Lost in translation

With a program that will include works as diverse as Castor et Pollux by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Pelléas & Mélisande by Claude Debussy, and An American in Paris, a musical comedy by George and Ira Gershwin, the Grand Théâtre demonstrates with these three productions its ambition to bring together on stage two disciplines that marry for the best, opera and dance. Add to this two world choreographic creations, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Imperial Ball to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss Jr. and Marcos Morau’s Svatbata, which will mark his first creation for the Grand Théâtre Ballet. We have selected some of the artists who, lending themselves to the exercise of this total art symbolized by the fusion of opera and dance, will show us the extent of their talent.
 
Edward Clug (Castor & Pollux – staging and choreography)
Romanian dancer and choreographer Edward Clug has been the artistic director of the Ballet of the Slovenian National Theatre in Maribor since 2003. A graduate of the National Ballet School of Cluj-Napoca, he created his first choreography, Babylon, in 1996. It was with his creation Radio & Juliet to the music of Radiohead in 2005 that he made a name for himself. This was followed by several collaborations with many prestigious ballets, such as the Zurich Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Opera House in London, and the Vienna State Ballet, to name a few. With his unique interpretation of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in 2012 in Maribor and the success of his first full-length narrative ballet Peer Gynt in 2015 in Maribor, he has become one of the great choreographers of his generation and was nominated in 2019 for the German Theatre Prize Der Faust for Patterns in ¾ created for the Stuttgart Ballet. In April 2025, he makes his debut at La Scala in Milan with a revival of his Peer Gynt. The 2025/2026 season marks his opera debut with Castor & Pollux.
 
Leonardo García-Alarcón (Castor et Pollux – musical direction)
A key figure in baroque music, the Argentine conductor studied piano in Argentina, then joined the Geneva Conservatory where he studied harpsichord with Christiane Jaccottet. At the same time, he completed his theoretical training at the Centre for Early Music. Praised for his rediscoveries of unknown works and his innovative interpretations of repertoire works, he founded his own ensemble, Cappella Mediterranea, in 2005. He is also the artistic director and principal conductor of the Namur Chamber Choir. Since then, he has been regularly invited as a conductor or harpsichordist on stages around the world: Opéra de Lyon, Opéra de Rennes, Opéra de Paris, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York. Leonardo Garcia-Alarcón is also very present at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, where he made his debut and conducted Il Giasone (2017), Les Indes galantes (2019), and Idomeneo (2024), to name a few.
 
Damien Jalet (Pelléas & Mélisande and Boléro – choreography)
The work of Franco-Belgian choreographer and dancer Damien Jalet is distinguished by a constant exploration of dance in dialogue with other art forms such as visual arts, music, cinema, theater, and fashion. After studying at the National Institute of Performing Arts in Brussels and training as a dancer in New York, he met choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with whom he co-signed d’avant (2002) and Babel (words) (2010). Always with Cherkaoui and with the aim of mixing disciplines, he worked alongside visual artist Marina Abramović who created the scenography for Boléro (2013) imagined for the Ballet of the Paris Opera. A prolific choreographer, he works on several internationally acclaimed productions, as well as for theater pieces and music groups. In recent years, the Grand Théâtre has hosted several of his works: Thr(o)ugh and Skid (22/23), reprised as a diptych at the GTG in 2025, Planet wanderer (23/24), Boléro (23/24), and created for the Grand Théâtre Ballet Mirage in 2025.
 
Wayne Marshall (An American in Paris – musical direction)
Renowned for his musicality and the diversity of his talents, British conductor and organist Wayne Marshall excels in the 20th-century American repertoire, notably with his interpretations of works by Gershwin, Bernstein, and Copland. Principal conductor of the West Deutsche Rundfunk (WDR) Symphony Orchestra in Cologne from 2014 to 2020, he has collaborated since 2021 with the world’s greatest orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Seattle, Chicago, and Vancouver. For his recent engagements, he performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in 2024 and conducted Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes at the Opéra de Lyon in 2025. His work and recordings have been acclaimed with several awards, including an ECHO (Deutscher Schallplattenpreis) for his CD A Gershwin Songbook. In 2021, he was appointed Officer of the British Empire and in 2024, Coventry University awarded him an honorary doctorate. He is also an ambassador for the London Music Fund, a charity whose mission is to help children from disadvantaged communities access quality music education.
 
