Act I

Act II

Act III

Couv_La_Traviata_780x906

Libretto

Benjamin Bernheim (Alfredo) dans La Traviata, Palais Garnier, 2019 

2019-20-TRAVIA-215.1

Interview with Benjamin Bernheim

Beginning his opera with a prelude for strings of unprecedented economy of means, in 1853, Verdi affirmed his intention of defying conventions and norms. This is not the least radical aspect of his Traviata, which implacably strips bare the violence of a society that promotes worldly pleasures only to sacrifice an innocent woman on the altar of bourgeois morality.Simon Stone delights in grappling with the major works of the repertoire, enticing them into more intimate territory. One of today’s most distinguished stage directors, he made with this production his long-awaited debut at the Paris Opera. Paris Opera Orchestra and ChorusA co-production of the Paris Opera, François Roussillon et Associés with the participation of 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.Director: François Roussillon © Opéra national de Paris – François Roussillon et Associés - 2019Picture: © Charles Duprat / OnP

<ul><li>Violetta Valery: A Parisian demimondaine</li><li>Alfredo Germont: A young bourgeois from a provincial family, Violetta’s lover</li><li>Giorgio Germont: Alfredo’s father</li><li>Flora Bervoix: Violetta’s friend</li><li>Annina: Violetta’s maid</li><li>Le baron Douphol: Violetta’s protector</li><li>Le marquis d’Obigny: Flora’s lover</li><li>Gaston de Letorières: Alfredo’s friend</li><li>Doctor Grenv: Violetta’s doctor</li></ul>

La traviata | Opera chez soi

La Traviata

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La Traviata 2

Performance at the Opera Bastille, from 21 January to 25 February 2024

Beginning his opera with a prelude for strings of unprecedented economy of means, in 1853, Verdi affirmed his intention of defying conventions and norms. This is not the least radical aspect of his Traviata, which implacably strips bare the violence 

Giuseppe Verdi

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 South Africa, Pretty Yende made her debut in Riga in the role of Micaela in Carmen. In 2010, she was awarded first prize in both the opera and operetta categories of the Vienna Belvedere Competition. In 2011, she won the Placido Domingo Operalia Competition and also graduated from the La Scala Academy for young artists in Milan. She then made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera New York, at the Theater an der Wien (Countess Adèle in Count Ory), at the Los Angeles Opera (Micaela) and the Hamburg Staatsoper (Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia). She has performed at the Metropolitan Opera in The Barber of Seville, Romeo and Juliet, I Puritani, and Lucia di Lammermoor. She made her Munich Bayerische Staatsoper debut in L’elisir d’amore and also performed the role of Marie in La Fille du régiment at the Maestranza in Seville. She has sung in Riccardo and Zoraide in Pesaro, I Puritani at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Les Pêcheurs de perles and La Fille du régiment at the Metropolitan Opera New York, La Sonnambula at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Zurich Opera and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Lucia di Lammermoor and L’elisir d’amore at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Il viaggio a Reims at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, La Traviata at the Vienna Staatsoper. During the 2022/23 season, she has performed Violetta Valéry (La Traviata) at the San Francisco Opera and Vienna Staatsoper, Marie and the title role in Manon at the Vienna Staatsoper, Micaëla at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, Gilda (Rigoletto) and the four heroines in The Tales of Hoffmann at the Hamburg Staatsoper. On 6 May 2023, she sang at the coronation ceremony of King Charles III at the Westminster Abbaye.

At the Paris Opera: The Barber of Seville (Rosina), 2016; Lucia di Lammermoor (title-role), 2016; Benvenuto Cellini (Teresa), 2018; Don Pasquale (Norina), 2019; La Traviata (Violetta Valery), 2019; Manon (title-role), 2020; L’elisir d'amore (Adina), 2021; The Magic Flute (Pamina), 2022; Romeo and Juliet (Juliet), 2023.

