Prologue

Entrée I

Entrée II

Entrée III

Entrée IV

Couv_Les_Indes_Galantes_780x90610

Libretto

Leonardo García Alarcón

Interview with Leonardo García Alarcón

Clément Cogitore

Interview with Clément Cogitore

IND-80211.CR2-© E. Bauer - OnP.2

Interview with Clément Cogitore & Bintou Dembélé

Julie Fuchs (Emilie) dans Les Indes galantes 19.20 (c) Little Shao - OnP

Interview with Julie Fuchs

Les Indes galantes en répétition (saison 19/20) 

Les Indes galantes en répétition (saison 19/20)  - 7

In rehearsal with dancers of Les Indes Galantes

Opera-ballet in four entries and a prologue (1735) A masterpiece of the Enlightenment, Les Indes galantes is a sparkling entertainment. Yet Rameau’s first opera‑ballet also testifies to the ambiguous view held by Europeans concerning other peoples – Turks, Incas, Persians, “Savages”…In 2017, film director Clément Cogitore made an explosive and critically acclaimed film adaptation of an extract from Les Indes galantes in collaboration with the Krump dancers. This time, with choreographer Bintou Dembélé, he takes up Rameau’s box of delights in its entirety to set it once more in an urban and political space whose frontiers he explores. Orchestre Cappella Mediterranea Chœur de chambre de Namur Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine / Chœur d’enfants de l’Opéra national de Paris Compagnie RualitéA co-production of the Paris Opera, ARTE France, Telmondis and Mezzo, with the support of the CNC and the Orange Foundation, sponsor of the Paris Opera's audiovisual broadcasts.Director: François-René Martin © Opéra national de Paris – ARTE France - Telmondis – Mezzo - 2019Picture: © Little Shao / OnP

<ul><li>Hebe: Goddess of youth</li><li>Bellone: Goddess of war</li><li>L’Amour</li><li>Osman: Turkish pasha</li><li>Emilie: Young Provençal girl, Osman’s slave</li><li>Valère: Emilie’s lover</li><li>Huascar: High priest of the Sun</li><li>Phani: Peruvian princess</li><li>Don Carlos: Spanish office</li><li>Tacmas: Persian prince, in love with Zaïre</li><li>Ali: Tacmas’ friend and confidant, in love with Fatime</li><li>Zaïre: Ali’s slave</li><li>Fatime: Tacmas’ slave</li><li>Adario: Chief of the Indian warriors</li><li>Zima: Daughter of an Indian chief</li><li>Damon: French colonial officer</li><li>Don Alvar: Spanish colonial officer</li></ul>

Les Indes galantes

fr / en

Opera-ballet in four entries and a prologue (1735)A masterpiece of the Enlightenment, Les Indes galantes is a sparkling entertainment. Yet Rameau’s first opera‑ballet also testifies to the ambiguous view held by Europeans concerning other peoples – T

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau was born in Dijon on 24 or 25 September 1683. At the age of 18, following the example of his father, he decided to become a musician and left for Italy. He stayed there only a few months. From 1702, he played the organ successively in the cathedrals of Avignon, Clermont, Notre-Dame de Dijon, the Jacobin church in Lyon, the Jesuit noviciate and Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie in Paris, where he finally settled in 1722. There, he met the tax farmer Le Riche de La Pouplinière, who became his patron for over a quarter of a century, housed him and entrusted him with the orchestra he had created and supported. Through him, Rameau met his first librettists, the Abbé Pellegrin and Voltaire, with whom he wrote Samson, an opera which was never performed and whose music was partially used in other works. From then, and until 1757, lyrical tragedies, opera-ballets and pastoral works followed one another, sometimes at the rate of two or three a year. Rameau composed about thirty stage works. Besides Platée (1745), his most famous compositions are Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), which immediately propelled the composer among the stars of the French operatic stage, Les Indes galantes (1735), Castor et Pollux (1737), Dardanus (1739), Les Fêtes d'Hébé (1739), Les Fêtes de Polymnie (1745), Zoroastre (1749), Les Paladins (1757). Rameau became the official musician of the Royal court: in 1745, he was appointed Composer of the King's Cabinet. At the age of eighty, he composed his last musical tragedy, Les Boréades, which was never performed during his lifetime. Rameau also wrote many pieces for harpsichord, as well as an important collection of theoretical works (including his famous Treaty of Harmony), which caused him to enter at the end of his life in a fierce debate with Rousseau and d’Alembert. Known as the "Quarrel of the Comic Actors", this quarrel opposed the "King’s corner", or those favouring the French tradition, to the "Queen’s corner", or the supporters of Italian music. Rameau died in Paris on 12 September 1764.

