This inaugural concert features an anthology of opera excerpts, inviting us to rediscover great arias, duets, ensembles and musical interludes from a rich and eclectic repertoire in a truly exceptional performance. From Georges Bizet’s Carmen to John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin to Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier to Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff, from Manuel De Falla’s La Vida breve to Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Orchestra, Chorus, Academy’s artists and guest performers.A true musical celebration for the first edition of this exceptional concert. The Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus, the Maîtrise des Hauts de Seine / Chœur d’enfant de l’Opéra national de ParisA co-production of the Paris Opera and Caméra Lucida, with the participation of France télévisions, Mezzo and Medici.tv, with the support of the Orange Foundation, patron of the Paris Opera's audiovisual broadcasts, and the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image animée.© Opéra national de Paris - Caméra Lucida - 2021 Director: François-René MartinPicture: Elisa Haberer / OnP

Concert inaugural - 1

Opening concert of the 21/22 season

This inaugural concert features an anthology of opera excerpts, inviting us to rediscover great arias, duets, ensembles and musical interludes from a rich and eclectic repertoire in a truly exceptional performance.From Georges Bizet’s Carmen to John 

Gustavo Dudamel

Inaugural Concert - Season 21/22

Gustavo Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. In 1996, at the age of 18, he was appointed Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. In 2004, he won the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition and gained international fame. He was nominated (2007-2012) Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony. He was then appointed Music and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles philharmonic Orchestra in 2009.In 2023, Gustavo Dudamel was appointed Music Director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra starting in the 2026/2027 season.Inspired by the El Sistema programme, he founded YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) in 2007, which has already provided 1500 young people with free instruments, intensive musical and conducting teaching. He also founded in 2012 the Dudamel Foundation aiming to « widen access to music and the arts for young people ».In 2022, he was named Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.Alexander Neef, General Director of the Paris Opera, appointed Gustavo Dudamel as Music Director of the Paris Opera on April, 16th 2021, taking office on August, 1st 2021.During the 21/22 season, Gustavo Dudamel has conducted the inaugural concert, the ballet gala, Le Nozze di Figaro at the Palais Garnier, Turandot at the Opéra Bastille, the symphonic concert « Ravel, Mozart, Berlioz » at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse. The Paris Opera Ballet was invited by Gustavo Dudamel to perform at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra.During the 22/23 season, Gustavo Dudamel has conducted Tosca, Tristan and Isolde and Nixon in China at the Opera Bastille, the symphonic concerts « Symphonie °9 » by Gustav Mahler at the Philharmonie de Paris, at the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona) and at the Victoria Hall (Geneva), the « carte blanche » concert with the artists of the Academy at the Palais Garnier as well as the symphonic concert « Messiaen, Haydn, Ravel, Strauss » at the Philharmonie de Paris. On 25 May, the Paris Opera has announced the resignation of Gustavo Dudamel as Music Director. He will be stepping down at the end of the 22/23 season.&nbsp;

A graduate of the Taiwan Teacher Training College (Music Department), Ching-Lien Wu continued her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, where she was awarded the First Prize in Choral Conducting in 1987. She attended courses and workshops in orchestral conducting with JeanSébastien Béreau, Helmut Rilling, Michael Gielen and Pierre Boulez. 
In 1989, she was appointed Chorus Master at the Nantes Opera and in 1990, Assistant Chorus Master at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. From 1991 to 2001, Ching-Lien Wu served as Chorus Master at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg. The work she accomplished there was acclaimed by French and international critics. During this period, she was guest Chorus Master at the operas of Montpellier, Rouen and Shanghai as well as at Radio France for various operatic works and oratorios. In 1996, she was assistant to Norbert Balatsch at the Bayreuth Festival.
From 2001 to 2014, Ching-Lien Wu was Chorus Master of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. In September 2014, she was appointed Chorus Master of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. In 2016, the German magazine Opernwelt awarded the Dutch National Opera Chorus under the direction of Ching-Lien Wu the best Chorus of the Year label. She has also conducted numerous concerts with her own choir «Le Motet de Genève» with the Suisse Romande Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestratus Genevensis. She was at the helm
of this vocal ensemble from 2002 to 2012.
Since 1996, she has been invited to give master classes in choral conducting at the CNSM in Lyon. In her native country, she has been responsible for musical studies for several opera productions, including The Barber of Seville, an opera she also staged in Taipei. Ching-Lien Wu was appointed Chorus Master of the Paris Opera in February 2021 and took up her post on 26 April of the same year.

