PRESS OPERA RELEASE DANCE CONCERT SEASON AMPHITHEATRE 17—18 To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time, / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / 2 Signifying nothing. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, scene 5 Season 17—18 Opéra de Lyon The Opéra National de Lyon is approved by the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the City of Lyon, Auvergne Rhône-Alpes council and Lyon Metropole. Of wars and kings tale of a wicked lord, alone against the for New Year’s Eve. We will also be Stories of wars, stories of kings, world, and love as an endless, head- offering several recitals of song and stories of victims, stories of spinning battle of the sexes. piano. oppressors: from yesterday, or today, they are framing our 2017/2018 opera Project Leaders In 2017/2018, the Opéra de Lyon will season. A century after 1917 which, 2017-2018 is a season for maintaining be pursuing its missions, as an artistic for some historians, marked the real and deepening the partnerships we theatre which – at the same time – beginning of the 20th century – as have with the stage directors and celebrates the great repertory, brings the turning point of the First World conductors we love. We shall thus be to light works that are performed too War, with the arrival of the USA, seeing again, in order of appearance, seldom, and enriches the operatic and the Russian Revolution… – we Yoshi Oida, Stefan Herheim, Richard repertory with new creations. It is also are opening the season with a staged Brunel, Ivo van Hove, Christophe a centre of exchanges and encounters version of Britten’s War Requiem, Honoré, Alex Ollé/La Fura dels between works, artists and the a work that deplores and consoles, Baus, John Fulljames and David audiences that follow us with so much a work of war, and peace. It was in Marton. 2017/2018 also marks the enthusiasm, curiosity and openness 1917 that Stravinsky, then exiled in first season of the stewardship of our along the pathways we offer them. In Switzerland, composed his Histoire new permanent conductor Daniele an ever more difficult context, and du Soldat, on a text by Ramuz – a Rustioni. He will be going back to his with increasingly limited means, this Faustian tale for three voices and roots – Verdi – while also conducting is more than just encouraging for us: small orchestra. And it was also in Britten. In the pit and in concert, it is the justification for the collective 1917 that Janáček composed his Diary Stefano Montanari will be pursuing endeavours of all the teams of the of One Who Disappeared, both a his exploration with the Orchestra Opéra de Lyon. For today, more cycle of melodies and a concentrated, of the baroque repertory, and also than ever, we need art and culture to intensely overwhelming opera. When its practice. Furthermore, we shall resist and respond to the barbary and it comes to kings and warlords, it be seeing Lothar Koenigs and Alejo hatred of our era. 3 was Verdi who depicted them in their Perez. Serge Dorny moving, epic or tragic existences, General Director of the Opéra grasped at the moment when an Dance National de Lyon empire is being made or unmade – The eclecticism of the repertory, an in late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, openness to different choreographic or Spain’s Golden Age, with Attila, scripting and a mastery of classical Season 17—18 Macbeth, and Don Carlos. These three technique are all part of the Ballet operas make up our annual festival, as of the Opéra de Lyon’s DNA. As a homage to the composer, a reflexion conceived by Yorgos Loukos, its about power, with its grandeurs and director for many years, this season baseness, its contradictions, abuses is bringing together choreographers and capacity to corrupt. GerMANIA, and pieces as diverse as Carmen and Opéra de Lyon a creation which we commissioned L’Arlésienne by Roland Petit, Trisha from Alexander Raskatov, for both Brown’s Set and Reset/Reset or else the music and libretto, takes its William Forsythe’s Steptext. And this inspiration from Heiner Müller: it season, Jiří Kylián will be joining us is an opera that speaks to us about as an associated artist: we will thus be totalitarianism, with its “dark, furious, able to see again or discover his work subversive score”. Its 37 characters as a choreographer, stage director, but include a Stalin, sung by a Russian also photographer. basso profondo, and a Hitler by a Wagnerian Heldentenor! As a political