Ukiyo-e, or how to survive together in a world constantly in crisis? A meditation on our capacity for resilience, this new piece by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is named after the “images of the floating world”, the famous artistic movement that emerged in Japan during the Edo period, in the half-worlds of urban hedonism. The piece activates a work of balance in the face of impermanence. Beyond dualities, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui proposes to envisage bodies that do not end with fracture and limit, but rather to exalt these as augmentations of our person. Alexander Dodge’s set will feature a network of impossible staircases in which the dancers get lost. These mobile labyrinthine structures are intended to evoke both the ascent and the abyss. “Meditative, floor-based, soft and flowing dances that are among the most beautiful that contemporary dance holds.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Renaud Capuçon – The Boundless Violin
Violinist and conductor Renaud Capuçon lives entirely for his art. Driven by an overflowing curiosity and an insatiable thirst for sharing, the native of Chambéry, who has enlightened thousands of people with his daily performances on social networks, has since returned to the whirlwind of rehearsals, concerts and recordings that have marked his career. For a year, Andy Sommer and Romain Girard accompanied Renaud Capuçon on his many travels and projects, capturing the unflagging energy of this mad lover of music, who strives to make it accessible to all audiences. Collecting numerous testimonies from close friends and family (his wife Laurence Ferrari, his sister Aude Giraudon) and musician friends (pianist and maestro Daniel Barenboim, violist Gérard Caussé, conductor Daniel Harding), the filmmakers have created a moving portrait of this “musician and entrepreneur”, capable of uniting the older and younger generations around him.
Messa da Requiem – Verdi’s Requiem Choreographed by Christian Spuck
With the Messa da Requiem, Christian Spuck brought one of Verdi’s key works on performing stage in his first audiovisual recording since taking his position as Ballet Director at Opernhaus Zurich. In a large-scale co-production by the Ballet and Opera Zurich, Spuck ventured to portray a profound interpretation of Verdi’s funeral mass. He focuses on people who, in their vulnerability and helplessness, are in the search for comfort. Spuck is not at all concerned with a purely dance-like illustration of Verdi’s music, but instead in the contentual-scenic link of the dancers with the soloists and choristers. They act on stage together and take part in ritualized movements and sequences. With Fabio Luisi leading the Philharmonia Zurich, the Opera Choir, and the soloists Krassimira Stoyanova, Veronica Simeoni, Francesco Meli and Georg Zeppenfeld, there is a musical interpretation of some of the most acknowledged artists of our times.
Lucerne Festival 2017: Chailly conducts Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn
“What an evening. What a kickoff. The future of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra – it has now begun.” This is how Peter Hagmann of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described Riccardo Chailly’s debut as the new artistic director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra last year. Chailly devoted himself in his second year in Lucerne to the works of composers that strongly influenced him during his conducting career. Among these are Felix Mendelssohn and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The program included Mendelssohn’s enchanting tone poems to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Tchaikovsky’s “Manfred Symphony”, based on the poem written by Lord Byron.
Lucerne Festival 2023: Paavo Järvi conducts Mahler 3
In its 20th season, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra opened the 2023 summer festival with Mahler’s Third. Paavo Järvi takes over for Riccardo Chailly on short notice and proved to be a more than worthy substitute. He led orchestra, chorus, and soloist Wiebke Lehmkuhl to an “air-spirited serenity” (FAZ)
Lucerne Festival 2023: Paavo Järvi & Maria João Pires
In another prominent concert of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s 20th anniversary edition, Maria Joa~o Pires performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, “Jenamy”, with the orchestra under the baton of Paavo Järvi, who “builds a sanctuary of delicate grace around his soloist.” (FAZ) PROGRAM Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9, K. 271;
Andante from Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467 (encore)
Lucerne Festival 2022: Riccardo Chailly & Mao Fujita
Sergei Rachmaninov is perhaps most remembered—and beloved—for his piano concertos, which still stand as pillars of Romanticism, though mostly written in the 20th century. At the 2022 Lucerne Festival, virtuoso pianist Mao Fujita performs the composer’s celebrated Piano Concerto No. 2—absolutely brimming with memorable melody and poignant harmony—alongside maestro Riccardo Chailly at the head of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra!
Lucerne Festival 2022: Chailly conducts Rachmaninov
For Riccardo Chailly, celebrating Rachmaninov in Lucerne is something dear to his heart. This summer, he is devoting himself to the Symphony No. 2 in E Minor – the composer’s richest and densest contribution to the genre, evoking Tchaikovsky in form, as well as Borodin and Sibelius in the epic, almost Nordic spirit of its music.
Lucerne Festival 2020: Blomstedt conducts Beethoven
In 1949, at only seven years old, Martha Argerich made her debut with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and the piece has accompanied her throughout her career. Naturally, Argerich has discovered new facets of this work over the decades. And she surely did so when she performed this signature piece with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Herbert Blomstedt who gave his debut with the orchestra thanks to a very special festival edition in August 2020. Beethoven’s music plays a very important role in Blomstedt’s career and thus the concert featured another work of the composer: his Symphony No. 2. PROGRAM Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 2
Lucerne Festival 2025: Chailly conducts Mahler
In his internationally acclaimed interpretations of Mahler’s symphonies, Riccardo Chailly focuses on the musical quality of the works, avoiding false pathos and sentimentality while retaining the music’s dramatic intensity. Together with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and Elina Garanca, he opened the 2025 festival summer festival with Mahler’s poignant, unfinished 10th Symphony and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. The concert opened with Pierre Boulez’s Mémoriale, in reverence of the inaugural director of the Lucerne Festival Academy, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2025. PROGRAM Mahler: Rückert-Lieder, Ssymphony No 10; Boulez: Mémoriale