Cultural Kiosk at UN Geneva & CERN

The must-see Christmas Happy Ending, setting the Grand Théâtre ablaze to the rhythm of a legendary swing! Jerry, a former GI turned painter, falls for the charms of Lise, the dancer sweeping the City of Light off its feet. In a colour-saturated dream, they light-footedly dance and sway to sparkling choreographies carried by the intoxicating melodies of Gershwin. For the first time in Switzerland, from Broadway to the Grand Théâtre, ‘S Wonderful! 

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An Italian girl in Algiers, a Turk in Italy, an American in Paris, or worse, in Japan… But where are we going? Lost between worlds, though, Rossini was not. Straddled between musical and political periods, post-feudal Papal States, the Napoleonic wars and the emerging idea of nation-states, on the other hand – yes! The birth of the bourgeoisie and changing social mores quickly became the focus of attention for a young Rossini as talented as he was precocious, and who quickly swapped the heaviness of heroic drama and ancient tragedy for an opera bouffa as light as zabaglione.

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From Stockholm to Salzburg, and New York to Berlin, Swedish baritone Peter Mattei charms with his expressiveness and perfect diction. Renowned for his Mozart – in which he sings a dark Don Giovanni and a powerful Count Almaviva –, his beautifully deep, warm and velvety tones are equally enhancing the Germanic repertoire from New York (Wolfram in 2015 and Wozzeck in 2019 at the Metropolitan Opera) to Paris (Amfortas in 2019 at the Opéra national de Paris).

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Following Les Indes galantes (The Amorous Indies, 2019) and Atys (2022), the Grand Théâtre continues its exploration, with Leonardo García Alarcón and his Cappella Mediterranea, of opera-ballet and the French Baroque repertoire. While he had already written numerous pieces for keyboard, as well as religious pieces and works for special occasions, Jean- Philippe Rameau was already in his fifties when in 1733 he composed his first tragic opera, Hippolyte and Aricia. Les Indes galantes followed in 1735, and finally, in 1737, Castor and Pollux. Into its five acts punctuated by danced divertissements, the composer incorporated Italian madrigals, virtuoso ornamentation, unusual chord progressions, subtle dissonances and rich orchestral textures, all designed to emphasise the emotions of the characters and the dramatic tensions.

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There are voices that captivate from the very first notes, and Elsa Dreisig’s is undeniably one of them. Uninhibited, she dazzles in both baroque and bel canto, moving with virtuosity from the dramatic figure of Salomé to the naïve sweetness of Manon. But if she is one of the most sought-after sopranos on the opera stage, she also excels in the lied and mélodie repertoire, with her brilliant voice, magnetic presence and virtuoso musicality. On the place de Neuve stage, she will take on the role of the Queen of Hearts, laying down the cards of Poulenc, Satie and Hahn, as well as Spanish and Scandinavian melodies, for a recital in the form of a journey around love and women. At the heart of it she placed Frauenliebe und Leben, composed by Robert Schumann to poems by Adalbert von Chamisso. With this landmark cycle of the Romantic repertoire, Elsa Dreisig embodies the many facets of a woman’s life, from the first stirrings of love to the joys of engagement, then from marriage to the fullness of motherhood, ending with the melancholy fidelity of the widow. Come and admire the triple Queen in the Tudors Trilogy between 2022 and 2024, crowned Queen of Hearts to close this recital season!

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Giacomo Puccini chose the subject of his sixth opera after attending a performance of David Belasco’s single-act play, Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan, in London in June 1900. This was not the first time that the composer and his two librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa had been inspired by the literature of their own time – there was also Victorien Sardou’s Tosca, for example – and this time again, in 1904, it would be a masterpiece that was born. The world’s most performed opera almost every season, its story is of a geisha who renounces everything for the love of an American marine who is passing through. If only it had been just a passing love affair!

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Having collaborated with numerous international companies, and participated in prestigious events such as the Festival d’Avignon and the Venice Biennale, choreographer Marcos Morau is now bringing his unique choreographic language to the exceptional performers of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève with Svatbata – a continuation of his exploration of the different visual and choreographic aspects of ritual (na svatbata means “the wedding” in Bulgarian), following Sonoma, Hermana, Folkå and Totentanz.

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Frank Zappa is a legendary figure on the American rock scene, but not so much on the opera one. Surprise! It is with his opera 200 Motels that Aviel Cahn has decided to close his tenure as General Director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève, which he inaugurated with the no less surprising choice of Philip Glass‘s Einstein on the Beach. Frank, Mark, Howard and their associates traverse the USA from town to town, motel to motel, excess to excess, delirium to delirium, gig to gig, always with reality catching them up. Clearly alter egos to Frank Zappa and his colleagues in The Mothers of Invention, they bring to life this American-style road-movie sitting somewhere between a dream, a bad trip and sophisticated, experimental mish-mash which flirts with the serious genres of classical and contemporary music, but also of rock-opera and musical. Before it was recorded by Esa-Pekka Salonen in Los Angeles in 2013, 200 Motels – The Suites had existed in so many different shapes that it‘s hard to trace the work‘s genealogy.

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