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.

Julie Fuchs began her training studying theatre and music in Avignon and was unanimously awarded First Singing Prize with the Jury’s honours at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. She won Second Prize at the 2013 Operalia competition and received three awards at the Victoires de la Musique in 2012, 2014 and 2021. Last seasons’ highlights include Marie (La Fille du régiment) at Staatsoper, Vienna, Poppea (L’incoronazione di Poppea) and Norina (Don Pasquale) at Opernhaus Zurich, Fiorilla ( Il turco in Italia) at Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande) at Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Leïla (Les Pêcheurs de perles) at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Countess Adèle de Formoutiers (Le Comte Ory) at Opéra Comique and Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Guinia (Lucio Silla) at Teatro Real, Madrid, Musetta (La Bohème) at Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) at Aix-en-Provence Festival and Teatro Real in Madrid, Aspasia (Mitridate, re di Ponto) with the Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski.For the 2023/24 season, she will make her debut in the title role of Partenope at San Francisco Opera and as Gilda (Rigoletto) at Teatro Real in Madrid. She will also appear in a series of concerts in Europe.Her discography features a recording of songs by Mahler and Debussy, a disc of songs by Poulenc, a live recording of Leïla in Les pêcheurs de perles, and a studio recording of Mitridate, re di Ponto (Aspasia). She previously released two solo albums for Deutsche Grammophon label: Yes! (2015) and Mademoiselle (2019), and for Sony with Amadè (2022).In 2021, she was made Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.At the Paris Opera: Platée (la Folie, Thalie), 2015, 2022; Trompe-la-mort (Esther), 2017; Falstaff (Nannetta), 2017; Les Indes galantes (Émilie, Fatime), 2019; The Magic Flute (Pamina), 2021; I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Giulietta), 2022

Fuchs.Julie (c) Olivier Metzger

Trained at the Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra national de ParisAlongside his piano studies, Florian Sempey began his lyric singing training at the Conservatoire de Libourne. In 2007, he entered the Conservatoire national de Bordeaux, and the following year won first prize for opera, as well as the audience prize in the singing competition organized by the Amis du Grand Théâtre - Opéra national de Bordeaux. In 2010, he joined the Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra national de Paris for two years, and was awarded the Prix Carpeaux in 2012.In 2013, he was nominated in the “Révélation artiste lyrique” category at the Victoires de la Musique awards. He performs the roles of Figaro (The Barber of Seville), Papageno (The Magic Flute), Enrico Ashton (Lucia di Lammermoor), Valentin (Faust), the title role in Hamlet, Count Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Zurga (The Pearl Fishers), Escamillo (Carmen), Alfonse XI (La Favorite). He also performs a vast concert repertoire (Mahler, Chausson, Puccini, Berlioz, Rameau, Vivaldi). He recently sang Zurga at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, Dandini (La Cenerentola) at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and Orestes (Iphigénie en Tauride) at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.In the 2024-2025 season, his roles include Marcello (La Bohème) and Ramiro (L'Heure espagnole) in Monte-Carlo, Prosdocimo (Le Turc en Italie) in Lyon, the title role of Don Giovanni at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Albert (Werther) in Geneva, Dottor Malatesta (Don Pasquale) in Zurich and Count Almaviva in Santa Fe.At the Opéra national de Paris: The Barber of Seville (Figaro), 2014, 2018; Platée (Momus), 2015; Béatrice et Bénédict (Claudio), 2017; The Magic Flute (Papageno), 2017, 2019; Don Pasquale (Dottor Malatesta), 2018, 2019, 2023 ; La Cenerentola (Dandini), 2018; Les Huguenots (le Comte de Nevers), 2018; Les Indes galantes (Adario / Bellone), 2019; Faust (Valentin), 2021, 2022; Florian Sempey recital, 2022; Roméo et Juliette (Mercutio), 2023 (among others)