Opening concert

Born on October 25, 1838 in Paris to a family of musicians, Georges Bizet studied piano at an early age and was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire at 10, where he studied with Halévy. His brilliant studies culminated in 1857 when he won the Prix de Rome. The same year, his first stage work, the one-act operetta Le Docteur miracle performed at the Bouffes Parisiens and was awarded a prize by Offenbach, shared with Lecocq. During the next three years that he spent in Rome, he composed an opera buffa, Don Procopio. But his first operas, Les Pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers, 1863) and La Jolie Fille de Perth (The Fair Maid of Perth, 1866) were not successful. Djamileh composed to Musset and performed in 1872 at the Opéra Comique, or his incidental music composed for Daudet’s play L’Arlésienne and staged in October 1st at the Vaudeville, were both failures. However, an orchestral suite derived from L’Arlésienne and performed at the Concerts Pasdeloup in December, was instantly popular. Encouraged by this success, Bizet began composing Carmen, interrupted by the writing of a grand opera based on Corneille, Don Rodrigue, which remained unfinished after the fire that burned the opera house where it was to be performed. Sadly, the premiere of Carmen was another failure that hastened his end. He died on June 3, 1875 in Bougival, at only 37 years old.

Clémentine Margaine studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Gerda Hartmann and Chantal Mathias. In 2009 she was named ADAMI “classical revelation” and in 2011, “vocal revelation of the year” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique. She also won the special jury prize in Marmande in 2010. In 2012 she joined the Deutsche Oper company in Berlin where she sang the title role of Carmen for the first time. She is a regular guest at the Metropolitan Opera New York, Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, Teatro Regio in Parma, Rome Opera, Salzburg Festival and Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. In previous seasons, she has sung, among other roles, Amneris (Aida) in Berlin, Verona and at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Azucena (Il Trovatore) in Rome and Verona, Leonora (La Favorite) at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Charlotte (Werther) at the Vienna Staatsoper, Adalgisa (Norma) at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Princess Eboli (Don Carlo) at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Lyric Opera in Chicago, the title-roles in Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and in Hérodiade at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. She is also a consummate performer of oratorios (Mendelssohn’s Elias, Mozart’s and Verdi’s Requiem, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust) and a singer of lieder and melodies (Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Ravel’s Shéhérazade). During the season 2023/24, she sings Azucena in Parma, Amneris in Berlin and Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.



At the Paris Opera: Carmen (title-role), 2017, 2023; L’Heure espagnole (Concepcion), 2018; Œdipe (la Sphinge), 2021

Margaine.Clementine

Polenzani.Matthew

Carmen (Prélude, Habanera, "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée", Chœur de l'acte IV " Les voici, voici la quadrille...")

Ekaterina Gubanova studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. She performs regularly on the world's greatest opera stages, including New York's Metropolitan Opera, Milan's La Scala, London's Royal Opera House, Vienna's Staatsoper, Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper, Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Madrid's Teatro Real, the Opéra national de Paris and the Bayreuth Festival. Her debut as Kundry (Parsifal) in Vienna was the highlight of her career. One of her most important roles is Brangäne (Tristan and Isolde), but her repertoire also includes Mère Marie (Dialogues des carmélites), Fricka (L'Or du Rhin and La Walkyrie), Waltraute (Le Crépuscule des dieux), Princess Eboli (Don Carlo), Amneris (Aida), Adalgisa (Norma), Judith (Bluebeard's Castle), Venus (Tannhäuser), Marguerite (The Damnation of Faust), Ortrud (Lohengrin) and the Foreign Princess (Rusalka), to name but a few. Ekaterina Gubanova also performs in concert. She works regularly with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, Semyon Bychkov, Philippe Jordan and Nathalie Stutzmann.At the Opéra national de Paris: The Magic Flute (Third Lady), 2005; Otello (Emilia), 2005; Madame Butterfly (Suzuki), 2006; Tristan et Isolde (Brangäne), 2005, 2008, 2018; Les Contes d'Hoffmann (the Muse, Nicklausse), 2007, 2010; Bluebeard's Castle (Judith), 2015, 2018 ; Don Carlo (Princess Eboli), 2017 ; Rhine Gold (Fricka), 2020 ; Valkyrie (Fricka), 2020 ; Oedipus (Jocasta), 2021 ; Lohengrin (Ortrud), 2023

