Act 1 - Amiens

Act 2 - Paris

Act 3

Act 4 - The Hotel de Transylvanie

Act 5 - The road to Le Havre

Couv_Manon_780x906

Libretto

When, in 1731, l’Abbé Prévost wrote L’Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut – the work that inspired Massenet’s Manon – he portrayed an entire era, that of the Regency, which saw the old order fade away and a new order, full of the promise of unprecedented freedom, rise from its ashes.Manon must make her way between these two worlds, fleeing the convent in order to embrace the paths of desire and transgression, throwing herself headlong into a burning and destructive passion with Des Grieux. A parenthesis opens, only to close again in suffering and obscurity.The director Vincent Huguet casts the work’s customary taffeta aside in order to bring out its violence to the full. Paris Opera Orchestra and ChorusA co-production of the Paris Opera and Telmondis, with the participation of France Télévisions and medici.tv With the support of the Orange Foundation, patron of the Paris Opera's audiovisual broadcasts, and the Centre National du Cinéma et de l'image animée.Director: François-René Martin © Opéra national de Paris – Telmondis - 2020Picture: © Julien Benhamou / OnP

<ul><li>Manon Lescaut</li><li>Le Chevalier des Grieux: Manon’s lover</li><li>Lescaut: Manon’s cousin</li><li>Le Comte des Grieux: The Chevalier’s father</li><li>Guillot de Morfontaine: An old rake</li><li>Brétigny: Manon’s wealthy patron</li><li>Poussette, Javotte, Rosette: Three demimondaines  </li></ul>

Manon 19-20 © Julien Benhamou-OnP (1)

Manon

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Bastille salle

Manon from 26 May to 20 June 2025 at the Opera Bastille

When, in 1731, l’Abbé Prévost wrote L’Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut – the work that inspired Massenet’s Manon – he portrayed an entire era, that of the Regency, which saw the old order fade away and a new order, full of the pro

Jules Massenet

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)

After his beginning in Lucerne and Lyon, mostly in the Mozart and Bel Canto repertoires, Ludovic Tézier has been invited to perform on the greatest international stages. He sang the major roles of the baritone repertoire, under the baton of conductors such as&nbsp;Riccardo Muti, Antonio Pappano, Riccardo Chailly, Gustavo Dudamel and Philippe Jordan.He has performed the role of Amonasro (Aida) at the Verona Arena and the Royal Opera House in London, the title role in&nbsp;Rigoletto at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Vienna Staatsoper and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the title role of&nbsp;Simon Boccanegra in Zurich, the roles of Renato (Un ballo in maschera) at La Scala in Milan, Barnaba (La Gioconda) and Carlo Gerard (Andrea Chénier) at the Sydney Opera House, Wolfram (Tannhäuser) in Munich and Vienna, Baron Scarpia (Tosca) at the Salzburg Festival, in London and Berlin, Amfortas (Parsifal) and Athanäel (Thaïs) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.



At the Paris Opera: La Bohème (Schaunard), 1999 ; La Bohème (Marcello), 2001, 2009, 2014 ; Le Nozze di Figaro (Count Almaviva), 2003, 2010 ; The Queen of Spades (Prince Eletski), 2005, 2012 ; Lucia di Lammermoor (Enrico Ashton), 2006, 2013 ; Un ballo in maschera (Renato), 2007, 2009 ; Werther (title-role), 2009 ; Werther (Albert), 2010 ; Don Carlo (Rodrigo, Marquis de Posa), 2010 ; Eugen Onegin (title-role), 2010 ; Carmen (Escamillo), 2012 ; La Traviata (Giorgio Germont), 2014, 2018, 2019, 2024 ; Tosca (Baron Scarpia), 2014, 2021 ; Il Trovatore (Count di Luna), 2016 ; Rigoletto (title-role), 2016, 2021 ; Don Carlos (Rodriguez), 2017 ; Simon Boccanegra (title-role), 2018 ; Manon (Lescaut), 2020 ; Aida (Amonasro), 2021 ; La Forza del destino (Don Carlo di Vargas), 2022