Christopher Wheeldon (An American in Paris – choreography)
British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon trained at the Royal Ballet School in London before becoming a full member of the company in 1991. He was then promoted to soloist at the New York City Ballet in 1998 and appointed the first resident choreographer in 2001. He has created numerous works for prestigious companies, such as the San Francisco Ballet, the Bolshoi, and the Paris Opera. Among his notable creations for ballet are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 2011, reprised in 2024, Like Water for Chocolate which he imagined for the Royal Ballet in London in 2022, then for the American Ballet Theater in 2023, and his latest creation Oscar for the Australian Ballet in 2024. Recognized for his choreography in theater, film, and musical comedy, he developed the choreography for the musical version of An American in Paris, whose tour took him to Paris, New York, and London, and more recently, he choreographed MJ the Musical on Broadway in 2022, earning him a Tony Award the same year. In 2016, Wheeldon was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

After Parsifal (2023) and Tristan und Isolde (2024), the GTG continues its Wagnerian adventure with Tannhäuser (GTG Sept 21 – Oct 4), a work by a 32-year-old Wagner still brimming with romanticism, under the influence of Grand Opera. A fine connoisseur of the composer, German director Tatjana Gürbaca – her Parsifal was crowned best production of the 2012/2013 season by Opernwelt magazine – returns to the GTG after two notable Janáček productions in 2022, Jenůfa and Kátia Kabanová, along with her collaborator, set designer Henrik Ahr, already at work on the two previous productions. Mark Elder, a grand master among British conductors, will conduct the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and a cast with a confirmed Wagnerian pedigree. In the title role, Daniel Johansson (Parsifal at the GTG in 2023) will face the Elisabeth of young British soprano Jennifer Davis and the Venus of mezzo-soprano Victoria Karkacheva – brilliant Charlotte in the recent Werther at La Scala in Milan. Returning to the GTG stage after his recent Posa (Don Carlos, 2023), baritone Stéphane Degout will offer the nobility of his singing and acting to Wolfram von Eschenbach.
 
Claude Debussy was one of the many musicians to succumb to the timeless mystery of Pelléas & Mélisande (GTG Oct 26 – Nov 4) and asked Maeterlinck to adapt his play into a libretto for the only true opera he wrote. Presented in streaming during the Covid epidemic in 2021, this staging that unites the director of the GTG Ballet, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and the artist associated with the Ballet Damien Jalet with the legendary visual artist and performer Marina Abramović finally arrives before the public at Place de Neuve. The creators make their material from the uninterrupted cycle of life and its inherent connection to the cosmos. Seven dancers from the GTG Ballet accompany and express the inner feelings of the soloists, while the famous avant-garde haute couture designer Iris van Herpen dresses their invisible meshes. Highly acclaimed Slovak conductor Juraj Valčuha will conduct the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande for the first time. As in the 2021 streaming, Marie Eriksmoen will be a fragile and tender Mélisande facing the powerful Golaud of Leigh Melrose. Björn Bürger, a remarkable Prince Andrej in War and Peace at the GTG in 2021, will offer a Pelléas with elegant baritone and intense stage presence.
 
After several years of absence, American musical comedy returns to the Grand Théâtre stage with George and Ira Gershwin’s An American in Paris (GTG Dec 13 – 31). If the incredible success of the feature film (six Oscars!) quickly suggested a stage adaptation, the project lay dormant for more than half a century. It was not until 2014 that the world premiere of the show An American in Paris finally took place in a production by the star of British and American dance stages Christopher Wheeldon. Surrounded by Bob Crowley for scenography and costumes, Natasha Katz for lighting, and composer Christopher Austin for orchestration – all awarded Tony Awards in 2015 – Christopher Wheeldon delivers a show of welcome optimism. After more than 600 performances on Broadway, a full year on the London stage, numerous tours in the United States, Asia, and Europe, the talented troupe composed of performers equally versed in singing, dancing, and acting finally arrives in Geneva and even in Switzerland for the first time. Under the baton of the charismatic Wayne Marshall, nothing less than the Orchestre de Suisse Romande in full force to perform this masterful score.
 