Sempey.Florian 2 © 

Duhamel.Alexandre.5

After studying musicology in Nice, Mathias Vidal studied singing with Christiane Patard and entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. He has taken part in numerous productions of operas by Monteverdi, Rameau, Lully, Campra and Boismortier. He has also sung Aristée and Pluton (Orphée aux Enfers), the Brazilian (La Vie parisienne), Piquillo and Don Pedro (La Périchole), Lorenzo (Fra Diavolo), Orestes (La Belle Hélène), Camille de Coutançon (La Veuve joyeuse), the title role in Offenbach's Barbe-Bleue, Médor (Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde). He performs Italian bel canto roles such as Ernesto (Don Pasquale), Elvino (La Somnambule), Count Almaviva (The Barber of Seville), Ramiro (La Cenerentola), as well as those of the modern and contemporary repertoire, including the title role in Zemlinsky's Le Nain, Pécou's L'Amour coupable, Sauguet's Les Caprices de Marianne, and the premiere of Menut's Fando et Lis. Last season, he sang the title roles of Platée at the Opernhaus Zurich and the Opéra Royal de Versailles, Atys at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and on tour, Nadir (Les Pêcheurs de perles) at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, Abaris (Les Boréades) in Oldenburg, Aristée et Pluton in Berlin, Don Quichotte (Don Quichotte chez la duchesse), Abaris (Les Boréades) and Belmonte (L'Enlèvement au sérail) at the Opéra Royal de Versailles. In the 2024-2025 season, he plays Tamino (The Magic Flute) at Versailles, the title role in Persée at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Valère at the Teatro Real in Madrid, at La Seine Musicale and then in Lyon, and Aristée et Pluton at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. At the Opéra national de Paris: The Magic Flute (Monostatos), 2019; Les Indes galantes (Tacmas, Valère), 2019; Platée (Thespis), 2022; Salomé (Vierter Jude), 2022; Les Brigands (the Prince of Mantua), 2024

Vidal.Mathias

After studying at the Institut de Musique et de Pédagogie in Namur with Benoît Giaux and Élise Gäbele, in 2013, Jodie Devos was awarded a Master of Arts degree by the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied with Lillian Watson. She received generous financial support from Asbl Do Musica and the Fonds Thirionet. In 2014, she won Second Prize and the Audience Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Belgium. She was also nominated Young Artistic Talent 2015 at the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA). In 2014, she joined the Academy of the Opéra Comique in Paris where she took part in Die Fledermaus (Ida and then Adèle) and Les Mousquetaires au couvent by Louis Varney. She has also performed at Wallonie Royal Opera in The Barber of Seville (Rosina) and Orpheus in the Underworld (Eurydice), at Montpellier Opera in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (the Fire, the Nightingale and the Princess), in L’Hirondelle inattendue by Laks and in Geneviève de Brabant by Offenbach. More recently she undertook the title role in Lakmé in Tours, the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute conducted by Christophe Rousset at the Philharmonie in Paris and sang the role of Amour in Pygmalion by Rameau at the Innsbruck Festival. She also performs in concert in works such as L’Enfant et les sortilèges with the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphonie n°4, the Mozart Requiem with the National Orchestra of Belgium, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège and has given recitals throughout the world. In the course of her youthful career she has already sung with conductors like Paolo Arrivabeni, Roland Boer, Laurent Campellone, Mikko Franck, Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, Dmitri Jurowski, Enrique Mazzola, Marc Minkowski, Christophe Rousset and Guy van Waas.Forthcoming engagements: Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro); The Countess Adèle (Count Ory) and Lakmé at Wallonie Royal Opera; the Queen of the Night at La Monnaie in Brussels, in Limoges and Caen; Orphée et Eurydice at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse with Les Talens Lyriques; Count Ory and La Nonne sanglante by Gounod at the Opéra Comique in Paris and Blondchen (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) with Monte Carlo Opera.Paris Opera debut.