Tézier.Ludovic (c) 

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

Rodolphe Briand is equally at home in theater, musical comedy and opera. He performs on the great international opera stages: Teatro Real de Madrid, La Scala de Milan, Opéra national de Paris, La Fenice de Venise, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra de Monte Carlo, Opéra national d'Amsterdam, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra national du Rhin, Opéra de Marseille... Among the roles he has performed are Guillot de Morfontaine (Manon), les Quatre Valets (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Le Remendado (Carmen), Bardolfo (Falstaff), Schmidt (Werther), Spoletta (Tosca), Mime (L'Or du Rhin)... Operetta is also a favorite field for this lover of words and notes, with the roles of Ménélas (La Belle Hélène), Bilou (Le Chanteur de Mexico), John Styx (Orphée aux Enfers), Bababeck (Barkouf). He performs under conductors such as Ivan Fischer, Philippe Jordan, Daniel Oren, Pinchas Steinberg and Susanna Mälkki, in productions by directors including Calixto Bieito, Robert Carsen, Jérôme Deschamps, Jean-Louis Grinda, Benoît Jacquot, Olivier Py, Laurent Pelly and Mariame Clément. Recent and future projects include Werther at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Orphée aux Enfers at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and La Périchole in Liège.At the Opéra national de Paris: Les Noces de Figaro (Don Curzio), 2003; Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Spalanzani), 2010, 2016, 2020; La Force du destin (Maître Trabuco), 2011, 2019; La Fille du Far-West (Joe), 2014; La Flûte enchantée (Monostatos), 2015 ; Werther (Schmidt), 2016 ; Trompe-la-mort (Corentin), 2017 ; Wozzeck (Der Narr), 2017 ; Falstaff (Bardolfo), 2017 ; Benvenuto Cellini (Pompeo), 2018 ; Tosca (Spoletta), 2019 ; Madame Butterfly (Goro), 2019 ; Manon (Guillot de Morfontaine), 2020, 2022

Briand.Rodolphe 1 (c) Maureen Diot nb

Pierre Doyen headshot HD by Claire Le Goff

Berthon.Cassandre.2

Le Saux.Alix.2.(c)ledroitperrin

Jeanne Ireland was born in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, and earned a Master’s Degree in Music from Chicago’s Northwestern University. Whilst there, she sang the roles of Cherubin in Le nozze di Figaro and Dinah in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. During her residency at the Wolf Trap Opera in 2016, she sang several roles including Befana for the American premiere of Florian Gassmann’s L'Opera seria, and Angel 2 and Queen in the American premiere of Luke Bedford’s Seven Angels at the Aspen Music Festival. That same year, she won one of the regional prizes at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She also sang the alto solo sections of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra, and an orchestra version of Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo with the Northwestern Philharmonic. In 2017, she enjoyed the support of the Shoshana Foundation. She sang the role of the Little Miss in Philippe Boesmans’ Reigen at the Bastille Amphitheatre in November 2017. Jeanne Ireland joined the Paris Opera Academy in September 2017.

Ireland.Jeanne.