Swiss director Julien Chavaz is not afraid of comic works, especially if they have a critical and subversive layer. He made us cringe in Peter Eötvös’s The Golden Dragon, which the Grand Théâtre presented at the Comédie de Genève in 2022 as part of La Plage programming. Now he takes on Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri (BFM Jan 23 – Feb 5) to place the exotic tinged marivaudages in an absurd imaginary at the crossroads of genres. We count on his art to liberate the dichotomous myth of the eschatology of revolution with the help of Rossini’s irony revealed by young conductor Michele Spotti, a specialist in the Italian bel canto repertoire, who will conduct the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the seductive beauty and finesse of French mezzo-soprano Gaëlle Arquez as Isabella, facing the agile bass and charismatic presence of Nahuel di Pierro as Mustafa and the clear and light bel canto tenor of Maxim Mironov as the lover Lindoro.
 
After Les Indes galantes (2019) and Atys (2022), the Grand Théâtre continues its exploration of the opera-ballet and French baroque repertoire with conductor Leonardo García Alarcón and his Cappella Mediterranea reunited for Castor & Pollux (BFM Mar 19 – 29). In a double desire to return to the sources of Rameau’s work and to discover an unknown score, Leonardo García Alarcón and Romanian choreographer Edward Clug have decided to tackle the rarely performed 1737 version, more innovative and subtle than the revised 1754 version. A highly sought-after choreographer for major dance companies for his ability to bring narrative creations to life, Edward Clug makes his first foray into the opera world with Castor & Pollux. To embody these mythical heroes, a host of performers well-versed in the baroque repertoire: the Castor of tenor Reinoud van Mechelen, making his GTG debut, will face the Pollux of Andreas Wolf, memorable Célénus in Atys at the GTG in 2022, vying for the heart of Sophie Junker’s Télaïre. In Phébé, we find Franco-Swiss mezzo-soprano Ève-Maud Hubeaux, who, in a very different repertoire from her impressive Princess Eboli at the GTG in 2023, will show all the versatility and finesse of her art.
 
Director Barbora Horáková makes her debut on the Swiss stage with the world’s most performed opera, a finely crafted Madama Butterfly (BFM Apr 23 – May 3) by Giacomo Puccini, accompanied by video by photographer and director Diana Markosian – who illustrated the 2024-2025 season for the Grand Théâtre. They will deliver a dual narrative, intergenerational and intercontinental, of Cio-Cio-San’s story, caught between traditions and her own expectations, in the most sentimental pages written by the composer. We find our favorite Italian repertoire specialist Antonino Fogliani who will conduct the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and an exceptional cast, starting with Corinne Winters in the title role, known on our stage for her unforgettable interpretations of Jenůfa and Kátia Kabanová, now a world star, alongside her compatriot Stephen Costello, a powerful and elegant tenor in the role of the clumsy American soldier Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton.
 
Frank Zappa is a cult icon who brings together the paradoxes and musical influences of Varèse and Berg to Ives or Stravinsky, to name a few recognized peers. With his colleagues from the Mothers of Invention, a mythical group created in 1964, they bring to life the opera 200 Motels (BFM Jun 18 – 28), an American road movie between dream, bad trip, and experimental and sophisticated mish-mash, flirting with the serious genres of classical music, so-called contemporary, but also “rock-opera” and “musical”. At the helm of this unprecedented psychedelic fresco, musical mockumentary, we find American director Daniel Kramer who amplified the spectacular Turandot by Puccini in 2023 on our 200 Motels (BFM Jun 18 – 28), an American road movie between dream, bad trip, and experimental and sophisticated mish-mash, flirting with the serious genres of classical music, so-called contemporary, but also “rock-opera” and “musical”. At the helm of this unprecedented psychedelic fresco, musical mockumentary, we find American director Daniel Kramer who amplified the spectacular Turandot by Puccini in 2023 on our stage. Under the baton of Titus Engel, who had already conducted Einstein on the Beach in 2019 and Justice in 2024, a large and diverse team will shake the boards of the BFM: Robin Adams, impressive Saint Francis of Assisi on the GTG stage in 2024, Brenda Rae, internationally acclaimed coloratura soprano, but also a rock band with legendary guitarist Mike Keneally and Steamboat Switzerland, not to mention the OSR, in large formation, joined by a group of young percussionists from the Haute École de Musique de Genève.