Devos.Jodie

A true revelation of France’s young generation, Edwin Crossley-Mercer studied in Versailles and Berlin and made his debut in Berlin in 2006 in Don Giovanni. Today he is invited to perform in some of the most prestigious theatres on the international scene. In 2009, he sang the role of Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He then made his debut at the Paris Opera in Ariadne auf Naxos (Harlekin) and he sang in La Juive (Albert) in Amsterdam, La Cenerentola (Dandini) at the Opéra national du Rhin, Hippolyte et Aricie (Thésée) at the Beaune and Versailles festivals, and Castor et Pollux (Pollux) at the Théâtre de Champs-Élysées. In Berlin (at the Staatsoper and Komische Oper), he sang in La Bohème, Der Freischütz and Doktor Faustus under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. Subsequently, Edwin Crossley-Mercer made his American debut in the role of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and he then performed in Platée (Jupiter) in New York, Vienna and Paris. In 2013, he sang the lead role in Don Giovanni at the Opéra de Dijon. He played Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Geneva in the world premiere of Philippe Fénelon’s JJR citoyen de Genève and then Leporello (Don Giovanni) at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2014. He has also performed in concert and recital in Bayreuth and New York, as well as in Paris and Saint Petersburg with, among others, the Bayerischer Rundfunkorchester and the Orchestre national de France. In 2007, he was a winner of the HSBC Foundation Award and the Prix Lili & Nadia Boulanger, and he recorded Les Motets by Charpentier, Arias and Opera Extracts by Lully, and Carmina Catulli by Michael Linton. During the 2014 / 2015 season, he performed the roles of Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) and Harlekin at the Paris Opera and Claudio (Béatrice et Bénédict) at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan. He also performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in La Damnation de Faust in Baden-Baden. More recently, he sang the role of Eurymaque in Fauré’s Pénélope at the Opéra national du Rhin.Projects: The Count (Le Nozze di Figaro) at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Lescaut (Massenet’s Manon) in Dallas, and the world premiere of Hauke Berheide’s Penthesilea at the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Munich Opera Festival (July 2016).

Crossley-Mercer

Stanislas de Barbeyrac studied with Lionel Sarrazin at the Bordeaux Conservatoire and went on to join the Paris Opera’s Atelier Lyrique in 2008. He has won numerous prizes including the 2011 Queen Elizabeth International Competition in Brussels and was named Best New Opera Artist at the 2014 Victoires de la Musique. He made a highly acclaimed debut at the Aix Festival performing the role of Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), and then appeared at the Royal Opera House in London as Arbace in a new production of Idomeneo. He also played Narraboth (Salomé) at the Teatro Municipal in São Paulo and sang the role of Pâris (La Belle Hélène) at the Avignon Opera. In 2015, he made his Salzburg Festival debut in Mozart’s Davide penitente and he returned to the Paris Opera to perform the role of Admète (Alceste). More recently, he sang the role of the Chevalier de La Force (Dialogues des carmélites), first at La Monnaie in Brussels, then at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Théâtre de Caen and the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. He also played Tamino and Léandre (Le Médecin malgré lui) at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Macduff (Macbeth) at the Marseille Opera, Renaud (Armide) at both the Vienna Staatsoper and the Bordeaux Opera, Pylade (Iphigénie en Tauride), Tamino and Gonzalve (L’Heure espagnole) at the Paris Opera, Don Carlos and Damon (Les Indes galantes) at the Paris Opera, Pelléas (Pelléas et Mélisande) at the Bordeaux Opera, Tamino at the Aix Festival, the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and the Teatro Real in Madrid, Piquillo (La Périchole) at the Bordeaux Opera, Alfredo Germont (La Traviata) at the Dresden Semperoper, Don Ottavio at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Bayerische Staatsoper and the Paris Opera; and Max (Der Freischütz) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and the Normandy Opera in Rouen. He also performs in concert with a repertoire that encompasses Mendelssohn’s Elias, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Requiem, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, and Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ and Te Deum. He sang the role of Hylas in a recording of Les Troyens conducted by John Nelson (Erato).