Born in Paris, Philippe Rouillon studied at the National Consevatory and then at the School of Lyrical Arts (Paris Opera).His repertoire includes the roles of Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), the High Priest (Samson et Dalila), Thoas (Iphigénie en Tauride), the Four Devils (The Tales of Hoffmann), Mephisto (The Damnation of Faust),&nbsp;Ourrias (Mireille), Capulet (Gounod's Romeo and Juliet), Chorèbe (The Trojans), Athanaël (Thaïs), Herod (Hérodiade), Creon (Médée),&nbsp;Germont (La Traviata), Iago (Otello), Renato (Un ballo in maschera), Scarpia (Tosca),&nbsp;Amfortas (Parsifal), Jochanaan (Salome), Orestes (Elektra), Ruprecht (L’Ange de feu), Figaro (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Günther (Le Crépuscule des dieux), Le Chevalier (Ondine&nbsp;by Daniel-Lesur), Tonio (I Pagliacci) and Alfio (Cavalleria rusticana).He has sang the title roles in Guillaume Tell, Saint Francis of Assisi by Messiaen, King Arthus by Chausson,&nbsp;Henry VIII&nbsp;by&nbsp;Saint-Saëns, Macbeth, Rigoletto, Nabucco.Recent seasons performances include The Love of the Three Oranges at the Paris Opera and in Amsterdam, Manon at La Scala in Milan and the Liceu in Barcelona, Medea at the Theater an der Wien and La Monnaie in Brussels, La Traviata in Cincinnati, Michele in Il Tabarro in Warsaw, Tosca at the Semperoper in Dresden, Faust’s Damnation at the Musikverein in Vienna, Hérode in Hérodiade at the Staatsoper in Vienna and at the&nbsp;Flemish Opera in Antwerp,&nbsp;The Huguenots in Brussels and Strasburg; at the&nbsp;Royal Opera of Wallonia he sang&nbsp;the Duke in César Frank’s Stradella,&nbsp;the Prologue of Pagliacci and the role of Creon in Stravinsky's&nbsp;Oedipus-Rex,&nbsp;the Marquis de La Force in Dialogue with the Carmelites at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées,&nbsp;Claudius (Hamlet) in Lausanne and Nantes, Orest's tutor in Elektra at the Paris Opera.He has recorded the title-roles of Henry VIII,&nbsp;King Arthus,&nbsp;Saint Francis of Assisi, and&nbsp;Faust’s Damnation, Jerusalem, Francesca da Rimini, Lélio, Iphigénie en Tauride, The Childhood of Christ, Les Barbares, Parsifal and Thais for France 3.

Rouillon

Member of the Paris Opera ChorusJulien Joguet began taking voice lessons as a child in Nantes. In 2005 he was awarded a prize for voice and chamber music in the class of Yves Sotin at the Angers Conservatory whilst also studying Dramatic Art.He began his career as a freelance artist for a number of choruses (the Paris Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, Strasbourg Opera, Tours Opera, Rennes Opera…). He became a tenured artist of the Paris Opera Chorus in September 2010. He perfected his vocal technique with Guy Flechter and followed a number of different masterclasses with Martine Surray, Magali Damonte, Ghyslaine Raphanel and Sergei Murzaev.As a soloist, he has performed in Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass, Schein’s Israelisbrunnlein and in concerts with the Akademia ensemble. His repertoire includes the roles of the Commendatore (Don Giovanni), Mustafa (L’Italiana in Algeri) and Basilio (The Barber of Seville).He regularly performs as a soloist in Paris Opera productions. At the Paris Opera: La Gioconda (un cantore), 2013; Moses und Aron (Solostimme), 2015; Capriccio (Diener), 2016; Der Rosenkavalier (a cavalier), 2016; The Snow Maiden (Candlemas), 2017;&nbsp;Lohengrin (Ein brabantische Edle), 2017, 2023 ; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk&nbsp;(un portier), 2019 ; Manon (Premier Garde), 2020, 2022

