Act 1

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Libretto

La Bohème - 11

Interview with Nicole Car

Is it because Murger had himself lived this way in his youth? No one better described the half-starved, struggling artists than the writer in his Scènes de la Vie de Bohème: artists ready to burn a manuscript to try to keep warm yet, in an era of triumphant bourgeois materialism, dreaming of another existence.Taking up these scenes of Bohemian life, Puccini offers us a heart-breaking love story and some of the most beautiful music in the history of opera in the story of the poet Rodolfo and fragile Mimi.The staging of this new production has been entrusted to Claus Guth who sets the drama in a future devoid of hope in which love and art become the sole means of transcendence. Maîtrise des Hauts de Seine / Chœur d’enfants de l’Opéra national de ParisDirector: François Roussillon A coproduction Opéra national de Paris and François Roussillon et Associés, with the participation of France Télévisions, TF1, medici.tv and the support of the Fondation Orange and the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée.© Opéra national de Paris – François Roussillon et Associés - 2017

2017-18-BOHEM-022

La Bohème

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Is it because Murger had himself lived this way in his youth? No one better described the half-starved, struggling artists than the writer in his Scènes de la Vie de Bohème: artists ready to burn a manuscript to try to keep warm yet, in an era of tri

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini was born in 1858 in Lucca, Italy, to a family of organists (his father was a notorious theoretician and music teacher). A performance of Verdi's Aida, which he saw in Pisa in 1876, convinced him that his vocation was to become a composer. He studied at the Milan Conservatory with, among others, Amilcare Ponchielli. On Ponchielli's advice, he took part in a composition competition launched by the Sonzogno publishing house in 1883 for a one-act opera. Although he did not win the prize his piece, Le Villi, was staged in 1884 in Milan with some success. The music publisher Ricordi then commissioned him a second opera, Edgar. His third opera, Manon Lescaut, brought him lasting fame and marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with the librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Together, they wrote Puccini's three greatest masterpieces: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). In 1910, the premiere of La Fanciulla del West took place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Puccini then composed a lighter piece, La Rondine, performed without much success at the Monte-Carlo Opera. After that, Puccini slowed down his compositional work. A car accident left him lame for the rest of his life and it was not until 1918 that The Triptych (Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi) premiered at the Metropolitan Opera. He died in Brussels in 1924 of throat cancer. His last opera, Turandot, remained unfinished. The last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano. However, when Toscanini premiered Turandot at La Scala in Milan on 25 April 1926, he hold his baton to mark the point Puccini had reached before dying and turned to the audience: “Here the master laid down his pen. He stopped there when he died”. Puccini also wrote a number of religious works (Salve regina, Messa di Gloria).

Nicole Car was born in Australia and made her debut at the Opera Australia in 2011 singing the role of Micaela (Carmen). She performed a number of other roles with the Australian Company, including Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Valencienne (Die Lustige Witwe), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Mimi (La Bohème), Marguerite (Faust), the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Violetta Valery (La Traviata).In 2015, she made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London performing the roles of Tatiana in Eugene Onegin and Micaela (Carmen). She made her American debut in Dallas in Le Nozze di Figaro, at the Berlin's Deutsche Oper in Eugene Onegin and at Dresden’s Sächsische Staatsoper in Così fan tutte.In 2016, she received the Helpmann Award for Best Female Performer in Opera for her performance in the title role of Luisa Miller at the Opera Australia. She has appeared in Brahms' A German Requiem, Mahler’s Das Klagende Lied, Mozart’s Requiem. She has made several recordings, including Massenet: Songs with Orchestra, Passionnément by André Messager and Heroines.These last seasons, she has sung Mimì in London, New York and Vienna, Tatiana in Munich, Berlin, Montreal and Vienna, Fiordiligi in New York, Salomé (Hérodiade) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and in Berlin, Blanche de La Force (Dialogues des carmélites) in Vienna, Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) in New York, Leonora (Il Trovatore) in Montreal, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) in San Francisco and in Dresden and Elisabetta (Don Carlo) in Berlin.This season, she is portraying among others Ellen Orford at La Scala in Milan, Desdemona (Otello), Blanche de La Force, Donna Elvira and Marguerite at the Staatsoper in Vienna, Mimì at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and performs with the Lille National Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2021, Nicole Car was named Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Car.Nicole.3 (c) Yan Bleney