Stanislas de Barbeyrac

Leonardo García Alarcón was born in La Plata (Argentina) in 1976 and moved to Europe in 1997. In addition to his theoretical training at the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva, he studied the harpsichord under Christiane Jaccottet at the conservatory there. A conductor, harpsichordist and teacher of the “maestro al cembalo” class at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, Leonardo García Alarcón has won acclaim from audiences and critics of the specialized press for his rediscovery of previously unknown works and for his innovative interpretations of familiar repertoire works. In 2005, he created his own ensemble, the Cappella Mediterranea. Since 2010, he has also been artistic director and principal conductor of the Chœur de Chambre de Namur. Between 2010 and 2013 he was artist in residence at the Cultural Meeting Centre in Ambronay. The restaging of Cavalli’s opera Elena at the 2013 Aix Festival earned him invitations to perform as a conductor and a harpsichordist in theatres around the world including the Montpellier, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes and Lille Operas, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Monte Carlo Opera, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. In 2015, he created the Millenium Orchestra in Belgium. He opened the Paris Opera’s 2016-2017 season with Eliogabalo, and then conducted Il Giasone in Geneva, Erismena at the 2017 Aix Festival, the Sasha Walz production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Berlin Staatsoper in November 2018, Antonio Draghi’s El Prometeo and Francesco Sacrati’s La Finta Pazza at the Dijon Opera and, more recently, Charpentier’s Médée at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva. His discography has earned unanimous critical acclaim. In September 2016, Leonardo García Alarcón recorded I 7 Peccati Capitali on Alpha Classic, an imaginative programme based on the airs of Monteverdi. The work was highly acclaimed in the press and earned a nomination for Best Recording at the 2017 Victoires de la Musique. In 2018, he recorded works by Lully, Jacques Arcadelt and Joan Manuel Serrat. In February 2019, Alpha Classics released Il Giasone on DVD. Leonardo García Alarcón is currently an artist in residence at the Dijon Opera.

Clément Cogitore studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg and Le Fresnoy-National Studio of Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing and has developed a style that lies at the mid-point between cinema and contemporary art. By mixing films, videos, installations and photographs his work questions the way men coexist with their images. More often than not, it is a question of rituals, collective memory, representations of the sacred, as well as a certain notion of the permeability of worlds. His work has been exhibited and projected in numerous museums and centres of art including the Palais de Tokyo and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, the Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the Kunsthaus in Basle, and New York’s MoMA. In 2015, his first full-length feature Neither Heaven nor Earth was screened in the International Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival and received the Gan Foundation Award and the Prize for Best First Film from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It was also nominated for a César in the Best First Film category. His documentary Braguino was released in theatres in 2017 and won awards at numerous festivals (including the Zabaltegi-Tabalakera Award at the San Sebastian Festival). That same year, he adapted an extract from JeanPhilippe Rameau’s operaballet Les Indes galantes with the aid of a group of Krump dancers for the Paris Opera’s digital platform the 3e Scène. In 2012 / 2013, he was a resident artist at the Académie de France in Rome (Villa Medicis). He also received the Grand Prize at the Salon de Montrouge (2011) for his work as a video director, the BAL Award for Young Creation (2015), the Prix Science Po for Contemporary Art and the Ricard Foundation Prize for contemporary art (2016). In 2018, he won the prestigious Marcel-Duchamp Prize for his video installation The Evil Eye. Les Indes galantes is his first opera production.  Clément Cogitore is making his Paris Opera debut.

Bintou Dembélé is one of the leading artists from the Hip Hop movement in France. She began her career by joining a number of groups including Aktuel Force, Ykanji (of which she wa a co-founder), the collectif Mouv’ at the Théâtre Contemporain de la Danse in Paris and the Käfig company. As a dancer and a choreographer, she has collaborated with artists such as MC Solaar (Paradisiaque), Grand Corps Malade (Roméo kiffe Juliette), Sophiatou Kossoko (Nuit des Musées), Stéphane Schoukroun (Construire), the photographer Denis Darzacq (La Chute) and film director Anne Cissé (BUCK). In 2002, she solidified her desire to be a choreographer by creating the dance company Rualité. Re-examining street dance through the prism of repetitive music and rhythmic polyphonies, her choreographic works explore ritualistic and corporal memory, marginal cultures, the nebulous aspects of colonial and postcolonial history, the strategies of reappropriation and the flight from slavery. She has created six productions with her company: L’Assise, LOL, Mon appart’ en dit long, Z.H (Human Zoos), S/T/R/A/T/E/S-Quartet and Le Syndrome de l’initié, which have been performed in France, Belgium, Burma, Chile, French Guyana, Italy, Macedonia, Mali, Senegal, Sweden, and Switzerland… Her creations, which build on a variety of aesthetics (from dance, live music and the visual arts), often forge links between artistic fields that are normally disconnected. In 2017, Clément Cogitore approached her to work on Les Indes galantes, his film for the Paris Opera’s digital stage the 3e Scène. She has developed numerous collaborative relationships in the academic world, notably with Sylvie Chalaye (an anthropologist of colonial representations and a historian of the performing arts) the SeFea laboratory (for French-language theatre and writings on otherness), and Isabelle Launay, a professor at the Dance Department of the University of Paris 8 Saint-Denis. She is regularly invited to speak about her artistic approach and her place as an artist. From 2020, she will be an associate artist at the Ateliers Médicis (ClichysousBois / Montfermeil), the Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh) and Columbia Reid Hall (Paris).  Bintou Dembélé is making her Paris Opera debut.