Our creations
Imperial Ball (GTG Nov 19 – 25) is first and foremost an invitation from the city of Vienna made to the choreographer and director of the GTG Ballet, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Johann Strauss Jr. Beyond the codes and genres, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui will question the very nature of the ball and ballet, their common roots and differences. Facing the OSR under the direction of conductor Constantin Trinks, a specialist in Strauss’s music, two Japanese musicians familiar with Cherkaoui’s creative universe: Tsubasa Hori, taiko and contemporary music percussionist, and Shogo Yoshii, a musician who traveled through the Japanese countryside to study folk music before joining the Kodō percussion group and having already participated in the productions Noetic and Ukiyo-e at the GTG. Tim Yip, a talented Chinese artist, known mainly for his work as a set designer on films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but also for his collaborations with Bob Wilson or Akram Khan, will sign costumes and scenography. They will replay together this cultural confrontation between East and West, past and present, in which Cherkaoui will develop a fluid, violent but also sensitive dance, facing the waltz, the musical face of imperialist Europe of today and yesteryear. In the second part of the evening, the OSR and the Ballet will offer us in echo the choreography Boléro that the Franco-Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet, associated artist of the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and the artist Marina Abramović created in 2013 for the Paris Opera on the gigantic crescendo of this other three-time dance made universal by Ravel.
 
After collaborating with many international companies and participating in prestigious events such as the Avignon Festival or the Venice Biennale, Marcos Morau offers us, with Svatbata (BFM May 19 – 23), the encounter of his unique choreographic language with the exceptional performers of the Grand Théâtre de Genève Ballet. After Sonoma, Hermana, Folkå, and Totentanz, Marcos Morau continues his reflection on the different visual and choreographic aspects of the ritual with Svatbata. Through the exploration of human sounds and gestures, through the pulsation of skin drums and the vibration of the ground under the performers’ feet, he wishes to question this mysterious form, these ornaments that bodies know and execute with a strange automatism inherited from previous generations. Bulgaria, a bridge between East and West, will be one of the sources of inspiration for this work. Like an ancestral world where the nocturnal know-how of ornament (vocal, kinetic, material, floral) is involved whenever a community tries to probe the thresholds through which the concrete world is transcended and opposites – life and death, love and war – meet. All rituals are in some way marriages. And to remember that from a single and same depth arise the movement of life and the stillness of death. Marriages are in some way funerals – funerals are in some way marriages. In both cases, is the ritual not accompanied by flowers? Because everything belongs without exception, love, death, and flowers, to the Earth. Dance too.
 
The GTG Ballet outside the walls
On the occasion of an unprecedented collaboration with the Association for Contemporary Dance of Geneva (ADC) and the La Bâtie Festival, nine dancers from the company will lend their bodies and emotions to Yasmine Hugonnet in 1000&1 BPM _ Odyssée (Pavillon ADC Aug 28 – Sept 2), a creation that will take place at the Pavillon de la Danse. 1000&1 BPM _ Odyssée exposes the rhythmic signature of our emotions. This research, which is part of a particular production time and ecology, puts the dancers at the forefront through their strengths and vulnerabilities, on a stage lightened of any scenography. If Yasmine Hugonnet’s choreographic writing naturally develops in the moment, her written score of the danced gesture also invests in transmission. Thus, a trio of dancers from Arts Mouvementés, the company of the Swiss choreographer, transmits the investigation into other bodies, first those of the GTG Ballet dancers but then, in a rhizomatic way, in other places and in different configurations.
 
After the success of the past two editions, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and conductor Marc Leroy-Calatayud are back for a third Electrofaunes (L’Usine Feb 6 – 7). In 2026, to venture into the wild grasses of too little-explored artistic paths, it will be choreographer Eduard Hue who will guide the GTG Ballet dancers and the orchestra’s soloists through the Geneva night. Enough to break the Seujet dam or at least the audience of these two unique evenings in the mythical hall of L’Usine.
 