Aida Garifullina was born in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, into a family of musicians (her mother, a chorus-mistress, gave Aida her first lessons and would play a major role in the development of her career). At the age of seventeen, she moved to Nuremberg where she studied with Siegfried Jerusalem, then, in 2007, she entered the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna ultimately earning a degree there in 2011. In 2013, she won first prize in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition. From 2013 to 2016, she was a member of the troupe of the Vienna Staatsoper where she performed numerous roles, including Musetta (La Bohème), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Princess Eudoxie (La Juive), Elvira (L’Italiana in Algeri), Adina (L’Elisir d’Amore), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Norina (Don Pasquale), and Juliette (Roméo et Juliette). She has also made regular guest appearances at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg (playing Natacha in War and Peace, Gilda in Rigoletto, as well as Susanna and Adina). Aida Garifullina made her Paris Opera debut in 2017 in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden and went on to perform the role of Musetta in La Bohème there. The following year, she gave her debut performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu debut in Roméo et Juliette and then at the Salzburg Festival in a concert version of Les Pêcheurs de perles. In 2018, she took part in the opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA World Cup in Russia and appeared at the Concert de Paris. She made her Berlin Staatsoper debut in Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery and her New York Metropolitan Opera debut in Don Giovanni (as Zerlina). She recorded her first album with Decca in 2017 and earned the ECHO-Klassik Award. During the 2019-2020 season, she appeared on the stage of London’s Royal Opera House for the first time (as Musetta) in a production of La Bohème and she made her Bayerische Staatsoper debut in Munich in L’Elisir d’amore. She also sang the roles of Mimi (La Bohème) and Violetta Valéry (La Traviata) at the Vienna Staatsoper and appeared in concert at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and at the BBC Proms in Hyde Park.

Garifullina Aida

Atalla Ayan was born in Belem, Brazil and made his debut at the age of 21 singing the role of Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi) in his native city. The following year, he made his European debut in the role of Rodolfo and he joined the Teatro Communale’s School of Italian Opera in Bologna, ultimately performing at the Teatro Communale in La Rondine under the baton of José Cura. During the 2009 / 2010 season, he became a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program. In 2011 he sang the role of Rodolfo in a David McVicar production with the Glyndebourne Touring Opera. In 2012, he joined the troupe of the Stuttgart Opera, during which time he sang the roles of Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Tamino (The Magic Flute), Ismaele (Nabucco), the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto), and Fenton (Falstaff). In 2013, he made his debut appearance at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden in La Rondine and he played Alfredo in La Traviata at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa under the baton of Fabio Luisi. His other roles include the Italian Singer in Der Rosenkavalier at the Dresden Semperoper and Geneva’s Grand Théâtre, Nemorino (L’Elisir d’amore) and Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) at the Cologne Opera, Rodolfo at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Budapest Opera, the Teatro Municipal in Sao Paulo and at the Royal Swedish Opera, and Alfredo at the Baden-Baden Festival and the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari. He made his Amsterdam debut at the Dutch National Opera in La Traviata and at La Scala in Milan in L’Elisir d’amore. Last season he performed in La Traviata and Cyrano de Bergerac (Christian) at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and sang Alfredo at London’s Royal Opera House and at the Glyndebourne Festival, Nemorino at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the title role in Faust, Lensky in Eugene Onegin in Stuttgart, and Rodolfo in Cologne.Projects: La Traviata for his debut appearance at the San Francisco Opera, Des Grieux in Manon in Cologne (his first time in the role), and Rodolfo at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London.

