressions Vocales This is the fruit of a partnership between the Opéra de Lyon, the DAAC of the school academies of Lyon, Grenoble and Clermont-Ferrand, the DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the CANOPE network. The aim of PREAC Opera/Expressions Vocales is to federate, train and accompany teachers, artists and cultural operators around vocal practices and opera as a part of artistic and cultural education projects.

Participation with thematic networksThe Opéra is continuing and extending its commitment to cultural action in thematic networks: the FRANCAS (Féderation d’éducation populaire), the Charter of Cultural Cooperation of the City of Lyon and the Mission for cultural insertion of the MDEF (Maison de l’emploi et de la formation).

TrainingThe cultural development team contributes to an exchange of good practices and a transmission, by acting in higher-education and research networks and by contributing to the training of primary and secondary school teachers.

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 30 The Opera in figures

The Opéra de Lyon, a complete production tool:

Financial means*

Orchestra 62 musicians

Choruses35 artists

Studio 21 young singers

Ballet32 dancers

Children’s Choir101 children

Stage/make-up and hairdressing68 people

Costume and dress workshop23 people

Set workshop16 people

Management / production / administration59 people

Communication / cultural development14 people

Reception / ticket sales40 people

*Figures based on the year 2017

Permanent posts349

Permanent full-time staff315

Supplementary full-time staff119

Total full-time staff434

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 31 The Opera in figures

Financing*Overall budget(% of revenues)

Public finance

The budget*Receipts

Own resources 8,132,099 €Ticket sales 3,746,541 € Tour revenues 2,760,671 €Other income 1,624,887 €Conventional subsidies 18,204,223 €State 5,917,371 €Ville de Lyon 6,619,161 €Département 2,858,312 €Region 2,809,379 €Other public assistance 11,326,398 €Provision of personnel / City of Lyon 10,241,398 €Ville de Lyon staff subsidies 1,055,000 €Exceptional subsidies 30,000 €

Total receipts 37,662,720 €

Expenditure

Production costs 12,011,312 €Permanent personnel 16,175,317 €Occasional and extra personnel 2,179,569 €Operating costs 3,155,912 €Exploitation of buildings 3,651,524 €Depreciations and funds 600,000 €Transfer of reserves – 110,914 €

Total expenditure 37,662,720 €

City of Lyon 60.7 %

Greater Lyon 9.7 %

City of Lyon 47.6 % Region

7.5 %

Greater Lyon 7.6 %

Own income 21.6 %

State 15.7 %

State 20 %

Region 9.6 %

* Figures based on the year 2018 (revised budget)

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 32 Activity and frequentation

Activity and frequentation

* Figures based on 2018

The shows Over 400 performances Almost 220,000 spectators*

Operas 77

56opera performances in the main auditorium54,565 spectators

16off-site opera performances6,952spectators

5opera performances on tour5,932spectators

Ballets 70

21ballet performances in the main auditorium19,626spectators

4off-site ballet performances3,221 spectators

45ballet performances on tour28,995spectators

Concerts 32

6symphonic and chamber music concerts in the main auditorium5,132spectators

13chamber music concerts1,288 spectators

11off-site symphonic concerts10,171spectators

16symphonic and chamber music concerts on tour19,432spectators

Opéra 183 Underground

108concerts and lunch concerts20,259spectators

75Péristyle concerts33,375spectators

School 46

school perfomances7,977spectators

Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 33 Activity and frequentation

The major free events, open to all over 27,000 people*

Open house days13,500 participants

Heritage days4,000 visitors

Video- transmission 10,000 spectators

Educative and specific cultural actions over 22,000 beneficiaries**

School season,Cultural actions in the field(handicap, insertion, health,justice), with the family, participatory projects…

Guided visitsover 6,500 visitors**

Group visits271 groups5,096 visitors

Individual visits1,400 visitors approximately

* Figures based on 2018** Figures based on the season 2017-2018


The Opera in PracticeBuying tickets to shows

Opening dates for reservationsSeason tickets as of 2nd May 2019 at noon Unit tickets as of Thursday 6th June 2019 at noon

At the Opera’s ticket officeFrom noon to 7pm from Tuesday to Saturday (and Mondays on performance days). One hour before each performance (only for that day’s show). A ticket service is present on off-site venues one hour before a show.