Gubanova.Ekaterina

In residency at the Paris Opera Academy from 2019 to 2021

Born in Normandy, France, Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur has been working since 2014 with soprano Maryse Castets at the Bordeaux Conservatory where she obtained her Singing Diploma after graduating from Sciences Po Bordeaux. She is the winner of the Bordeaux Médoc Lyrical Competition 2018. She then went on to study at the Paris Opera Academy, where she received the AROP Prize and the Cercle Carpeaux Prize. She took part in the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival where she sang the Second Lady in Cherubini's Medea with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and performed in recital with the Mozarteum Orchestra. She sang the roles of the Mother, the Chinese Cup and the Dragonfly in Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges at the Paris Opera, Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Lucretia in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. A member of the Nouvelle Troupe Favart of the Opéra Comique, she is the winner of the 2020 Menda Grant. Recent highlights include L'Enfant et les sortilèges (the Mother, the Chinese Cup and the Dragonfly) at the Opéra national de Bordeaux (Festival Pulsations), Pelléas et Mélisande (Geneviève) with the Fondation Royaumont, Philippe Hersant’s Les Éclairs (Ethel) at the Opéra Comique, The Magic Flute (the Third Lady) at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Wozzeck (Margaret) and Parsifal (the Second Esquire and a Flowermaiden) at the Paris Opera, Marc-Olivier Dupin’s Robert le Cochon (Trashella) at the Opéra Comique, and she also performed Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder with the Luxembourg National Youth Orchestra. Future projects include Mère Marie de l'Incarnation in Dialogues des carmélites at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, Inès in Il Trovatore at the Paris Opera, and the alto part in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 conducted by Laurence Equilbey in Paris, London and Linz. Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur was named one of the revelations of the 2022 Victoires de la musique classique.

Bouchard-Lesieur.Marie-Andrée © Romane Bégon

Ainadamar (“Mariana, tus ojos”)

La Vida breve (Danse du deuxième tableau)

Born in Lowestoft in 1913, Benjamin Britten studied with Frank Bridge and composed, when he was 10, a Simple Symphony. He truly made his mark in the musical world with Phantasy-Quartet, composed for oboe and strings and created in 1934 in Florence. Subsequent pieces such as Les Illuminations, to verses written by Rimbaud, or The Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings allowed him to assert his style and personality. In 1945, the creation of Peter Grimes marked both the birth of modern English opera and the beginning of his career as a dramatic musician. Many operatic works followed, among which The Rape of Lucretia in 1946, Albert Herring in 1947, The Turn of the Screw in 1954, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1960, Death in Venice in 1973.&nbsp;Britten also wrote a large-scale requiem for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, War Requiem, as well as several pieces for cello created by Mstislav Rostropovitch.&nbsp;As he did not belong to any group or musical style, influenced by Purcell and English folklore, but also by musicians as diverse as Berg, Verdi, Moussorgski or Debussy, Britten forged his language away from fashion and circles and simply sought to adapt his music to the needs of his compositional work. He died in Aldeburgh in 1976.

Peter Grimes (Sea Interlude n° 4 "The Storm")

Composer and conductor John Adams is a unique figure in the world of American music.  Some of his pieces rank among the most frequently performed contemporary music of our time: Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, Chamber Symphony, Absolute Jest, Short Ride in a Fast Machine and his Concerto for violin. His stage works include Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, Doctor Atomic, A Flowering Tree, the oratorio Gospel According to the Other Mary, Girls of the Golden West. His newest opera Antony and Cleopatra premiered at the San Francisco Opera in Septembre 2022. John Adams is the 2019 recipient of the Erasmus Prize, awarded to him “for notable contributions to European culture, society and social sciences.” He has conducted the world premieres of more than a hundred new works by musicians such as Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Wolfgang Rihm, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, but also promising young composers. In 2021, he received the Orchestra Conducting Ditson Award from Columbia University “for exceptional commitment to the performance of American composers”. Harvard, Yale, Northwestern University, Cambridge University and the Juilliard School have conferred honorary doctorates (doctor honoris causa) on him. Since 2009, he has held the position of “Creative Chair” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He wrote the autobiography Hallelujah Junction. In 2022, to celebrate his 75th birthday, Nonesuch Records released John Adams Collected Works, a box set featuring recordings spanning more than four decades of the composer's career with the label.Reproduced with kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