Yende.Pretty (c) 

Benjamin Bernheim studied with Gary Magby at the Lausanne Conservatoire. He took masterclasses with Giacomo Aragall, joined Carlo Bergonzi’s Accademia Verdiana in Busseto and was a young artist at the Zurich Opera. He is regularly invited to perform at the leading opera houses.Recent performances include, among others, Des Grieux (Manon) at the Opéra national de Bordeaux and Hamburg Staatsoper, Rodolfo (La Bohème) in Zurich, at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin and Vienna Staatsoper, Lenski (Eugene Onegin) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Alfredo (La Traviata) at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, in Zurich, at the Dresden Semperoper, in Berlin and at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, the title-roles in Faust at the Lyric Opera Chicago and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in The Tales of Hoffmann at the Hamburg Staatsoper and in Werther at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) at the Vienna Staatsoper, Edgardo de Ravenswood (Lucia di Lammermoor) at the Zurich Opernhaus and Vienna Staatsoper.During the 2022/23 season, he portrayed the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto) at the Vienna Staatsoper and Metropolitan Opera New York, Rodolfo also in Vienna, Lenski and Roméo (Roméo et Juliette) at the Zurich Opernhaus.He has given recitals at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, the Frankfurt Opera, the Opéra national du Rhin and the Munich Opera Festival, the Verbier and Salzburg Festivals.This season, he will perform Werther at the Zurich Opernhaus and La Scala in Milan, Ruggero Lastouc (La Rondine) at the Zurich Opernhaus and Romeo at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, among others.In 2020, he was awarded Lyrical Artist of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique, and “Musical Personality of the Year” by the Syndicat professionnel de la critique. His first album won a Diapason d’Or and was named a “Choc de Classica”. In 2021, he was named Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres.At the Paris Opera: Capriccio (Flamand), 2016 ; La Bohème (Rodolfo), 2017 ; La Traviata (Alfredo Germont), 2019 ; Manon (Des Grieux), 2020, 2022 ; Faust (title-role), 2021, 2022 ; Roméo et Juliette (Roméo, 2023)

Bernheim.Benjamin 3 (c) Julia Wesely (1)

Quebec-born Jean-François Lapointe was quick to establish himself on the international opera scene, particularly in the French repertoire. His favourite roles include Pelléas from Pelléas et Mélisande, which he sang on numerous occasions (notably at La Scala in Milan) before tackling the role of Golaud. He has performed the title roles in Hamlet, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Bernstein’s Candide and Rabaud’s Mârouf. He has also appeared as Mercutio (Roméo et Juliette), Harlekin (Ariadne auf Naxos), Danilo (Die Lustige Witwe) Ford (Falstaff), Lescaut (Manon), Escamillo (Carmen), the Count (Le nozze di Figaro), Nevers (Les Huguenots) Zurga (Les pêcheurs de perles), Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), Marc-Antoine (Massenet’s Cléopâtre), the Marquis de La Force (Dialogues des carmélites) and Germont (La Traviata). More recently he performed at the Paris Opera in Alceste (the High Priest) Werther (Albert), Faust (Valentin) and La Traviata, as well as at the Marseille Opera in La Favorite (Alphonse), Hérodiade (Hérode), Cléopâtre (Marc-Antoine), La Traviata, Moïse et Pharaon (Pharaon), Falstaff (Ford), Hamlet (title role), Don Carlo (Posa) and I Puritani (Riccardo). He also appeared in Dialogues des carmélites (the Marquis de La Force) at the Canadian Opera Company, the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse and in Amsterdam. He has performed at the Monte Carlo Opera in Tannhaüser (Wolfram), La Favorite and Falstaff (Ford); the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in La Favorite; Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in La Traviata; Hamlet in Avignon; Faust, Benvenuto Cellini (Saint-Saëns’ Ascanio) and the title role in Guillaume Tell in Geneva; Zurga (Les pêcheurs de perles) and Enrico (Lucia di Lammermoor) at the Lorraine Opera; Albert (Werther), at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and Thoas (Iphigénie en Tauride) at the Zurich Opera. Jean-François Lapointe is a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.