Ayan

Artur Ruciński made his debut in his home city of Warsaw in 2002 singing the title role of Eugene Onegin. In 2010, he was invited to the Deutsche Oper in Berlin by Daniel Barenboim to perform the same role. He has appeared on stage at numerous venues, including the Bregenz Festival (Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s The Passenger), the Hamburg Staatsoper (Lucia di Lammermoor), the Liceu in Barcelona (King Roger), as well as in Valencia (Lescaut in Manon under the baton of Lorin Maazel and Eugene Onegin), and the Verona Arena (Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette). He made his U.S. debut in Los Angeles (as Marcello in La Bohème), and then sang at the Paris Opera (Ford in Falstaff), London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Germont in La Traviata), the Salzburg Festival (Count di Luna in Il Trovatore) and Milan’s La Scala (Paolo Albiani in Simon Boccanegra). He returned to the Verona Arena for Il Trovatore and La Traviata and appeared in I Masnadieri at Venice’s La Fenice and the Verdi Festival in Parma, then in Il Trovatore at the Wiener Festwochen. He sang in Eugene Onegin in Munich under the baton of Kirill Petrenko and then again in Bologna. His other operas include Falstaff in Frankfurt, Attila (Ezio) in Warsaw, La Traviata at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Don Pasquale in Valencia, and Lucia di Lammermoor in Hamburg and Zurich. In 2015, he sang the title role in Don Giovanni at the Paris Opera and performed at Vienna’s Konzerthaus for the Christmas in Vienna concert. He has played Eugene Onegin and Enrico Ashton at London’s Royal Opera House, Marcello (La Bohème) at the Liceu in Barcelona and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in Madama Butterfly (Sharpless). Last season, he returned to the Paris Opera in Lucia di Lammermoor, then to the Royal Opera House for La Traviata, and then the Liceu in Barcelona for Il Trovatore. He also gave his first performance at the New National Theatre in Tokyo (Enrico Ashton). He has just made his San Francisco Opera debut in the role of Germont. Artur Ruciński also performs in concert with a repertoire ranging from Handel’s Messiah to Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion.Projects: His debut appearances at the Rome Opera (I Masnadieri) and at the Teatro Real de Madrid (Lucia di Lammermoor), and the title role in Gianni Schicchi at the Paris Opera.

Rucinski.Artur

Alessio Arduini made his debut in 2010 in the title role of Don Giovanni at the Teatro Sociale in Como. Over the next few seasons, he performed the roles of the Count in The Marriage of Figaro with the Pocket Opera, the title role in Don Giovanni at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Riccardo in I Puritani at the Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at the Teatro Regio in Turin and La Fenice in Venice, Schaunard in La Bohème at La Fenice, the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna Staatsoper (where he also sang the role of Masetto in Don Giovanni). In 2012, he made his debut appearance at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden singing the role of Schaunard. The following year, he made his debut at Milan’s La Scala in Un ballo in maschera (Silvano) and at Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper in Così fan tutte (Guglielmo). In 2014, he sang the roles of Belcore in L’Elisir d’amore, Dandini in La Cenerentola and Marcello in La Bohème at the Vienna Staatsoper, then Masetto at the Salzburg Festival. That same year, he also made his United States debut in the role of Schaunard at the New York Metropolitan Opera. In 2015, he returned to the Salzburg Festival to perform the role of Silvio in Pagliacci under the baton of Christian Thielemann and then went to the Vienna Staatsoper for a new production of Don Pasquale (Malatesta). He sang Schaunard in La Bohème at the Baths of Caracalla (Rome), then Dandini and Belcore in Vienna, and made his Paris Opera debut in the role of Leporello. He returned to Paris the following year to sing the role of Figaro (The Barber of Seville) before playing Guglielmo and Masetto at the Salzburg Festival. During the 2016 / 2017 season, he performed at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Guglielmo), New York’s Metropolitan Opera (Marcello), Vienna’s Staatsoper (Malatesta, Dandini, Belcore), the Florence Opera (Papageno in The Magic Flute), and the Paris Opera (Dandini). He began the 2017 / 2018 season in Lille (Guglielmo) before appearing as Belcore at the Staatsoper in Vienna.Projects: Silvio (Pagliacci) at the Metropolitan Opera, Ramiro (L’Heure espagnole) at the Paris Opera, Dandini and Marcello at the Vienna Staatsoper, Mercurio (La Calisto) at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and Papageno (The Magic Flute) at the Rome Opera.