Born in Montreal, Gerald Finley began singing as a chorister in Ottawa, Canada, and completed his musical studies in the UK at the Royal College of Music, King’s College, Cambridge, and the National Opera Studio. His career initially focused on the music of Mozart, as he performed the title-role in Don Giovanni and the Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro. He then explored the Wagner repertoire with Hans Sachs (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Amfortas (Parsifal), Wolfram (Tannhäuser), and Verdi with Falstaff and Iago (Otello). His other important roles include Guillaume Tell, Scarpia (Tosca), Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), Eugene Onegin and Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress). In contemporary opera, Finley has created leading roles such as J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, Harry Heegan in Turnage’s The Silver Tassie, and Mr Fox in Tobias Picker’s Fantastic Mr Fox. Concert appearances include the title role in Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero and Chou En-lai in Adams’ Nixon in China. During season 2021/22, he performed the Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro) at the New York Metropolitan Opera, Adams' Anthony in Anthony & Cleopatra, Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Iago (Otello) in Munich and Falstaff (title-role) in Vienna. In concert, he took part in the opening gala at the Paris Opera with Gustavo Dudamel and sang Bluebeard's Castle at London's Stone Nest. He has performed many recitals in Vienna, Prague, London and in the US. A Grammy Award-winning singer, he gives masterclasses throughout the world, including at the Juilliard School of Music. He is also working with the Jette Parker Young Artists’ Program at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, the National Opera Studio, and the Lindemann Program at the New York Met. He is a Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music. In 2017 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and had previously been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Finley.Gerald.4

Doctor Atomic (Acte I, “Batter my heart”)

Born in May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, Richard Wagner developed, at a young age, a passion for the theatre art. Influenced by Weber and Beethoven he chose nevertheless to start a career as a composer. His first opera The Fairies was not performed until after his death while his second one, The Ban on Love (1835), was a failure. He spent three years in Paris where he achieved Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman, and was then appointed Kapellmeister at the Royal Saxon Court, where he staged Tannhäuser in 1845. But his involvement in the left-wing May revolution prevented the creation of Lohengrin in Dresden and even forced him into exile in Switzerland. There, he started to work on Der Ring des Nibelungen, a project he began a year earlier. It took him more than twenty years to achieve the cycle, as he was interrupted for a long period by the writing of Tristan and Isolde and The Master Singers of Nuremberg. With the support of Ludwig II of Bavaria, who idolized Wagner, many of his works were staged in Munich. In 1871, Wagner commissioned a theatre of his design in Bayreuth dedicated to the performance of his works. There, in 1876, was created the complete cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen as well as Parsifal, in 1882, his last opera and artistic legacy. Wagner died in 1883 in Venice following an angina pectoris.

Lohengrin (Acte I, Prélude)