Joguet

Laurent Laberdesque began his musical training at the age of six, learning to play the trumpet. After obtaining his diploma at the Conservatory of Pau, he turned to he started taking voice lessons. In 2007, he was accepted into the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (CNSM), where he took part in numerous masterclasses with distinguished artists, including Robert Massard, Sylvia Sass, and Margreet Honig.During his studies, he performed in several operas, including Carmen (as Moralès and Le Dancaïre), La Traviata (as Baron Douphol), and Dialogues des Carmélites (as the Jailer). In 2009, he played Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro at the Cité de la Musique. He has also appeared in a variety of operettas, such as L’Amour masqué by Messager (as Baron d’Agnot), The Merry Widow (as Danilo), and La Périchole (as Panatellas).In 2011, he made his debut at the Opéra National de Lyon in Tristan und Isolde (as the Steersman) and participated in the world premiere of Levinas’s La Métamorphose (as the Tenant) at the Opéra de Lille. He also performed the role of Slook in La Cambiale di Matrimonio at the Auditorium Saint-Germain in Paris.He regularly performs in recitals, presenting works such as L’Horizon chimérique by Fauré, Quatre Poèmes by Ropartz, Chansons de Don Quichotte by Ibert, and Kindertotenlieder by Mahler, as well as in sacred music programs including Petite Messe Solennelle by Rossini, Mass in G by Schubert, Missa Brevis by Mozart, Harmoniemesse by Haydn, motets by Lully, and the role of Jesus in Liszt’s Via Crucis.In 2013, Laurent Laberdesque joined the Paris Opera Chorus.At the Paris Opera: The Tales of Hoffmann (Hermann), 2016; The Barber of Seville (an Officer), 2016; Der Rosenkavalier (a House Servant), 2016; Lohengrin (a Brabantine Noble), 2017; La Forza del Destino (a Surgeon), 2019; Manon (Second Guard), 2020, 2022; Cinderella (the Superintendent of Pleasures), 2023.

Laberdesque.Laurent (c) Christophe Pelé OnP

Dan Ettinger was born in Israel. He has been the musical director of the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra since the beginning of the 2015 / 2016 season and the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv since 2018. He was musical director of the National Theater in Mannheim from 2009 to 2016 as well as principal conductor for the Israel Symphony Orchestra and the New Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. After initially studying the piano, he began a career as a singer before turning his sights on conducting. He made his debut in Tel Aviv in 1999. From 2003 to 2009, he was Kapellmeister and assistant at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden where he conducted an extensive repertoire (La Bohème, Carmen, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, L’elisir d’amore, Falstaff, Macbeth, Madame Butterfly, Le nozze di Figaro, Tannhäuser, Tosca, La Traviata, Turandot, Die Zauberflöte). In 2003, he was selected by the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation for classical music. He made his debut appearances at Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper (Le nozze di Figaro) in 2004, the Hamburg Staatsoper (Rigoletto) and the Los Angeles Opera (Aida) in 2005, the Vienna Staatsoper (L’elisir d’amore) in 2007, the Washington Opera (La Traviata) in 2008, the Zurich Opera (Turandot) and the New York Metropolitan Opera (Le nozze di Figaro) in 2009, London’s Covent Garden in 2010 (Rigoletto) and the Paris Opera (Le nozze di Figaro) in 2011. He makes regular guest appearances at the New National Theatre in Tokyo conducting numerous works including Keith Warner’s production of the Ring Cycle. Over the last few seasons he has been invited to the Vienna Staatsoper (Carmen, Otello, Aida, La Traviata, Tosca), Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper (La Traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Guillaume Tell, La Bohème, Eugene Onegin, Aida, Turandot, Carmen), London’s Royal Opera House (La Traviata, La Bohème, Turandot, Tosca, Faust), the Paris Opera (La Traviata, Tosca, La clemenza di Tito), the Salzburg Festival (Le nozze di Figaro), the New York Metropolitan Opera (La Bohème), the National Theater in Mannheim (Idomeneo), and the Teatro Real in Madrid (Faust). He has recorded a CD with Diana Damrau and the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra (EMI-Virgin Classics) as well as a CD with Adrianne Pieczonka and the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra (Orfeo). He has also recorded several CDs with the New Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (Tower/Columbia Records). During the 2019-2020 season, he conducted Manon at the Paris Opera and the Tel-Aviv Opera, Madame Butterfly at the Royal Opera House in London, and Aida at the Peralada Festival.