Alessio Arduini

Roberto Tagliavini was born in Parma, where he began to study singing with the baritone Romano Franceschetto. He regularly performs in the main international theaters in a repertoire ranging from Rossini, Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti to the French and verdiano repertoire.In evidence roles such as Selim (Il turco in Italia) and mustafà (L’italiana in Algeri),Alidoro (La Cenerentola), Fernando (La gazza ladra), Lord Sidney (Il viaggio a Reims), Maometto (Maometto II), Elmiro (Otello), Gouverneur (Le comte Ory), Basilio (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Il Conte e Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Rodolfo (La sonnambula), Oroveso (Norma), Giorgio (I Puritani), Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Banco (Macbeth), Attila (Attila), Zaccaria (Nabucco), Pagano (I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata), Comte Des Grieux (Manon), Escamillo (Carmen), Frère Laurent (Roméo et Juliette), Lindorf, Miracle, Coppelius e Dapertutto (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) among the others, besides Mozart, Donizetti and Verdi’s Requiem and Rossini’s Stabat Mater. He sang in the most prestigious Opera theatres, including the Teatro alla Scala, Opera in Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid,Salzburg Festival, Metropolitan in New York, the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Liceu in Barcelona, Deutsche Oper of Berlin, Los Angeles Opera, Mariinsky of St. Petersburg, the Nationale Opera and the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam,Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera House, Zurich Opera House.Among his future engagements: Il Trovatore in Madrid, Don Giovanni (Leporello) at Covent Garden in London, Luisa Miller (Walter) at Salzburger Festspiele, La Cenerentola in Amsterdam and Vienna, Ernani in Lyon, Anna Bolena in Bilbao, Manon in Paris Opera.

Tagliavini.Roberto

Marc Labonnette was born in Orléans and initially trained on the saxophone before focusing on singing. After spending two years at the Centre de Musique Baroque in Versailles, he entered the Guildhall School of Music &amp; Drama in London, then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music &amp; Drama in Glasgow.In 2004, he made his stage debut in Campra’s Idoménée. He then went on to tackle a number of other roles including the Comte de Guiche (Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac), Leporello (Don Giovanni), Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Don Alfonso (Così fan Tutte), Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), Baron Trombonok (Il Viaggio a Reims), Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Alidoro (La Cenerentola) and Adario (Les Indes Galantes)...He has been invited to perform on numerous stages, including the Paris Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, the Bordeaux, Marseille, Nancy, Montpellier, Versailles and Saint-Étienne Operas, Sadler’s Wells in London, the Buxton Festival...&nbsp;He recently performed in The&nbsp;Indian Queen at the Schwetzingen Festival, La Serva Padrona&nbsp;and Nélé et Myrthis&nbsp;at the Clermont-Ferrand Opera, Castor et Pollux at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées,&nbsp;Falstaff (Ford) at the Saint-Céré Festival and the Centre lyrique de Clermont-Auvergne, and&nbsp;King Arthur at the Opéra Royal in Versailles. He took part in the creation of&nbsp;

Luca Francesconi's Trompe-la-Mort (Baron de Nucingen) at the Paris Opera, where he also performed various roles in Dalbavie's The Satin Slipper, and Alcindoro in La Bohème, Antonio in Les Nozze di Figaro and Monsieur de Brétigny in Manon.Marc Labonnette also performs in concert (Fauré’s Requiem, Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Lully’s Proserpine, Marais’ Sémélé, Campra’s Requiem, and Telemann’s Orpheus). He has sung under the direction of numerous conductors, including Marc Minkowski, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Patrick Fournillier, Jean-Yves Ossonce, Roberto Forès-Veses, Luciano Acocella, Christophe Coin, Daniele Callegari, Michele Mariotti, Susanna Mälkki, Hervé Niquet, David Stern and Patrick Cohen-Akenine.During the season 2022/2023, he will portray Prosper in Hahn's O mon bel inconnu at the Tours Opera, le Voleur Chanteleine in Landowski's La Vieille Maison at the Nantes Opera, Alcindoro in Manon and&nbsp;Sergeant Sulpice in La Fille du Régiment at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