Artistic director of the Vienna State Opera from 1919 to 1925, Richard Strauss was one of the most famous conductors of his time, an eminent interpreter of his own works, but also of the operas of Mozart and Wagner. His stylistic and aesthetic importance was considerable. Born in Munich in 1864, the son of a famous Munich horn player and musical prodigy (he was composing by the age of six and conducting an orchestra by the age of nine), in 1884 he met the conductor Hans von Bülow, who invited him the following year to become second conductor at the Meiningen Opera. He held a number of positions (Director of Court Music in Munich, Assistant Court Kapellmeister in Weimar, Principal Conductor of the Munich Opera, etc.), before succeeding von Bülow at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1894, he conducted Tannhäuser in Bayreuth. As a composer, he first established his reputation with great symphonic poems such as Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Till the Mischievous, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Don Quixote and A Hero's Life. His first operas, Guntram and Feuersnot, strongly influenced by the music of Wagner, met with little success, but Salome, based on Oscar Wilde's play, brought him fame in 1905 as much for the innovative nature of the music as for the sulphurous subject matter. Elektra, in 1909, marked the beginning of a long collaboration with the Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and displayed a violence rarely seen in opera. With Le Chevalier à la rose (1911), Strauss seems to have mellowed, returning to the Viennese tradition of character opera. This was followed by Ariane à Naxos (1912), La Femme sans ombre (1919), Intermezzo (1924), Hélène d'Égypte (1928), Arabella (1933), La Femme silencieuse (1935), Friedenstag (1938), Daphné (1938), L'Amour de Danaé (1938-1940). In his last opera, Capriccio, composed in 1942 to a libretto he wrote himself in collaboration with his friend the conductor Clemens Krauss, he succeeded, at almost 80 years of age, in surpassing himself. A few months before his death, he composed the Four Last Lieder for soprano and orchestra. He died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1949.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jacquelyn Wagner studied at the Manhattan School of Music and at the Oakland University of Michigan. She made her opera debut at the Berlin Deutsche Oper where she first performed the main roles of her current repertoire (Pamina in The Magic Flute; the Countess in Le Nozze Di Figaro, Micaela in Carmen, Musetta in La Bohème…). She was invited to perform on many international stages: Frankfurt (the Countess), Toulon (Agathe in Freischütz), Miami (Donna Anna in Don Giovanni), Dresden (Micaela), Geneva (Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte), Stuttgart, at the The Vlaamse Opera, the Marseille Opera… For the 2017/2018 season, she performed Alice (Falstaff) at the The Vlaamse Opera, Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and made her debut in the roles of Leonore (Fidelio) in Saint-Gall, and Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. She also sang the title-role in Arabella at the De Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Pamina, Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at the Paris Opera, Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) and Leonore (Fidelio) at La Scala de Milan, the title-role of Giovanna d’Arco in Bonn, Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito) at the Opéra national du Rhin, a concert performance of Feuersnot/Diemut in New York Carnegie Hall, the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Staatsoper in Hamburg, Mimì (La bohème) at the Oper Köln, Donna Anna at the Munich State Opera and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Desdemona (Otello) in Düsseldorf, Violetta (La Traviata) in Berlin, Leonore at the Semperoper in Dresden, the title-role of Euryanthe at the Theater an der Wien, Agathe (Freischütz) at Zurich Opera, Elsa (Lohengrin) at the Landestheater in Salzburg, Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and Alcina’s title-role in Düsseldorf. She made her debut at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2019 in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. During summer 2021, she sang the Countess Almaviva in Aix-en-Provence. She recently took part in symphonic under the baton of Jonathan Nott, Andris Nelsons or Silvia Spinnato.

Wagner.Jacquelyn

Sabine Devieilhe was born in Normandy and studied voice at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. Soon thereafter, she began performing in concert, most notably with the Orchestre de Paris, Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre and Le Concert Spirituel. She then went on to perform the roles of Amina in La Sonnambula and La Folie in Platée under the direction of Jean-Claude Malgoire. In 2012, she made her Aix Festival debut in La Finta giardiniera (Serpetta) and then performed the title role in Lakmé at the Montpellier Opera before playing the Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) at the Lyon Opera. She was named Best New Opera Artist at the Victoires de la Musique in 2013. She sang the role of Constance in the Olivier Py production of Dialogues des carmélites at the Lyon Opera and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. She then played Lakmé at the Opéra Comique and made her Paris Opera debut in Die Zauberflöte. Her other roles include Héro (Béatrice et Bénédict) at the Paris Opera, Eurydice (Orphée et Eurydice) at La Monnaie in Brussels, Adele (Die Fledermaus) at the Opéra Comique, Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande) and Nannetta (Falstaff) at the Marseille Opera, and Ismène (Mitridate) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. In 2015, she gave her debut performance at the Glyndebourne Festival in L’Enfant et les sortilèges (singing the roles of the Fire, the Princess, and the Nightingale). She then went on to play Bellezza in the Krzysztof Warlikowski production of Handel’s Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno at the 2016 Aix Festival and she made her role debut as Blonde (Der Entführung aus dem Serail) at Milan’s La Scala. Sabine Devieilhe has also appeared as Marie (La Fille du régiment) in Zurich and Vienna, Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos) at the 2018 Aix Festival, the Queen of the Night in Romeo Castellucci’s production at La Monnaie in Brussels, Cunégonde (Bernstein’s Candide) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Ophélie (Hamlet) at the Opéra Comique, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) at the Zurich Opera, Zerbinetta at Milan’s La Scala, Marie at the Royal Opera House in London, and Hébé, Phani and Zima (Les Indes galantes) at the Paris Opera. Sabine Devieilhe has an exclusive recording contract with Erato/Warner Classics. Her album Mirages, with the French philharmonic orchestra Les Siècles led by François-Xavier Roth was honoured at the 25th Victoires de la Musique Awards.