Concerts tale, denouncing injustice and social The season of concerts will see oppression, Zemlinsky’s Chalk Circle Daniele Rustioni as our symphonic is being performed this season for the conductor, with French, Russian first time in Lyon, or France. Injustice and German music, in a prelude and too, and domestic oppression, but pre-echo of seasons to come. It will this time a happy ending and a also see the Opera’s Orchestra as a prince charming can then be found baroque ensemble, with dedicated in Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Don bows and instruments. At the end of Giovanni at last, Don Giovanni for the year, there will be the traditional ever. This “opera of operas” tells the concerts by the Children’s Choir and WAR REQUIEM BENJAMIN BRITTEN The idea for a pacifist work with a universal reach of 25, in 1918, during the battle of the Somme, sung busied Britten’s mind as soon as the bomb exploded in by a tenor from among the allies (Peter Pears) and by Hiroshima in 1945, then again after the assassination a baritone, from among their foes (Dietrich Fischer- of Gandhi in 1948. This was fifteen years before he set Dieskau), accompanied by a chamber orchestra. This to work, at the turn of the 1960s, on a piece that was to accordingly required two conductors and the performance be completed when the Berlin Wall had just been built, configurations are thus variable. freezing East-West relations for twenty-eight years and confirming stigmatisation of the Cold War. The date does A work for the stage? not apparently correspond to any commemoration. But As soon as this conception had been chosen by Britten, this would be to forget that the fiftieth anniversary of the idea of staging it arose, especially in the mind of the the armistice of the First World War – which, through composer who, in 1961, two years before turning fifty, Wilfred Owen’s poems, occupies a central position in had already composed ten of his operas. The very fact War Requiem – was in view as early as 1960; that the of wanting two orchestras suggests a set-up in which Vietnam War was present in the minds of all pacifists the theatre comes fully into play. Despite some inevitable and that it led, just like nuclear disarmament, to constant differences, we are in the same configuration as for protestations and demonstrations. Britten, who had in the vivid oratorio A Child of our Time (1939-1941), the part missed out on marking his commitment during dedicated anti-war piece by Michael Tippett, who was 4 his exile in the USA as a conscientious objector during Britten’s friend, which also calls out to be staged. By not the Second World War, clearly intended to reaffirm his choosing a cathedral but instead the Opéra de Lyon, profound convictions, after the refusal of his Sinfonia da Yoshi Oida will be exploiting the pit to house the main Requiem, in 1940, by the Japanese authorities. orchestra and the soprano, and the stage to present the chamber orchestra, the children’s choir and the two male An exceptional conception soloists, at the piece’s poetic heart. Events thus imposed themselves, rather than a need for Xavier de Gaulle Season 17—18 a reconciliation with the ideals of his youth, which from now on would never desert the composer. There then arose the idea for a requiem which would be a memorial War Requiem New production for the victims of these two wars, but also a vigorous, Text of the Mass for the Dead moving call for peace now, and in the future. The title and poems by Wilfred Owen October 2017 1962 Monday 9th 8 pm War Requiem, in fact, allows for a twofold interpretation, Opéra de Lyon In Latin and English Wednesday 11th 8 pm as either a requiem after a particular war, or for war in Friday 13th 8 pm general, and it was the latter sense that Britten stood Conductor: Daniele Rustioni Sunday 15th 4 pm up for: at once establishing a ceremony for death, while Director: Yoshi Oida Tueday 17th 8 pm Sets: Tom Schenk Thursday 19th 8 pm tolling the bell for all forms of bloody conflict! Costumes: Saturday 21st 8 pm So what new ideas could be found, to avoid a basic Thibault Vancraenenbroeck liturgical requiem simply setting the text of missa pro Lighting: Lutz Deppe defunctis? Should it be dropped? Definitely not. Should it Choreography: Maxine Braham then be extended and made operatic, as with Verdi (whose influence can be clearly heard)? No, nothing as simple Baritone: as that, even if the proportions of the War Requiem are Jochen Schmeckenbecher huge.