Labonnette.Marc

Antonel Boldan, a young opera tenor from Romania, initially earnt a Masters in psychology at Babes Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca, Romania and then received training in Moreno psychodrama for a number of years. His love for music made him decide to try his luck at the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj Napoca where he won a prize for singing and the operatic arts in 2007 performing the role of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Romanian National Opera in Cluj Napoca. His repertoire of roles includes Lord Arturo Bucklaw in Lucia di Lammermoor, Freddy Eynsford-Hill in Frederic Loewe’s My Fair Lady (at the Romanian National Opera in Cluj Napoca) Don Basilio in The Marriage of Figaro (at the Cluj Napoca Hungarian Opera), and Arlecchino in Pagliacci, Count Zedlau in Weiner Blut and Alfredo in La Traviata (at the Brasov Opera / Romania). A prize-winner and a finalist in numerous competitions in his native country, he was a finalist at the UPMCF Voice Competition in Paris in 2011 and a semi-finalist at the Francisco Viñas Competition in Barcelona in 2012. He continued his training in bel canto in France with the renowned mezzo-soprano Viorica Cortez.

Boldan.Antonel.2

Raised in the rich Basque choral tradition, in which he has participated actively since childhood, Bernard Arrieta studied singing, trumpeting and choral conducting in San Sebastián (Spain), while obtaining a master's degree in chemistry at the University of the Basque Country. Seduced by the Baroque repertoire, he left his hometown to complete his training at the Baroque Music Center in Versailles. Wishing to deepen his singing studies in a more operatic repertoire, he joined the Paris Conservatoire and completed his singing training with a two years cycle dedicated to opera. Despite this new focus in his career, his vast experience of the Baroque opera led him to regularly perform, at first, with ensembles including Le Poème Harmonique (Vincent Dumestre), Le Concert d’Astrée (Emmanuelle Haïm), Les Talens Lyriques (Christophe Rousset), Il Seminario Musicale (Gérard Lesne), Akadêmia (Françoise Lasserre), among others.He founded and conducted the ensemble La capilla de música, specialised in the Spanish Baroque repertoire. He also ventures into other types of repertoire, with Poulenc’s Le Bal masqué, touring with the Poitou-Charentes Orchestra, Stravinsky’s Fox at the Radio France, or Andrew Lloyd-Weber’s Cats at the Théâtre du Châtelet. A member of the Paris Opera Chorus since 2005, he continues to perform as a soloist.Though he still loves to perform a various repertoire, ranging from melody to oratorio, and still has a passion for the Baroque repertoire, his principal focus is now on opera. He recently portrayed Giorgio Germont (La Traviata), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) and Baron Scarpia (Tosca), among other roles.At the Paris Opera: Les Huguenots (a Lord), 2018; Les Troyens (Mercure, Pluto’s Priest), 2019; Don Carlo (Coryphée), 2019; The Barber of Seville (an officer), 2020 ; Œdipe (4e Thébain), 2021; La Bohème (Sergente dei doganari), 2023

bernard arrieta

Jian-Hong Zhao was born in Datong in China. He began his career singing traditional Chinese opera in Datong. He studied theatre and music at the Theatre Institute in Beijing then went to on to the Conservatoire of Shanghai to pursue his musical studies. He began his operatic career as a soloist with Shanghai Opera. He completed his studies in Europe at the École Normale in Paris where the jury was unanimous in awarding him prizes for singing and interpretation. Whilst pursuing his career as a soloist, in 2000 he joined the Paris Opera Chorus.

Zhao

Membre of the Paris Opera TroupeFernando Velasquez was born in Chili and studied singing at the National Conservatory of the University of Chili in Santiago. He has been a member of the Paris Opera Chorus since 1997. He returns regularly to Chili to give concerts for classical music festivals.He is also a member of the Chilean quartet “Poesia”, which explores and revisits Latin-American, Spanish and Italian melodies based on the great Iberian-American poets.At the Paris Opera: Kátia Kabanová (a citizen), 2000 ; Louise (the carrot merchant), 2007; La Khovantchina (Golitsyn’s confident), 2022

VELASQUEZ Fernando

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;