Devieilhe.Sabine.

Le Chevalier à la rose (Acte III, trio et duo final)

Giuseppe Verdi was born in 1813 into a modest but relatively well-to-do family in the hamlet of Le Roncole, near Busseto. He received his first musical training from the village organist. In 1824, he became the organist at the church in Busseto. After following music lessons with the organist and composer Ferdinando Provesi, he was noticed by Antonio Barezzi, a spirits merchant and music aficionado who also founded the Filarmonici (Societa filarmonica), the town’s amateur orchestra. Barezzi would become Verdi’s patron and sponsor and the composer would ultimately marry Barezzi’s daughter Margherita in 1836. A stipend enabled him to continue his studies in Milan where he took private lessons with Vincenzo Lavigna, a teacher at La Scala, and a friend of Rossini. On the recommendations of the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, his first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio was performed at La Scala in Milan. For a short while following the death of his two children and then his wife Margherita, and after the relative fiasco that befell his second opera, Un giorno di regno, Verdi considered abandoning music altogether. However, he started composing again when Merelli offered him the libretto for Nabucco. That opera was a huge success at its premiere at La Scala on March 9, 1842 and it did not take long before all of Italy was singing Va pensiero, the anthem in which the chorus of slaves lament their lost freedom. From then on, Verdi became the bard of Italian unification. Most of the works that followed would be operas with patriotic undertones (I Lombardi alla prima crocciata, Ernani, Giovanna d’Arco, Attila, La Battaglia di Legnano…). In 1847, Verdi left for London for the world premiere of I Masnadieri, then settled in Paris where he met up with Giuseppina Strepponi, who would create the role of Abigaille. They would never be separated again. Verdi purchased the property at Sant’Agata, near Busseto and openly enlisted in the struggle for the liberation of Italy, which was then occupied by the Austrians. After 1850, Verdi was unrivalled in Italy. In particular, his popular trilogy, Rigoletto – Il Trovatore – La Traviata dates from this period.Les Vêpres siciliennes (Paris, 1855), Simon Boccanegra (La Fenice in Venice, 1857), Un ballo in maschera (Rome, 1859), La Forza del destino (Saint Petersburg, 1862), Don Carlos (Paris, 1867), Aida (Cairo, 1871), the Messa di Requiem (Milan, 1874), Otello (Milan, 1887), and Falstaff (Milan, 1893) would follow. In 1861, he was elected deputy of Busseto. He passed away in Milan on January 27, 1901. With no heir at the time of his death, Verdi bequeathed his copyrights to the retirement home for aging musicians that he had founded in Milan.

Born in Sweden, Tobias Westman graduated from the University of Stockholm in singing. He made his operatic debuts on the main Scandinavian stages in the roles of Gennaro (Lucrezia Borgia) at the Malmö Opera House, or Albert (Die tote Stadt) at the Wermland Opera in Karlstadt, Sweden. The following season, he was Pinkerton in a concert version of Madama Butterfly, then Gastone (La Traviata) in a staging by Olivier Py for the Malmö Opera. During summer 2019, he performed Tamino (The Magic Flute) at the Opera pa Skäret Festival. Tobias Westman joined the Paris Opera’s Academy in Septembre 2019 and made his Palais Garnier debut in the roles of the Teapot, the Tree frog and the Little old man in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges in January 2020. He appeared in The Rape of Lucretia at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in 2021. In 2022, he sang Gernando (L’Isola disabitata) at the Dijon Opera, the Second Friend (Wozzeck) and the third Esquire (Parsifal), the Second Priest and the First armoured man (The Magic Flute) at the Paris Opera.