After studying at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris and the School of the National Theatre of Strasbourg, Alban Ho Van trained under the chief set designers on films by Christophe Honoré, Leos Carax, and Philippe Claudel. He was the set designer for Galin Stoev's productions of Liliom (Ferenc Molnar), The People of Oz (Yana Borissova), and Tartuffe (Molière) at the Comédie-Française and he recently worked with Agnès Jaoui (on the remake of Un air de famille and Cuisine et dépendances), Philippe Decouflé (Nouvelles Pièces Courtes) and Bérangère Janelle (Melancholia Europea). He created the sets for Christophe Honoré’s Nouveau roman, Fin de l’histoire and Les Idoles, and then worked again with Christophe Honoré at the opera on the productions of Dialogues des carmélites, Pelléas et Mélisande, Don Carlos and Così fan tutte at the Aix Festival. Alban Ho Van is making his Paris Opera debut.

Polish-born Wojciech Dziedzic designs costumes for the opera, the theatre and for stage musicals while at the same time maintaining a successful career as a fashion designer. He trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London—institutions in which he would later teach. He has worked on numerous productions including Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Zelenka’s Il Serpente di bronzo and Haddad’s A Wintery Spring at the Frankfurt Opera, Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (directed by Sam Gold) with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam Company (Amsterdam and Broadway), Beethoven’s Fidelio (directed by Alexander Polzin) at the Erl Festival, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (directed by Johan Simons), Wolfgang Rihm’s Die Eroberung von Mexico and Ginastera’s Bomarzo (directed by Pierre Audi), Wagner’s Lohengrin (directed by Lukas Hemleb), Maurizio Sotelo’s El público (world premiere production) at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Genet’s Les Bonnes with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Katie Mitchell, Pascal Dusapin’s Penthesilea (Pierre Audi and Berlinde De Bruyckere) at La Monnaie in Brussels, and Sophocles’ Oedipus with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Robert Icke... He has worked on numerous productions with Ivo van Hove, both at the theatre (Schiller’s Mary Stuart, Kushner’s Angels in America, Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, Jon Fosse’s And We’ll Never Be Parted, Molière’s The Miser, Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Dame aux camélias, and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible); and at the opera (Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa at the Berlin Komische Oper, the world premiere production of Wuorinen’s Brokeback Mountain at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Verdi’s Macbeth at the Lyon Opera). Wojciech Dziedzic also collaborated with Thibaud Delpeut on All My Sons (Miller) and A Doll’s House (Ibsen) with the Toneelgroep Amsterdam company, and on Phaedra (Claus), Crave (Sara Kane) and Caligula (Camus) at the Utrecht Theatre. More recently, he created the costumes for Stockhausen’s Aus Licht at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam with Pierre Audi and for Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at La Monnaie in Brussels with Ralf Pleger. Projects: Thierry Escaich’s Shirine at the Lyon Opera (directed by Richard Brunel).  Wojciech Dziedzic is making his Paris Opera debut

A graduate of the ENS Louis Lumières, Sylvain Verdet has been a partner of the film director Clément Cogitore for several years. He has worked with him on several short films, documentaries and video works as well as on his first full-length feature, Neither Heaven nor Earth, a contemporary war film about a group of French soldiers on a mission in the Afghan mountains. That film received a CST Award for Best Cinematography at the 2016 Lumière Awards. Sylvain Verdet has also worked with Sébastien Betbeder on 2 Autumns, 3 Winters (2013) and Marie and the Misfits (2016). He also collaborated with Bertrand Mandico on the short film Apocalypse After which was screened in the International Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.  Sylvain Verdet is making his Paris Opera debut.

