Press Kit Season 2019 – 20 opera • dance concert The Opéra national de Lyon The Board of Directors As part of a dense national and international network of the Opéra National de Lyon of artistic and cultural partners, the Opéra National de Composition on 1st January 2019 Lyon is an institution based on excellence, constituting a complete pole of creation, production and training, President with its Orchestra, Choruses, Ballet, Children’s Choir, Rémy Weber Studio, set and costume workshops. Vice-President As the second opera house in France, it now benefits Jean-François Carenco from a considerable outreach. In 1996, the Ministry of Culture awarded it the first label of a regional Associate Members National Opera house. January 1st 2019 marks the beginning of a new four- Representative of the State year agreement between the Opéra National de Lyon Pascal Mailhos and its public partners: the State, with the Ministry of Culture, the City of Lyon, the Lyon Metropolis and the Representatives of the City of Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region. Richard Brumm The Opéra National de Lyon Loïc Graber is approved by the Ministry of Culture, This agreement confirms the support of these public the City of Lyon, Auvergne Rhône-Alpes council partners, as well as the missions that constitute the Representative of the Lyon Metropolis and Lyon Metropole. identity of the Opéra National de Lyon, and in Myriam Picot particular: Representative of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region – artistic excellence, with an attention paid to the Florence Verney-Carron operatic repertoire, choreographic writing in its full extent and diversity, diversified expressions and a Qualified Members permeability of genres; Paul-Henry Watine – the development of national and international Jacques Gérault partners (co-productions, tours…); Raymond Soubie – 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 This season, our stage will be welcoming three of the most often-performed operas in the world: Tosca, Rigoletto and The conductors The Marriage of Figaro. They are three blockbusters, two of Daniele Rustioni, our chief conductor, will be conducting which have not been staged in Lyon for a long time – Rigoletto William Tell, Ernani and Tosca. We will also be seeing again in 1976, Tosca in 1979. The exploitation of the most famous conductors who are our regular partners – Bernhard works should be inseparable from exploring and enriching Kontarsky for Irrelohe, Martyn Brabbins for Shirine and the repertoire: entailing a reworking of major titles, Stefano Montanari for The Marriage of Figaro; there are also putting on rarer works while also promoting creation some young talents at the beginning of their careers, and and operas of today. It is this balance between the past, who will be much talked of – Adrien Perruchon will be on present and future which gives us our artistic legitimacy. the rostrum for Le Roi Carotte, Michele Spotti forRigoletto The 2019-2020 season perfectly illustrates this. and Marc Leroy-Catalayud who will be directing a baroque For, alongside these three major titles, we will be putting programme for the Ballet, with pieces by Russell Maliphant. on William Tell, Rossini’s last opera, premiered in 1829; he was no longer to write for the stage until his death in 1868. Dance This Grand Opéra à la française, preceding those of Meyerbeer The Ballet of the Opéra de Lyon is offering this season or Halévy, is rarely staged, especially in its original French modern-day classics and works by young choreographers: version. It will open our season. with creations – Russell Maliphant, Pierre Pontvianne, Even rarer is Franz Schreker’s Irrelohe, which has never been Lukas Timulak, Yuval Pick, Pockemon Crew – entries performed in France, which with Rigoletto will be one of the into the repertoire and revivals – Russell Maliphant, titles featuring in our annual festival - The Night will be Red Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, and Black. Johan Inger, Maguy Marin, or Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Two terrifying stories in which family ties are made up The company’s dancers will also be plying their trade on the of secrets, death and love. The festival programme will be stages of France and abroad, from Paris to New York, and completed with Carl Orff’s Der Mond (The Moon), based on from Moscow to Adelaide. a tale by the Brothers Grimm. It is a littleknown, colourful, appealing work. Concerts AfterClaude , Thierry Escaich is presenting his second Apart from Ernani, in its concert format, Daniele Rustioni opera, Shirine (commissioned by the Opéra de