And the opera-dance (details under the Opera section)
Pelléas & Mélisande (GTG Oct 26 – Nov 4) by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet with seven dancers floating in the space conceived by performance artist Marina Abramović. Rarely – if ever – presented in the form of a danced opera, the Pelléas & Mélisande of the triumvirate of artists offers us an unprecedented experience, boldly weaving the aesthetics of ballet, the symbolist poetry of Maeterlinck, and the dreamlike harmonies of Claude Debussy.
 
An American in Paris (GTG Dec 13 – 31), or the perfect opportunity for director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon to deploy his unique style while paying homage to the mythical choreographies of Gene Kelly for Vincente Minnelli’s film, but also to “masters” such as Jerome Robbins or George Balanchine, fusing ballet, modern influences, and contemporary elements. With dazzling inventiveness, he strings together captivating visual tableaux and numbers ranging from classical to modern jazz, including tap dancing, taking us into a true celebration of dance and movement. A production full of energy and optimism in the heart of the City of Light, to the rhythm of the most beautiful melodies of George and Ira Gershwin.
 
Castor & Pollux (BFM Mar 19 – 29). Faithful to his quest for symbols and strong images, a master in the art of danced narration as he has proven among others with the Ballets of the Zurich Opera House, La Scala in Milan, or the Berlin State Ballet, choreographer and director Edward Clug will draw inspiration from the marvelous and fantastic, dear to French baroque opera, to celebrate the twinship of the two brothers, one earthly and the other divine, even in the apotheosis of the final “astronomical” ballet. After Les Indes galantes in 2019, the Grand Théâtre de Genève Ballet will once again meet the great Rameau with this Castor & Pollux of touching sensitivity and expressiveness, carried by the musicians of the Cappella Mediterranea conducted by maestro Leonardo García Alarcón.

The recital season opens with a vibrant and multi-talented mezzo-soprano, the American Joyce DiDonato (GTG Oct 11, 2025), whose voice the New York Times has hailed as “nothing less than 24-carat gold”. Accompanied by pianist Craig Terry, the charismatic mezzo-soprano will finally return to the GTG, eight years after her first recital, with a program ranging from Haydn to contemporary music by Jake Heggie, composer of the opera Dead Man Walking in which she portrayed a moving Sister Helen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2023, not forgetting the melodies of Alma Mahler and Claude Debussy whose Pelléas & Mélisande will be presented a few weeks later.
 
In the majestic setting of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Genève, the artists of the Grand Théâtre Choir, led by their conductor Mark Biggins, invite you to explore the different eras and cultures that make up the repertoire of Christmas carols. From the English tradition with its Christmas carols (Basilica of Notre-Dame Dec 3 – 4, 2025) to the French repertoire, through sacred music and popular songs, Christmas carols transcend genres and eras to evoke joy, generosity, and sharing. We look forward to celebrating this festive season together in music!
 
The French baritone Stéphane Degout (GTG Dec 7, 2025) needs no introduction. Acclaimed in Geneva for his recital in 2021 and the role of Rodrigue (Don Carlos) in 2023, he will return twice to the city of Calvin to first embody the demanding and touching role of Wolfram (Tannhäuser), before offering a recital that will mix the delicacy and sensitivity of his interpretation of German lieder and French melodies. Imbued with the typically romantic Sehnsucht, he will begin with the poetry of Eichendorff set to music by Schumann, before building a bridge to French melody through the encounter between Heine and Ropartz. He will be accompanied by pianist Cédric Tiberghien.
 
From Stockholm to Salzburg and from New York to Berlin, the Swedish baritone Peter Mattei (BFM Feb 4, 2026) charms with his expressiveness and perfect diction. Renowned for his interpretations of Mozart, where he sings a dark Don Giovanni and a powerful Count Almaviva, his warm, velvety, and captivatingly deep timbre also magnifies the Germanic repertoire from New York (Wolfram in 2015 and Wozzeck in 2019 at the Metropolitan Opera House) to Paris (Amfortas in 2019 at the Opéra National de Paris). This season, he finally makes his debut on the Grand Théâtre stage and will lead us, with German pianist Daniel Heide, through Schubert’s ultimate collection, Schwanengesang.
 