Jean-François Lapointe

Trottmann.Catherine.©Thierry-de-Girval[1]

Julien Dran was born in Bordeaux, into a family of opera singers and began his musical education at an early age. He studied voice for two years at the Bordeaux Conservatory and earned a residency at the CNIPAL in Marseille for the 2007-2008 season. He made his debut at the Marseille Opera. Following the Clermont-Ferrand International Singing Competition in 2009, he performed the role of Ferrando in Così fan tutte at the Centre Lyrique Clermont Auvergne. During the 2010 / 2011 season, he sang the role of Fenton in Falstaff at the Metz Opera and participated in his first recording (Charpentier’s Didon). He won First Prize at the Gayarr Competition in Pamplona, Spain, under the presidency of Teresa Berganza. In 2012, he played Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) at the Corte Festival and then sang the role of Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Bordeaux Opera and Edmondo in Manon Lescaut at the Théâtre de La Monnaie in Brussels. He won first prize in the male singer category at the “Paris Opera Awards” at the Salle Gaveau in Paris in January 2013, and then sang the title role of Auber’s Fra Diavolo at the Limoges Opera. His other roles include Fenton at the Massy Opera, Matteo Borsa in Rigoletto at the 2013 Aix Festival, Lindoro (L’Italiana in Algeri), Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles), Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor), and Kudrias (Kátia Kabanová) at the Avignon Opera; Ruodi (Guillaume Tell), Bénédict (Béatrice et Bénédict), and Antinoüs (Pénélope) at the Monnaie in Brussels; Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) at the Centre Lyrique de Clermont Auvergne and the Massy Opera; Gastone (La Traviata), Matteo Borsa (Rigoletto) and the Count of Lerma (Don Carlos) at the Paris Opera; Alfred (Die Fledermaus) and Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) at the Marseille Opera, Alfredo (La Traviata) with the Opéra Éclaté Company, the Young Horace (Salieri’s Les Horaces) at Versailles and the Theater an der Wien with the Les Siècles orchestra, Gerald (Lakmé) at the Tours Opera, and Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles) in Limoges and Reims. He also created the role of Tibère in the world premiere production of Dominique Gesseney-Rappo’s Carlotta ou la Vaticane at the Fribourg Opera.

Projects: Nadir at the Nice Opera, Raimbaut (Robert le Diable) at La Monnaie in Brussels, and the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto) in Massy.

Dran

Lebegue.Marion

With a degree from Supelec (the senior institute of electrical studies), Christian Helmer began studying voice and decided to set his sights on the lyrical arts. He made his career debut performing several key roles including Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and the title role in Don Giovanni at the Antibes Festival as well as Le Bret in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac, alongside Plácido Domingo, first at the Théâtre du Châtelet and then at the Teatro Real in Madrid. In Le Dernier Jour d’un condamné, he sang the role of Le Friauche, alongside Roberto Alagna his stage cellmate. He has also made guest appearances at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Orbazzano in Tancredi and Lord Cecil in Maria Stuarda). His other roles include Colline (La Bohème) and Escamillo (Carmen). Christian Helmer has also performed at numerous international venues including Gelsenkirchen and Nuremberg (Le Comte Ory, La Bohème, Otello, Donizetti’s L’Assedio di Calais, L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Dublin (Don Giovanni), Madrid, Amsterdam (Iphigénie en Aulide), Bari (the role of Pietro in Portici’s La Muette) and the Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon (in a Chorégies d’Orange production of La Bohème). More recently, at the Paris Opera, he sang the roles of Panthée (Les Troyens), Baron Douphol (La Traviata) and the Marquis of Granville in the world premiere production of Luca Francesconi’s Trompe‑la‑Mort. He also appeared as Chambellan in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg at the Lille Opera, King Herod (Hérodiade) at the Saint‑Étienne Opera, Charles-Simon Favart (Madame Favart) at the Opéra Comique, Limoges and Caen, and Count Capulet (Roméo et Juliette) at the Bordeaux Opera.