Vincent Huguet initially pursued a career in history and art history with a particular focus on contemporary art. In 2008, he met Patrice Chéreau, and soon began collaborating with him, first, on Faces and Bodies at the Louvre, and then on The Night Just Before the Forest (Bernard-Marie Koltès), Autumn Dream (Jon Fosse) and Elektra (Richard Strauss) at the Aix Festival where Huguet was also a dramatist. He then directed revivals of the latter in Milan, New York, Helsinki, Berlin and Barcelona. In addition to Chereau, Huguet has worked with Luc Bondy, Peter Sellars and Ivo van Hove. In 2012, at the Montpellier Opera, he staged Lakmé, his first production. In 2015, he directed three new works: Love I Obey, with Rosemary Standley, at the Scène nationale in Alençon and the Philharmonie in Paris; the world premiere production of Contes de la lune vague après la pluie (Xavier Dayer) at the Rouen Opera and the Opéra Comique in Paris, and Encor sur le pavé sonne mon pas nocturne (Reynaldo Hahn and Marcel Proust) for the Aix Festival Academy and the Grignan Festival. In 2016, he directed To be or not to be (Shakespeare/Purcell) at the Rouen Opera, and Les Voyages de Don Quichotte (Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, Manuel de Falla, Jules Massenet) at the Bordeaux Opera. Together with Sébastien Daucé and his ensemble Correspondances, he created Trois femmes, a production based on Charpentier’s Sacred Stories that was staged in Caen, Bruges, Lyon Versailles and London. In 2017, he was involved in the creation of Vaille que vivre (Barbara) at the Avignon Festival with Alexandre Tharaud and Juliette Binoche. He also directed La Vie parisienne in Bordeaux with Marc Minkowski conducting, and Werther at the Stadttheater in Klagenfurt (Austria), under the baton of Lorenzo Viotti, with whom he realised several projects at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon). In 2018, he was charged with organising the inaugural gala to celebrate the Paris Opera’s 350th anniversary, and he also returned to Aix-en-Provence to direct Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas—a production that was restaged in the winter of 2019 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Also in 2019, he directed Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the Luzerner Theater in Switzerland and in May of that year, he directed Die Frau ohne Schatten with Christian Thielemann conducting at the Vienna Staatsoper to mark the centenary of the work’s creation. He also teamed up with Marc Minkowski again in Bordeaux for a new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. His current projects include the Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy under the baton of Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and Verdi’s Don Carlos at the Théâtre de Bâle.

Bertrand Couderc is designing the lighting for numerous performances, both for the theatre and the opera, and is collaborating with the greatest worldwide stages. In 2005, he worked with Patrice Chéreau on Così fan tutte at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at the Paris Opera. This was followed by Tristan and Isolde at La Scala in Milan conducted by Daniel Barenboim, as well as the play Night Just Before the Forests. His repertoire also includes From the House of the Dead under the direction of Pierre Boulez, which was performed at the Theater an der Wien, in Aix-en-Provence and in several major houses including the Paris Opera in 2017. He worked on Luc Bondy's last productions, Charlotte Salomon at the Salzburg Festival in 2014 and Ivanov at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in 2015. Since 2015, he has been working with Bartabas and the Académie équestre de Versailles for the choreography of Davide penitente, the Requiem at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg and on The Rite of Spring. He has closely worked with Éric Ruf in the theatre for Romeo and Juliet, Life of Galileo and Bajazet staged at the Comédie-Française, as well as in the opera for Pelléas et Mélisande and recently for Romeo and Juliet at the Opéra Comique. A loyal collaborator of Raphaël Pichon, he designed the lighting for the Funeral of Louis XIV at Versailles and for Bach's St John Passion at the Paris Philharmonie. In 2019, he worked on Monteverdi's Vespers, and in 2020, Mein Traum, Dido and Aeneas and Immersions at the Bordeaux submarine base. His work has recently been seen in Manon at the Paris Opera, La Vie Parisienne at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Anna Bolena at La Scala, Boris Godunov in Monte Carlo, Die Frau ohne Schatten in Vienna, La Cerisaie and Angels in America at the Comédie-Française, Silêncio in Lisbon, and L'incoronazione di Poppea in Aix-en-Provence. Bertrand Couderc was the theatre winner of the 2017 French Institute's Hors-les-murs grant for his project L'Esprit du vide, in Japan.

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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Manon from 26 May to 20 June 2025 at the Opera Bastille

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Manon from 26 May to 20 June 2025 at the Opera Bastille