There are voices that captivate from the first notes, and that of soprano Elsa Dreisig (BFM Mar 27, 2026) is undeniably one of them. A flamboyant queen at the GTG in the Tudor Trilogy (Anna Bolena 21/22, Maria Stuarda 22/23, Roberto Devereux 23/24), without barriers, she dazzles in both baroque and bel canto, moving with virtuosity from the dramatic figure of Salome to the naive sweetness of Manon. For a recital in the form of a journey around love and women, she will interpret the Frauenliebe und leben that Robert Schumann composed from the poems of Adalbert von Chamisso embodying the multiple facets of a woman’s life to beautifully close this recital season!

La Plage is a multitude of events that punctuate the entire season, to introduce the Grand Théâtre’s programming to a wide variety of audiences, of all ages, and collaborations with a rich array of cultural institutions in French-speaking Switzerland.
 
The productions
La Bâtie – Festival de Genève is one of these many collaborations, inside or outside our walls, that are close to our hearts and that we renew each year with enthusiasm. On the occasion of an unprecedented collaboration with the Association for Contemporary Dance of Geneva (ADC) and La Bâtie – Festival de Genève, nine dancers from the company will lend their bodies and emotions to Yasmine Hugonnet in 1000&1 BPM _ Odyssée (Pavillon ADC Aug 28 – Sept 2). The Grand Théâtre will host Dumy Moyi (Foyer GTG, Sept 8), the choreographic performance created in 2013 by François Chaignaud.
 
After the mischievous Souris Traviata, the enchanted land of Colorama and Dachenka the turbulent baby dog, Abracadabra (Grand Foyer GTG from Sept 24) is the new workshop-show of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. It will allow children aged 3 to 7 and their companions to discover opera through crazy magic formulas and interactions with the artists, all to the most beautiful airs of Purcell, Offenbach, Mozart, or Grieg… The profession of witch, nowadays, is not what it used to be! No more meanness: at the Grand Théâtre, our kind witch loves to sing above all.
 
At the origins of an unresolved quest, there was a promised land, a chosen people, a pierced side, and a chalice filled to the brim. There was a woman, Mary Magdalene. There was a man, Joseph of Arimathea. There was also a crowd of humans, and with them, a multitude of stories. GRAALS (in collaboration and presented at La Cité Bleue Nov 9 – 12) sets out to immerse us in this polyphony, in search of a story suspended in the limbo of our memory. This original creation between musical theater and opera brings together four lyrical singers and three exceptional actors. Together, they traverse an unprecedented story imagined by the young Swiss director Luc Birraux, who dialogues the music of Henry Purcell’s King Arthur with a creation for an augmented baroque ensemble with live electronics by the young Swiss composer Kevin Juillerat.
 
With The Emperor of Atlantis preceded by In Virtue of… (Palais des Nations and Comédie de Genève Mar 14 – 15), Belgian-Luxembourgish director Stéphane Ghislain Roussel proposes an engaged operatic diptych, a true journey through time and space. Two pieces of striking relevance, in two venues of international and cultural Geneva for an evening under the sign of historical and political reflection. As a first part, the Assembly Hall in the UN Palais des Nations will resonate with In Virtue of… by young composer Eugen Birman, an ideal setting for this piece for baritone, instrumental ensemble, and live electronics that questions the meaning of the European Convention on Human Rights in light of the rise of extremism in the world. Then head to the Comédie de Genève for the second part, the chamber opera The Emperor of Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann, composed in 1943 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Emperor Overall is played by Michel de Souza – the soloist who also delivers the speech in the first part – as if it were the same character displaced in time. The diptych then takes on its full meaning: are there only a few steps between the troubles of democracy and authoritarian drift?
 
La Plage activities also include…
A CinéTransat at nightfall at the Parc de la Perle du Lac (Aug 8), Les Aubes musicales at the Bains des Pâquis (Aug 17), an Open House Day (Sept 7), an Autumn Sleepover to spend the night under the starry sky of the GTG (Oct 31), our unmissable Late Nights (Nov 22 at the GTG, Feb 28 and Jun 18 outside the walls) to dance until the end of the night, Glam Nights to walk the red carpet in glamorous attire (Nov 20, Jan 30, and Jun 25), public rehearsals of the Ballet (Nov 15 and May 9), Madama Butterfly under the stars or the screening of this production on a big screen with feet in the grass at the Parc des Eaux-Vives (Jun 19), not to mention the regular Apéropéras, Apérovisites, Grand Sunday Brunches, Éclairages as a prelude to our productions at the Théâtre de l’Espérance, backstage tours and guided tours, and for the little ones a Musical Nap (from Sept 17), GTJ Wednesdays and GTJ Holidays.