Helmer-Christian

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

A graduate of the Rainier III Academy of Music in Monaco, Thomas Dear made his debut at the Monte Carlo Opera. In January 2011, he was a prize-winner at the Viñas Competition in Barcelona, which opened the doors to an international career. Soon thereafter, he sang at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva (appearing as Farfarello in The Love for Three Oranges, and the First Murderer / Archbishop in Battistelli’s Richard III). After making his debut at the Paris Opera (as a Cappadocian in Salomé then as Count Lamoral in Arabella), he sang at the Flemish Opera (Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress), the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam (a Priest and a Man of Arms in The Magic Flute, and Count Lamoral), the Nice Opera (the Doctor and the Shepherd in Pelléas et Mélisande, Colline in La Bohème, the Hermit in Der Freischütz, Hobson in Peter Grimes, Baron Douphol in La Traviata, and Méru in Les Huguenots), the Bordeaux Opera (the First Soldier in Salomé), at the Capitole de Toulouse (the Fourth Shepherd in Daphné, Brother Benedictine and the Third masker in Betrothal in a Monastery), in Limoges (Escamillo in Carmen), in Toulon (Rochefort in Anna Bolena, the Doctor and the Shepherd in Pelléas et Mélisande), and the Avignon Opera (Zuniga in Carmen). He has also performed the roles of Sarastro in The Magic Flute, during a tour of open-air operas, Colline in La Bohème at the Souston Festival, Claudio in Henri Sauguet’s Les Caprices de Marianne in over a dozen French opera houses during the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 seasons. During the summer of 2016, he sang at the Aix Festival for the first time. He has also sung the roles of Don Pedro (Béatrice et Bénédict) and Mathisen (Le Prophète) at the Capitole de Toulouse, Oroveso (Norma) and Prince Grémine (Eugene Onegin) at the Saint-Étienne Opera (where he also sang Mozart’s Requiem), Angelotti (Tosca) and Monterone (Rigoletto) at the Nice Opera, the Doctor and the Shepherd (Pelléas et Mélisande) at the Paris Opera. Thomas Dear also performs in concert (Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C, Rossini’s Stabat Mater).Projects: Tom (Un ballo in Maschera) at the Paris Opera, Oroe (Semiramide) in Saint-Étienne.

Dear.Thomas

Luca Sannai obtained his singing diploma at the Sassari Music Conservatoire, under Joan Logue and Gianni Mastino. He followed many masterclasses to study conducting, counterpoint, Gregorian chant and vocal technique.The 2003 winner of the competition for resident tenor at the National Opera of Cagliari, he worked there until 2013 as an artist of the Chorus. He was also a finalist at the 2008 TIM Competition in Verona and won third prize at the Rolando Nicolos Competition in Rome.His repertoire includes, among others, Tamino (The Magic Flute), Alfredo (La Traviata), Rodolfo (La Bohème), the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto), Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore), Giaele (Primarosa by Pietri). On the concert platform, he sang Schubert’s Mass in G major, Mozart’s Requiem, Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater, St John’s Passion, by Bach, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, Charpentier’s Te Deum, Rossini’s Little Solemn Mass... Since 2013 he has been a resident tenor at the Paris Opera Choruses.In addition to his singing activities, he is also a chorus conductor: from 1996 to 2014, he conducted the Coro Polifonico Turritano Porto Torres, with which he won thrice the first place and four times the second place in national and international competitions.From 1998 to 2007, he co-directed with Giovanni Acciai the Porto Torres International Polyphony Festival Voci d’Europa, and was then the unique artistic director of the festival from 2008 to 2015. In 2014, he founded VIBES, a professional ensemble gathering singers from seven different countries and offering a repertoire based on the different cultural horizons of its members.At the Paris Opera: Boris Godunov (a Boyar), 2018 ; Il Trovatore (a messenger), 2018 ; La Traviata (Giuseppe), 2019 ; Wozzeck (tenor), 2022

luca sannai nb

CORO Enzo

Olivier Ayault attended the voice class of Nadia Wroblewska at the Conservatoire Russe Serge Rachmaninov in Paris. Since 1999, he has been a member of the Ensemble Eurydice and has participated in numerous chamber music and opera concerts, most notably in Italy. His extensive repertoire includes operas, melodies and religious works. He sang excerpts from La Traviata (Germont), Rigoletto and Pagliacci (Silvio) during a performance at the Conservatoire Rachmaninov. He also endeavours to revive 19th and 20th century works that have since disappeared from the major repertoire. He gave a concert of rare arias from the Italian, Russian and French repertoires as part of the Fête de la Musique celebrations and in 2006, he took part in the Musical Season of the ship Daphné, on the Quai Montebello in Paris. In 2007, he went on tour to California with the Ensemble Eurydice and performed the role of Escamillo in Carmen in Paris. In 2008, he sang the bass solo sections of two major works from the baroque repertoire: Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion. He went on to sing the role of Sancho in Massenet’s Don Quichotte at the Château de Joinville, then in Paris as part of the “Opéra des Rues” festival and finally in Besançon and Chaumont. He also performed the title role in Gianni Schicchi in Paris in a production by Florence Guignolet. In 2009, he took part in the “Opéras en Plein Air” French tour (Marullo in Rigoletto). The Armenian-born organist Nariné Simonian, gave him the role of Thoas in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride after which he created his second production, España Juanita, at the Théâtre du Tambour Royal. In 2010, he sang the role of Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Auditorium La Fontaine in Paris and Masetto at the Summum Theatre in Grenoble. he is also a member of the Paris Opera Chorus.