Born in Frankfurt, Claus Guth studied Philosophy, German Literature and Drama at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and then stage direction at Munich’s August Everding Theatre Academy.After his debut in Munich, Mannheim and Hamburg, his career took on an international dimension when he directed the world premiere production of Luciano Berio’s Cronaca del luogo at the 1999 Salzburg Festival. He then staged several productions there, including Iphigénie en Tauride, Zaide and the Mozart / Da Ponte trilogy.He directed The Flying Dutchman at the Bayreuth Festival in 2003 and is a regular guest at the Zurich Opera (Fierrabras, Radamisto, Tristan et Isolde, Parsifal…). His other productions include the complete Ring Cycle at the Staatsoper in Hamburg, Tannhäuser at the Wiener Staatsoper, Lohengrin at Teatro alla Scala and the Paris Opera, Die Frau ohne Schatten at La Scala and Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Turn of the Screw and Juliette at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Der Rosenkavalier, Puccini’s Triptych and The Merry Widow at the Frankfurt Opera, Salomé at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Jephtha at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, Rodelinda at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and La Clemenza di Tito at the Glyndebourne Festival, Saül at Theater an der Wien.Claus Guth is also highly involved in the field of contemporary music and has staged numerous creations including Celan (Peter Ruzicka), SehnSuchtMeer (Richard Wagner / Helmut Oehring), Aschemond oder The Fairie Queen (Helmut Oehring / Henry Purcell), Violetter Schnee (Beat Furrer), Lazarus (Franz Schubert / Charles Ives) and Heart Chamber (Czernowin).His recent engagements include Tristan und Isolde in Zurich, Salome in Moscow, Dialogues des carmélites, The Merry Widow and Elektra in Frankfurt, Le Nozze di Figaro in Madrid, The Makropulos Affair in Berlin, Parsifal in Barcelona, Il Viaggio, Dante in Aix-en-Provence, Don Carlo in Naples, Bluthaus (Georg Friedrich Haas) in Munich and in Lyon.



At the Paris Opera: Rigoletto, 2016 ; Lohengrin, 2017 ; La Bohème, 2017 ; Jephta, 2018 ; Bérénice, 2018

Etienne Pluss ran an art gallery in Geneva before obtaining a set design diploma at Berlin’s University of the Arts in 1996. He began his career in the theatre as design assistant to Achim Freyer and Karl-Ernst Herrmann. He has collaborated with many stage directors, including George Tabori, Nadja Loschky, Claus Guth, Richard Brunel, Christoph Loy, Enrico Lubbe, Adriana Altaras, Patrick Schlosser.His most recent work includes his sets for Beat Furrer’s Violetter Schnee at Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Elektra for Bonn Opera, Martha at Opera Frankfurt, Die Passagierin for Graz Opera and Winterreise at Leipzig Theatre. During the pandemic, he designed the sets for La serva padrona at Frankfurt Opera.In 2021, he designed the sets for Salomé at Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow. He also worked with Richard Brunel for the production of Rigoletto at Opéra national de Lorraine, with Immo Karaman for Otello at Hannover Staatsoper and with Evgeny Titov for Shakespeare’s Macbeth at Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus.In 2022, he designed the sets for The Makropulos Affair at Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, for Bluthaus at Munich Staatsoper, Il Viaggio, Dante at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Giacomo Puccini’s Triptych at the Salzburg Festival, Alice in Wonderland at Zurich Opernhaus, and On purge bébé! at La Monnaie in Brussels.He also designed the sets for Don Carlo for the 2022/23 season’s opening of Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and recently collaborated with director Katharina Thoma for Don Giovanni at the Leipzig Opera, and with Nadja Loschky for Hamlet at the Komische Oper Berlin.The 2023/24 season sees him design the sets for Giulio Cesare in Egitto in Frankfurt, staged by Nadja Loschky, Turandot at Staatsoper Vienna and Samson at the Aix-en-Provence Festival staged by Claus Guth.At the Paris Opera: La Bohème, 2017