Aviel Cahn has themed his final season at the helm of the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Lost in translation. A wink at his departure? Certainly a trompe-l’oeil for a season that will see the building closed for renovation work on the stage (from January 2026), and productions moved to the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices.
 
Jean-Jacques Roth With the move to the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices and the theme of losing one’s moorings, this final season is certainly one of displacements of all sorts.
 
Aviel Cahn The Grand Théâtre will close its doors at the end of the year for work on its stage technical equipment. We have therefore grouped the larger-scale works together in the autumn, and reserved the more intimate productions for the second half of the season, which from January will take place at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices.
 
Is it this ‘exile’ being reflected by the reference to the Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation acting as this seventh season’s common theme?
 
AC As it happens, the theme was conceived independently of these buildings-related circumstances. For us, it’s about voicing the widespread sense of losing one’s moorings in the world, the feeling of not finding one’s place in it and also of expressing a form of estrangement in relation to oneself. It’s a source of inner turmoil, and a theme that inspires operatic and choreographic expression. Artists themselves are always slightly elsewhere: they invite us to take a low-angle look. That’s where the interest lies in stagings that shed a new, contemporary light on old compositions.
 
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui  One opera which speaks to the theme of this strange relationship with oneself is Pelléas and Mélisande, which will be revived in the staging we did with choreographer Damien Jalet and visual artist Marina Abramonić. Mélisande is a mysterious woman who doesn’t reveal where she comes from, and we plunge with her into a cosmic universe, as if things came from another planet, from an inexpressible or unspoken beyond…
 
AC This production of Pelléas and Mélisande conveys the idea of poetic wandering in the very broad sense. It asks where and who we are on this earth. We see how human beings are entrapped by each other. If previous seasons have focussed more on collective, societal or political issues, this coming season will take a more individualistic approach, looking at the question of the ‘self’ – the human being in relation to society or even the world. Take Tannhäuser, the main character in Wagner’s eponymously titled opera, who with his rebellious personality can’t find his place either in society or the world order.
 
In addition to classics of the repertoire such as Pelléas and Mélisande and Tannhäuser, and also Madame Butterfly, The Italian Girl in Algiers and Castor and Pollux, there are also several original, even surprising works, such as An American in Paris, which will be presented for the end-of-year festive season.
 
AC I’ve always wanted to stage a musical at the Grand Théâtre but hadn’t managed to do so until this revival of a show based on Vincente Minnelli’s film by choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, who premiered it in Paris in 2015 before triumphing with it in London and on Broadway. While the work is often performed with smaller ensembles of around 12 musicians, we will be presenting it in its large-scale version, Gershwin specialist Wayne Marshall conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
 
SLC Christopher Wheeldon is a 360-degree artist who creates both musicals and contemporary ballets. He has worked with the greatest dance companies as his musicals continue to be played on Broadway. Even though we’re very different, we are both trying to express ourselves in the same worlds.
 
Before that, there will be your own creation: Imperial Ball.
 
SLC This homage to Johann Strauss II, whose 200th birthday is celebrated in 2025, came about at the invitation of the Johann Strauss Festival in Vienna. The difference between a ball and a ballet is that you take part in a ball, whereas you watch the ballet. Plus, a ball is as much a revealer of society as it is a form of hiding place. And what if the imperial ball were a way of covering up the horrors of the Empire? I always need to put things into perspective in my work, and listening to Strauss’s music made me want to hear another kind – the traditional music of Japan. So there will be two empires in the production, and two musical sources: that of Strauss, played by the full symphony orchestra, and that of two Japanese musicians on their traditional instruments.
 
AC I think it’s great fun to celebrate Johann Strauss through a ballet rather an operetta. And to see Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui take on a music so far removed from himself. It’s a way of turning things on their head, and that’s what we’ve always loved doing at theGrand Théâtre. Alongside this, we shall be presenting the revival of the choreography for Maurice Ravel’s Bolero by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet and Marina Abramović, the same trio that staged Pelléas & Mélisande.
 