Lyon), with will be conducting two symphonic programmes with very a libretto by Atiq Rahimi, inspired by a great classic of varied horizons: Mendelssohn and Mahler ; Chausson, Persian literature. There are two rarities at the Théâtre de Messiaen and Tchaikovsky. Stefano Montanari and the la Croix-Rousse: The Pajama Game, one of the great musical Orchestra of the Opéra, I Bollenti Spiriti, accompanying comedies from the golden age of Broadway – though little Marie-Nicole Lemieux in an all Vivaldi programme. For known in France and John Adams’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling the Christmas period, we will be putting on our traditional and Then I Saw the Sky, a songplay – or sort of musical comedy Christmas concert with the Children’s Choir. Without – mingling with virtuosity rock, jazz and blues. We are also forgetting concerts of chamber music in the Grand Studio reviving L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and, for the Christmas period, de Danse, and Opera Underground – fearuting today’s music, Le Roi Carotte, rediscovered with delight in 2015. We are jazz and world music – played in the amphitheatre, under the offering a new production ofGretel et Hansel, the fine French peristyle and on the main stage. adaptation of Humperdinck’s work. 2019, a new agreement Stage directors The Opéra de Lyon was the first house to receive the label This season we will be seeing again some of the close “Opéra National” in 1996. Over twenty years later, a new artistic partners of the Opéra de Lyon, with whom we have “Opéra National” funding agreement is covering the period established deep and lasting ties. They are, in alphabetical from 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2022. This funding order, David Bösch (Irrelohe), Richard Brunel (Shirine), agreement guarantees that the Opéra National de Lyon Christophe Honoré (Tosca), Jean Lacornerie (The Pajama will continue to be supported by the public authorities: the Game), Macha Makeieff I( Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then Ministry of Culture, the City of Lyon, the Auvergne-Rhône- I Saw the Sky), Laurent Pelly (Le Roi Carotte) and Grégoire Pont Alpes Region and the Lyon Metropolis. and James Bonas (L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and La Lune). Along The new agreement also confirms the Opéra de Lyon’s with some newcomers, whom I am delighted to welcome: missions, in their artistic, cultural and social fields: a quest Tobias Kratzer for William Tell, which he will direct just after for artistic excellence through the choice of artists and Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth festival this summer; Samuel repertoires; helping promoting the city and region on Achache who, with Jeanne Candel, has recently taken up the an international level, creating access to the widest possible direction of the Théâtre de l’Aquarium at the Cartoucherie in audience while being a ressource for a local community. Vincennes, will be responsible for directing Gretel et Hansel; This season 2019-20 is continuing to foster partnerships Axel Ranisch is an actor, man of the theatre, cinema and with a large number of cultural institutions in the television. Rigoletto will be his debut as a director of an opera Metropolis; along with a social and environmental in France; Olivier Assayas – Irma Vep, Sils Maria, Les Destinées responsibility. The Opéra de Lyon is thus a theatre of art sentimentales… – is debuting as a director of an opera with while also being a civic institution. The Marriage of Figaro. These artists will surely put the works they are recounting through their stage directions into a Serge Dorny resonance with our contemporary sensitivity and modernity. General Director of the Opéra de Lyon Opéra de Lyon Season 2019 — 20 3 Editorial Guillaume Tell Opera in four acts, 1829 Guillaume Tell (Opéra de Paris) Libretto by Victor Joseph Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Louis Florent Bis Gioachino Rossini After the play by Friedrich von Schiller Conductor: Daniele Rustioni Stage direction: Tobias Kratzer A Swan Song and the Birth Guglielmo Vallace by Milan, Rodolfo di Sets and costumes: Rainer Sellmaier of a Nation Sterlinga (and even Giuda Maccabeo) by Lighting: Reinhard Traub On 3rd August 1829, at the age of 37, the Rome, while London entitled it Hofer Dramaturgy: Bettina Bartz Swan of Pesaro retired from the operatic or the Tell of Tyrol and Saint-Petersburg Chorus Master: Johannes Knecht scene with William Tell. Commissioned Karl der Kühne! In 1831, William Tell had by the Opéra de Paris, William Tell was emigrated to Lucca in an Italian version.