Eva Dessecker has been working since 1992 on the greatest international opera stages (Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Milan, Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris, Salzburg). At the beginning of her career, she was Moidele Bickel's assistant for many shows at the Schaubühne in Berlin. She worked with Peter Stein, Robert Wilson and Patrice Chéreau (Wozzeck at the Théâtre du Châtelet). Since their collaboration on From the House of the Dead at the 1992 Salzburg Festival, she has been regularly working with Klaus Michael Grüber. For him, she designed the costumes of Roberto Zucco and Tagebuch eines Verschollenen as part of the Wiener Festwochen, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, Idoménée, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Doktor Faust at the Zurich Opera. She also worked with Luc Bondy for Pinter’s Le Retour and Tartuffe at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Christoph Waltz for Der Rosenkavalier in Antwerp, Andrea Breth for Jakob Lenz in Stuttgart, Macbeth in Amsterdam and Le Château de Barbe-Bleue / Thème et variations at the Vienna Festival, Robert Wilson for Helmut Lachenmann’s The Little Match Girl at the 2014 Ruhrtriennale. Since 2011, she has been working with Alvis Hermanis: Platonov at the Vienna Akademietheater, Das weite Land (Arthur Schnitzler) at the Burgtheater, Die Geschichte von Kaspar Hauser at the Zurich Schauspielhaus, Die Soldaten, Gawain, Il Trovatore at the Salzburg Festival. In 2016, she completed Moidele Bickel’s last work, Manon Lescaut, in Amsterdam, in a production by Andrea Breth. That same year, she worked for the first time with Claus Guth for Martinů’s Juliette at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

At the Paris Opera: From the House of the Dead, 2005 ; La Bohème, 2017

Fabrice Kebour began his career in New York. He wins entry to the United Scenic Artists internship program which allows him to work with some of the leading American lighting designers on Broadway. Over the past 20 years, his work has been seen on the most prestigious international theatres: La Comédie Française, the Paris Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bregenzer Festival, the Teatro alla Scala, the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. He designed Giorgio Barberio Corsetti’s productions Un Chapeau de Paille d’Italie for La Comédie Française, Macbeth et Turandot for La Scala, as well as Don Carlo at the Mariinsky. He has been designing most of Sir David Pountney’s production amongst which La Forza del Destino for the Wiener Staatsoper, The Magic Flute for the Bregenz Festival and Philip Glass’ world premiere, Spuren der Verirrten for the opening of the new opera house in Linz. In 2011, the Prague Quadrennial invited him to be part of the Light Speaks exhibit which displayed the work of the world’s leading lighting designers. He was nominated in the 2005, 2009 and 2011 Molière Awards in Best lighting design, as well as in the Wales Theatre Awards in 2015. Recent engagements include Il Viaggio, Dante in Aix-en-Provence in a production by Claus Guth, Puccini’s Triptych at the Salzburg Festival in a production by Christof Loy, the Ring for the Lyric Opera Chicago, staged by Sir David Pountney and, finally, Die ägyptische Helena for Teatro alla Scala in a production by Sven-Eric Bechtolf.

At the Paris Opera: Faust, 2011 ; La Bohème, 2017 ; Bérénice, 2018

Arian Andiel studied photography, set designing and graphic information processing. He quickly turned to the theatre, with a strong interest for technical and video creation, which led him to work at the Salzburg Festival. He has been working with Claus Guth for several productions, including L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, L'incoronazione di Poppea at Theater an der Wien, Jephtha in Amsterdam, La clemenza di Tito at the Glyndebourne Festival. He also made the video in Saul at Theater an der Wien and in Violetter Schnee (Beat Furrer) at Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. In addition to his theatre work, Arian Andiel is also working for the media.