Among the lesser-known works, La Plage is presenting The Emperor of Atlantis, which Viktor Ullmann wrote in 1944 while detained in the Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp, where it was rehearsed right up to the dress rehearsal.
 
Clara Pons We’re more than just lost between two worlds here. This is a show that was conceived as a diptych to be performed outside the theatre’s walls, in two different venues, with the audience travelling around over the course of the evening.
 
Prefacing Ullmann’s opera is another work, By virtue of…, which puts our relationship with human rights into perspective and reminds us of the imminent danger of totalitarian drifts. The production premiered in 2022 in Luxembourg, where it was performed at the European Parliament and the Grand Théâtre de la Ville. In Geneva, we are due to present it first at the UN and then at the Comédie, which will see a reconstruction of Ullmann’s work as it could/should have been performed in the concentration camp, with us as the audience…
 
Moving on to another curiosity: Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels, which will close the season. Not many people know that there exists a stage adaptation, by Zappa, of the 1971 film which captured in hallucinatory style the life of a rock band on tour.
 
AC  For me, it’s a way of coming full circle, echoing the 2019 season-opening production, which was Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach. The two works date from the same period, and although they have nothing in common, they are a testament to the operatic genre’s openness to new forms. It’s a complete spectacle. Not very long, but very demanding, with a huge orchestra including eight percussionists, a rock band and electronics. It’s funny, psychedelic, a little crazy, and sexually explicit.
 
Let’s talk some more about the artists, many of whom have been regulars at the Grand Théâtre since your arrival.
 
AC Tannhäuser will see director Tatiana Gürbaca with the same team as for the Leoš Janáček operas of previous seasons, and Daniel Kramer, who directed Turandot, returns for 200 Motels: no one knows more than him about going beyond the limits, and at this moment of parting, we’re counting on him to come up with an absolute show. The OSR meanwhile will be able to count on musicians from the Haute École de musique de Genève as it did for Einstein on the Beach, and it will be the same conductor, Titus Engel. We are also inviting some increasingly sought-after young directors to make their Grand Théâtre debuts: Julien Chavez, a French-speaking Swiss director based in Magdeburg, will be staging The Italian Girl in Algiers, having directed Peter Eötvös’s The Golden Dragon three seasons ago for La Plage.
 
Barbora Horáková will present her reading of Madame Butterfly in Puccini’s original version, which is tighter and with a smaller orchestration, making it best suited to the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices. The cast will be superb, with Corinne Winters in the role of Cio-Cio-San. There will also be mezzo-soprano Gaëlle Arquez singing Isabella in The Italian Girl in Algiers, Franco-Swiss mezzo Ève-Maud Hubeaux in Castor and Pollux, conductors such as Antonino Fogliani for Madame Butterfly, and Mark Elder making his first visit for Tannhäuser.
 
There’s also the continuation of collaborations with other cultural institutions in the region.
 
AC This is an ongoing policy that we’ve put in place, and it is to be hoped that it will continue. Notably, the Frank Zappa opera will see us establish links with the Montreux Jazz Festival. And the Ballet will be performing at the Pavillon de la danse for the first time, in a choreography by Yasmine Hugonnet – at the very start of the season, as part of the Festival de la Bâtie. We’ve been looking for an opportunity to collaborate with the Association pour la danse contemporaine (ADC) for years.
 
SLC We must also mention the Svatbata choreography by Marcus Morau, whose production, Sonoma, was presented by the Festival de La Bâtie. He’s an artist who creates strange, surreal worlds in which each movement takes us somewhere else. There will also be choreographer Edward Clug, who will be directing Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera-ballet Castor and Pollux.
 
AC This latter production is also part of the continuation of our programming, with conductor Leonardo Garcia Alarcon and his Cappella Mediterranea, which has presented a series of opera- ballets ranging from Baroque to Classical, from Rameau’s Les Indes galantes (The Amorous Indies) and Lully’s Atys, to Mozart’s Idomeneo. It’s an additional element, giving a shape to this season that’s emblematic of the policy we’ve pursued: opening up to new audiences; integrating dance and opera; new works, and breaking out beyond traditional operatic parameters; La Plage programming bringing together today’s opera and tomorrow’s audiences. Without ever forgetting the great repertoire… So perhaps, after all, it’s more about being ‘in translation’ than ‘lost’.