2023-11-02 18:46:21
– The fairy tale of Marc Leroy-Calatayud
Born in Lausanne, the conductor took his first steps in the Opera pit by directing “Cendrillon” by Pauline Viardot.
Posted today at 7:46 p.m. Updated 37 minutes ago
Marc Leroy-Calatayud.
JEREMY TORRES
“I find it moving to make my debut where it all began.” Hired by Eric Vigié to direct the revival of “Cendrillon” by Pauline Viardot, Marc Leroy-Calatayud takes advantage of every moment of rehearsal for this show for young audiences, magnificently staged by Gilles Rico and presented for the first time in 2018. The chef The orchestra remembers seeing at the Lausanne Opera the first titles which gave it the virus of lyrical art: “La vie parisienne”, “The Marriage of Figaro”, “The Barber of Seville”… “ It was just before I left for Vienna to study management at the University.”
The conductor is both proud and grateful to return to his hometown where he has conducted so many concerts – particularly thanks to the founding in 2009 of the Quipasseparlà Orchestra made up of young musicians. This orchestra was born following a production of “Voyage dans la lune” by Offenbach, put on by the La Sarraz Choir. Marc Leroy-Calatayud brought together a small musical ensemble for the occasion and conducted his first opera at the age of 17. The Quipasseparlà Orchestra takes its name from one of the characters in the operetta. And the orchestra still exists even if Marc Leroy-Calatayud had to give up his direction when he was hired as an assistant at the Bordeaux Opera in 2016.
“What I like regarding opera is that all this crazy machinery helps to make the audience dream and tell them stories.”
Marc Leroy-Calatayud, chef d’orchestre
The Franco-Bolivian conductor loved his three intense years in Bordeaux, where the director at the time, Marc Minkowski, trusted him to direct ballets and operas. “I was really able to live to the rhythm of a large opera house and I was able to be involved in meetings on programming, on communication, in the library also on the editions of scores.” In French-speaking Switzerland, he was already able to prove his undeniable talent as a lyrical conductor last January through the astonishing success of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliette” presented in concert version in Geneva and Montreux, with the OCG and Benjamin Bernheim.
Tell stories
“What I like regarding opera is that all this crazy machinery helps to make the audience dream and tell them stories. It’s ultimately not very different from the ones I imagined with Lego in my childhood bedroom!” Marc Leroy-Calatayud mightn’t say it better, he who now enjoys publishing videos on YouTube telling opera plots with Lego figurines and a good dose of humor.
But on its Groopéra channel, “Cendrillon” does not yet have in its catalog. Never mind, the thirty-year-old is already inexhaustible on this work created in Pauline Viardot’s living room in a version for solo piano and singers in 1904 and which will have to wait until 2018 and the Lausanne Opera to experience its resurrection thanks to the orchestration by Didier Puntos: “I knew the name of Pauline Viardot, as a singer, but I did not realize the impact she had for fifty years as a muse and as a composer. All the great artists of the 19th century visited her house and wrote for her.” Berlioz, Chopin, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Liszt, Turgenev, George Sand were among his unconditional admirers.
Marc Leroy-Calatayud continues: “Written at the end of her life, “Cinderella” sums up both the spirit of her century and her journey as a singer and patroness of the arts. There are some very crazy passages and a great love duet with a rich polyphony, very interesting. And for young audiences, it’s an incredible luxury with lots of special effects. We have a full view!”
Matthew Chenal has been a journalist in the cultural section since 1996. He particularly chronicles the abundant news of classical music in the canton of Vaud and French-speaking Switzerland.More info
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