At the Paris Opera: La Bohème, 2017 ; Jephta, 2018

Born in Buenos Aires, Teresa Rotemberg has been creating since 1999 productions for her Zurich-based dance theatre company MAFALDA. Her recent creations include pieces for children and families, Zick Zack Puff and Vicky met les voiles, for which she won the Argentinian Award ‘ATINA’ in 2017 and the Swiss Award ‘Current Dance Creation’ in 2019.For many years, Teresa Rotemberg has been working and acknowledged as a choreographer for opera. She created, among others, the choreographies for Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, as part of the Wagner Days in Budapest in 2007, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2009, The Queen of Spades at the Salzburg Festival in 2018, Jenůfa at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Simplicius Simplicissimus at the Mannheim National Theatre in 2021, Fidelio at the Augsburg National Theatre in 2023.As a guest choreographer invited by many dance companies, she has created, among others, Irreversibel for the dancers of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 2010 and Sprunghaft und launisch for the Theater Saarbrücken, in 2011.She also staged Turnage’s Greek at the Berne Konzert Theater in 2015, Korngold’s Der Ring des Polykrates in Freiburg im Breisgau in 2020 and Maria Stuarda at Vorarlberger Landestheater in Bregenz in 2023.Since 2005, she has been extending her activity to the theatre. Recent work includes Der gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots), Aschenputtel (Cinderella) at the Theater Biel/Solothurn, and Tintenherz in Augsburg and Schlafes Bruder by Robert Schneider in Bregenz.&nbsp;Since the 2021-22 season, Teresa Rotemberg has been the artistic director of the young audience department at the Lucerne Theatre.&nbsp;During the 2024-2025 season, she will choreograph Eugene Onegin in Nuremberg and María de Buenos Aires in Cologne.

At the Paris Opera: Rigoletto, 2016 ; La Bohème, 2017&nbsp;

Born in Berlin in 1972, Yvonne Gebauer studied German literature, philosophy and religion at the Free University of Berlin. She has been working since 1998 as an opera and theatre dramaturg.She has been collaborating for many years with Hans Neuenfels and is also very close to Claus Guth, Christof Loy and Nadja Loschky. Other directors she has worked with include Kazuko Watanabe, Johan Simons, Amélie Niermeyer, Frank Hilbrich, Ben Frost, Tobias Kratzer and David Hermann.She has taught dramaturgy in the costumes class of Reinhard von der Thannen at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, in the design class of Erich Wonder at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, in the directing class of Amélie Niermeyer at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, and in the design class of Stefan Hageneier both at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music Berlin and at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. From 2001 to 2008, she worked as a freelance journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily magazin. From 2009 to 2018, she was dramaturg at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.At the Paris Opera: La Bohème, 2017 ; Jephta, 2018

Born in Buenos Aires and of Italo-Argentian nationality, José Luis Basso studied piano and orchestral conducting at the University of his hometown. He was appointed Chorus Master at the Teatro Argentino in La Plata where he spent four years preparing operatic and choral works. In 1987, a grant permitted him to pursue his studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1989, he took up the post of Chorus Master at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. That same year, he conducted the chorus of the Buenos Aires Wagner Association and in 1994, he became assistant to the celebrated Chorus master at La Scala Milan, Romano Gandolfi. He was then appointed Chorus Master at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples where he brought to the Opera Chorus a new dynamism, his conducting of Lohengrin and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony attracting considerable acclaim. In 1996, he joined the Maggio Musicale Fiorentine where he prepared the choir for Parsifal conducted by Semyon Bychkov, Turandot with Zubin Mehta and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for which he received the INA-Assitalia Galileo Prize for young conductors 2000. In April 2001, he accompanied the Orchestra and Chorus to Tokyo for the inauguration of the “Italy in Japan 2001” event. He has made a number of recordings for Decca including Turandot, La Bohème, Tosca and Aroldo. As chorus master, he has been invited to the Shanghai Opera, the Mariinski Theatre in Saint Petersburg and the Lyon Opera for Aïda and Carmina Burana. In 2003, he won a Grammy Award with the Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the soprano Renée Fleming for the album Bel Canto. In the course of the last two decades, he has worked alongside many of the world’s leading conductors: Zubin Mehta, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Antonio Pappano, Seiji Ozawa, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Myung-Whun Chung, Peter Schreier, Bruno Bartoletti, Rafael Frühbeck De Burgos, Semyon Bychkov, Daniel Oren, Valery Gergiev, Stéphane Denève, Jordi Savall, Fabio Luisi, Marc Piollet, Pinchas Steinberg, Michael Boder, Sebastian Weigle, Gerd Albrecht and Josep Pons. From 2004 to 2014 he was Chorus Master and Artistic Consultant at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelone. Since September 2014 he has been Chorus Master of the Paris Opera.

Creatives

Cast

Extras

Libretto

Interview with Nicole Car

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Creatives

Libretto

Interview with Nicole Car