Katherina Lindekens has a master’s degree in Dutch and English literature and linguistics (from the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels) and a master’s in musicology (from the University of Louvain). She began her career working as a programmer of early music at the Concertgebouw in Bruges (2008-2011) and then studied for a doctorate specialising in the poetry and music of lyric works under the Restoration in England. Her research led her to the universities of Louvain and Manchester and theatres like the Globe in London and the Folger in Washington D.C... She is invited regularly to give lectures and write for numerous opera houses, concert halls and festivals. Over the years, she developed an interest in dramaturgy until it became her primary activity. Her recent projects include the MAfestival in Bruges (2013-2019), Pygmalion Double Bill (with the choreographer Femke Gyselinck, August 2019) and Les Indes galantes (with director Clément Cogitore, September 2019). Since October 2018, she has worked as a dramaturg at the Vlaanderen Opera Ballet, where she prepares new productions with directors like Julian Rosefeldt (Schumann’s Faust, June 2020) and Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe (A Revue, April 2020). She also has a number of independent projects planned for the near future, including Psyche (2020) and Cupid and Death (2021) with Sébastien Daucé and the Ensemble Correspondances.

Simon Hatab is a dramatist and a coordinator at the Paris Opera. He studied the performing arts at the University of Paris X and attended the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He has collaborated with numerous directors, including Marie-Ève Signeyrole (Nabucco at the Lille Opera, La Damnation de Faust at the Hanover Staatsoper, Don Giovanni at the Opéra du Rhin, and on two concert productions: La Soupe Pop with the The Tiger Lillies at the Montpellier Opera and SeX’Y with the Dear Criminals at the Bastille Amphitheatre). He has also worked with Maëlle Dequiedt (Trust Karaoké Panoramique at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, Shakespeare / Fragments nocturnes at the Amphithéâtre Bastille, Les Noces Variation at the Lille Opera, and I Wish I Was at both the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale and the Phénix – Scène nationale de Valenciennes). He also worked with Clément Cogitore on Les Indes galantes at the Paris Opera and wrote, in collaboration with the photographer Elisa Haberer, La Quadrature d’une ville (Les Couleurs des tumuli, Les Cahiers de Corée, 2017). He is a contributor to the journal Europe (Opera today), the Roland Barthes Dictionary (Honorary Champion) and the magazine Fumigène – Littérature de rue. He was curator of the Verdi-Wagner and Mozart exhibitions at the Palais Garnier and he collaborated on the book marking the tricentenary of the Paris Opera Ballet (Éditions Albin Michel). He gave a series of lectures on dramaturgy at the University of Paris X Nanterre and participated as an associate artist in the Performing Utopia programme at King’s College in London.

A graduate of the Royal Conservatories of Liège and Mons, Thibaut Lenaerts began his career with the great European Baroque ensembles as a soloist and singer, including La Chapelle Royale, Le Concert Spirituel, Les Arts Florissants and Les Musiciens du Louvre, under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe, Hervé Niquet, William Christie and Marc Minkowski. He is an active member of the Chœur de chambre de Namur as a singer and ensemble coach. Since 2014, he has been assistant to conductor Leonardo Garcia Alarcon. At the latter's request, he has been appointed conductor at the Opéra national de Paris for the 2019 production of Les Indes Galantes. For the Chœur de chambre de Namur, he also assists various conductors, including Christophe Rousset for, among others, the complete recordings of Lully's operas. He is also choral director of Les Arts Florissants for various productions (Handel's L'Allegro, Bach's St John Passion, Campra's Requiem). In June 2024, Thibaut Lenaerts will conduct Mitridate in Brussels for the Mozartiades. Thibaut Lenaerts teaches at the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and Liège. He has taken part in some sixty recordings. With Philippe Riga (Erard piano), he has recorded an album devoted to the melodies of Fauré (Muso / Alpha label), as well as an album devoted to the choral works of César Franck, in which he conducts the Chœur de chambre de Namur (Musique en Wallonie label). This summer, he will conduct and record a previously unreleased version of Fauré's Requiem with the Chœur de chambre de Namur for the Ricercar label.At the Opéra national de Paris: Eliogabalo, 2016; Les Indes galantes, 2019

Creatives

Cast

Extras

Libretto

Interview with Leonardo García Alarcón

Interview with Clément Cogitore

Interview with Clément Cogitore & Bintou Dembélé

Interview with Julie Fuchs

In rehearsal with dancers of Les Indes Galantes

Show more

The characters

The acts

Creatives

Libretto

Interview with Leonardo García Alarcón

Interview with Clément Cogitore

Interview with Clément Cogitore & Bintou Dembélé

Interview with Julie Fuchs

In rehearsal with dancers of Les Indes Galantes