Westman

Born in Incheon, Kiup Lee studied music at the University Kyung Hee of Seoul. In 2018, he joined the International Opera Academy in Ghent in Belgium. Back in Korea, he sang several main roles on stage: Nathanaël in Les Contes d’Hoffmann by Offenbach, Nemorino In L’Elisir d’amore by Donizetti, Ricccardo I, Un ballo in maschera by Verdi, Rodolfo from La Bohème by Puccini. He sang the roles of la Théière, le Petit Vieillard and la Rainette in L’Enfant et les sortilèges by Ravel first at the Bozar of Brussels and then on the stage of the Palais Garnier in January 2020. He won several first prizes in international competitions such as Yongsan Eum Jung Haung National competition and the Belvedere international competition. Kiup Lee joined the Paris Opera Academy in September 2019 and made his Paris début as Bastien in the Mozart’s opera Bastien and Bastienne. In May 2021, Kiup Lee sang the Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia (Britten) at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, in a production by Jeanne Candel, conducted by Léo Warynski. Other appearances include the Captain in Scarlatti’s La Giuditta under Thibault Noally at La Grange au Lac (Évian), as part of the Voix d’Automne Festival, and one of the four mourners in Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet place at the Palais Garnier in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski. He is Dorvil in Rossini’s La Scala di seta with the artists of the Academy in a production by Pascal Neyron, conducted by Elisabeth Askren at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, in the spring of 2023.

Timothée Varon began singing at the CRD of Pontivy in the class of Agnès Brosset. He soon joined the chorus of Rennes Opera and the vocal ensemble Mélisme(s). He then entered the National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon (CNSMDL) in the class of Françoise Pollet and then was taught by Mireille Delunsch. He took part in many master classes and benefited from the guidance of Alain Garichot, Jean-Luc Chaignaud and Daniel Salas.&nbsp;He gave recitals at Rennes Opera in Beethoven's Scottish Songs and in a programme of French melodies at the Lyon Opera. He sang Carmina Burana and Schubert's Stabat Mater with the Vannes Symphony Orchestra. With the CNSMDL opera workshop, he sang the Clock and the Cat in L'Enfant et les sortilèges, roles that he he took back on the stage of the Palais Garnier on January 2020.&nbsp;In 2018, he won the second prize at the Arles competition, as well as the Revelation Prize at the fourth edition of the Raymond Duffaut – Young Talents contest and is awarded Classical Revelation by the ADAMI. During a stage workshop directed by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser at Royaumont Abbey, he sang Belcore in L'Elisir d'amore, Morales in Carmen and the title role of Don Giovanni.&nbsp;For his first season at the Academy, he sang Eisenstein in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus at the MC93 in Bobigny and then on tour. In August 2019, he played Papageno at the Opera pa Skäret in Sweden. Timothée Varon joined the Paris Opera Academy in September 2018.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Varon

From South Carolina, Aaron Pendleton studied music at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, at Johnson C. Smith University and at the State University of Arizona. He attended various masterclasses included those of Sherrill Milnes. In 2019, he took part in the creation of 27 by Ricky Ian Gordon at the Opera of Las Vegas. At the Opera Studio of Las Vegas University, he sang Leaf in State of Grace by Linda Lister, Sky’s father in No Guarantees by Cynthia Wong and the Marquis de la Force in the Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc. In 2020, he performed the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte and Olin Blitch in Susannah by Carlisle Floyd. First price of the Metropolitan Opera Competition in Arizona and finalist in Denver (Colorado) in 2019, Aaron Pendleton joined the national Opera Academy in September 2020.

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Opening concert

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Carmen (Prélude, Habanera, "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée", Chœur de l'acte IV " Les voici, voici la quadrille...")

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Ainadamar (“Mariana, tus ojos”)

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La Vida breve (Danse du deuxième tableau)

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Peter Grimes (Sea Interlude n° 4 "The Storm")

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Doctor Atomic (Acte I, “Batter my heart”)

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Lohengrin (Acte I, Prélude)

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Le Chevalier à la rose (Acte III, trio et duo final)

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Falstaff (Scène finale, "Alto là ! - Chi va là")

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