00 33 (0)4 69 85 54 54From noon to 7pm from Tuesday to Saturday (and Mondays on performance days).

opera-lyon.com

Media Partners

Sponsors and partnersThe Opéra de Lyon warmly thanks its sponsors and partners for their confidence and generosity.

Contact : Marion Dupaigne-Scotton,Company-Sponsorship departement manager04 72 00 45 [email protected]

Sponsors

Founding SponsorThrough its various skill-sets, CIC Lyonnaise de Banque accompanies private, professional and entrepreneurial clients in their projects. As a high-street bank, involved in the local economy, CIC Lyonnaise de Banque has long conducted a sponsorship policy. Alongside the Opera National de Lyon as a founding sponsor, CIC Lyonnaise de Banque supports projects which in particular favour access for the general public to classical music, and more particularly allow the access of the young to the Opéra de Lyon. Since 2009, CIC Lyonnaise de Banque has also been invested with the Opéra de Lyon in its programme of video-transmission in several towns in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region.

Since 2007, Bouygues Bâtiment Sud-Est has been a partner of the Opéra de Lyon. The group shares with the Opéra the desire to favour access of as broad a public as possible to culture and each season renews its confidence and support for actions of openness. For example, after sponsoring the Open House Days, Bouygues Bâtiment Sud-Est has become a sponsor of the video-transmission which every year allows the public of the region to discover, in the open air, on a big screen and free-of-charge, a work from the repertoire of the Opéra de Lyon. Bouygues Bâtiment Sud-Est thus affirms its position as an enterprise engaged in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes Region.

The cultural sponsorship actions of Total and its Foundation favour a strong territorial anchoring and an involvement in youth, for whom culture is a source of emancipation and integration. In this context, Total and its Foundation supports initiatives dedicated to favouring Artistic and Cultural Education. These include projects initiated by the Opéra de Lyon: “The Opera at school”, then “Artists at school”, “Duos of professions”, and now “EchoO”, a new inclusive, exclusive project aimed at young people from situations in difficulty, adults in insertion, children at school, etc.

As the developer of territories crossed by the Rhône and the biggest French producer of 100% renewable electricity, CNR is also a Lyon enterprise, profoundly established on the banks of the Rhône. CNR is associated with local life through a policy of partnership aimed at the outreach of these territories. After having supported in 2015 the public broadcasting on a big screen of a work from the programme of the Opéra de Lyon, transmitted simultaneously in several towns in Rhône-Alpes, CNR has since contributed to projects of sensitisation and cultural education for young people from neighbourhoods in socio-economic difficulty. Its support for culture, and access for all, bear witness to its social commitment and its vocation for the general interest, as stated in its statutes.

With a great expertise in terms of providing accessibility to contents through sub-titling and audio-description on all screen formats, france.tv studio has decided to make a contribution to the actions conducted by the Opéra de Lyon in favour of accessibility, that is to say which benefit one and all, and in particularly publics who are deaf or hearing-impaired, blind or visually-impaired. Its skills sponsorship focuses on the production of audio-descriptions of operas, so as to distribute them more broadly in an appropriate way.

The Circle of Sponsors of the Opéra de Lyon brings together enterprises and foundations that support the Opéra de Lyon in its artistic and civic actions. The ambition of the Circle of Sponsors is to join together around shared values, such as openness, social commitment, creation and innovation, both in France and abroad.

Opera36

General Director: Serge Dorny

Media communication: Pierre Collet Tél. +33 (0)1 40 26 35 26 [email protected]

Contact: Sophie Jarjat Press attaché Tél. +33 (0)4 72 00 45 82 [email protected]

Opéra de Lyon Place de la Comédie – BP 1219 69 203 Lyon cedex 01 – France

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