Ayault.Olivier (c) Julien Benhamou OnP

Michele Mariotti has completed his humanistic studies and has obtained a diploma in Composition at the Rossini Conservatory in his hometown, Pesaro, where he also studied conducting. At the same time, he obtained a diploma in Conducting at the Accademia Musicale Pescarese. From 2008 to 2018, he was Principal Conductor and then Musical Director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, where he has led numerous concerts and dozens of opera productions. He has also conducted the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna on tours in various Italian cities, Tokyo, Moscow, and Paris. He is the Musical Director of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma since 2022. Awarded the 36th Abbiati Prize as Best Orchestra Conductor, Michele Mariotti is regularly invited by the main Italian and international theatres and festivals. Some of his recent engagements include his debut at the Wiener Staatsoper conducting The Barber of Seville, and the season opening of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples with Verdi’s Otello. In 2022 he also conducted Macbeth at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia and made his debut with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He later went on to conduct the Gürzenich Orchester Köln at Cologne’s Philharmonie, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the Orchestre National de France and the Munich Symphony Orchestra. He has recently made his debut at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with a new production of Moïse et Pharaon. In the 2022-23 season, next to his engagements with the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma for Dialogues des carmélites, Aida, Triticée ricomposto and other symphony concerts, Mariotti is returning to La Scala, to the Wiener Staatsoper, and to the Aix-en-Provence Festiva. He is also leading an intense concert schedule in Europe and Japan.



At the Paris Opera: I Puritani, 2013 ; La Traviata, 2016, 2019 ; Les Huguenots, 2018 ; Don Pasquale, 2019 ; Aida, 2021&nbsp;

A graduate of the NIDA Design Course in 2004, Alice Babidge is a set and costume designer for theater, opera, cinema and television.In the cinema, she notably designed the costumes for Foe by Garth Davies, Beau is Afraid by Ari Aster, Nitram (and was also the set designer), The True History of the Kelly Gang and Snowtown all films by Justin Kurzel, Holding the Man by Neil Armfield, and Reunion (as part of The Turning project) by Simon Stone. For television, she designed the set design for the pilot for Hammer Bay (MTV), as well as music videos for The Mess Hall, You Am I, The Vines and End of Fashion.She has worked for many theaters and opera houses around the world, including the Sydney Theater Company (The Present), the Young Vic Theatre (Cat On a Hot Tin Roof; Yerma, directed by Simon Stone), the Barbican (Waiting for Godot) or at the Lincoln Center Festival (Les Bonnes), at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe (The Vengeance Trilogy, directed by Simon Stone).At the opera, she collaborated among others on the creation of Hamlet by Brett Dean at the Glyndebourne Festival, on the Ring directed by Neil Armfield in 2013 at Opera Australia, on Caligula and on The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland at the English National Opera, The Marriage of Figaro and Bliss at Opera Australia.Alice Babidge was an associate artist at the Sydney Theater Company where she notably created the costumes for The Bar at the End of the Wharf, The War of the Roses, Gross und Klein (best costumes at the Sydney Theater Awards 2011), The Lost Echo (directed by Barrie Kosky, nominated for best costumes at the 2007 Sydney Theater Awards).She won the Nestroy Prize for best sets and best costumes during the creation of Hotel Strindberg by Simon Stone at the Burgtheater in Vienna.At the Paris National Opera: La Traviata, 2019

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.

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Interview with Benjamin Bernheim

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Libretto

Interview with Benjamin Bernheim