Déroulement des épreuves
Conditions d'inscription
Concours International d'Art Lyrique de Namur
January 31, 2024 - February 11, 2024
Jury - 2024
President of the jury
Guido Jardon
LIVRAISON
Recipient of the Belgian Government's Virtuosity Prize for piano - the highest national distinction in classical music - with the highest honors and the jury's commendations, Guido JARDON earned the Advanced Diploma with great distinction from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Liège, and was awarded the Vermeil Medal by the Government.
He was also awarded the Henrijean Prize for the most talented student in the Advanced Piano Competition and the Marie Prize, given to the top-ranked competitor for the Medal. It was during this competition that he received a Steinway & Sons piano as a reward for being the top-ranked participant across all levels.
He further honed his skills at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich and obtained the Concert Artist Diploma.
As the First Laureate of the International Competition of the European Musical Institute in Besançon, he also received the First Prize with the jury's commendations at the "Young Virtuosos" Competition in Antwerp.
Guido JARDON, who also holds a First Prize in trumpet, has given numerous concerts throughout Europe and in South America. As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras on numerous occasions.
His musical activities extend to chamber music and conducting, as he has served as a conductor, choir director, and musical director for various ensembles.
After teaching piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Liège and at the IMEP, the Higher Institute of Music and Pedagogy in Namur, Guido JARDON currently serves as the General Director of this Higher School of Arts.
Director General of IMEP
Patrizia Ciofi
LIVRAISON
Lyrical artist
Hailing from Tuscany, Patrizia Ciofi is universally recognized as one of the leading sopranos of her generation. The flexibility of her voice allows her to perform a wide repertoire spanning from the Baroque period to the 20th century, encompassing operas, oratorios, and recitals. Her international career has taken her to some of the world's most prestigious stages, including La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the Paris National Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Munich State Opera, the Grand Theatre in Geneva, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Opernhaus in Zurich, La Fenice in Venice, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the New National Theater in Tokyo.
She has performed under the batons of renowned conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Antonio Pappano, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Myung-Whun Chung, Lorin Maazel, John Nelson, Richard Bonynge, James Conlon, Kent Nagano, Daniel Oren, Alberto Zedda, Roberto Abbado, Evelino Pidò, Paolo Arrivabeni, Maurizio Benini, René Jacobs, Alan Curtis, Fabio Biondi, Ottavio Dantone, Emmanuelle Haïm, Christophe Rousset, and more.
Among the most well-known operas she has interpreted are Verdi's "La Traviata," "Rigoletto," "Falstaff," and "Luisa Miller," Bellini's "La Sonnambula," "I Capuleti e i Montecchi," "I Puritani," and "Norma," Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," "Don Pasquale," "L'elisir d'amore," "La Fille du Régiment," and "Maria Stuarda," Rossini's "Tancredi," "Il Turco in Italia," "Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo," "Adelaide di Borgogna," "Zelmira," and "Il signor Bruschino," Puccini's "La Bohème," "Gianni Schicchi," and "La Rondine," Massenet's "Manon" and "Cendrillon," Bizet's "Les Pêcheurs de Perles" and "Carmen," Mozart's "Don Giovanni," "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Così fan tutte," "Idomeneo," "La Clemenza di Tito," "Die Zauberflöte," and "Die Entführung aus dem Serail," Handel's "Alcina," "Radamisto," "Siroe," and "Tamerlano," and more.
Her extensive discography includes numerous rare works such as Bellini's "La Straniera," Donizetti's "Pia de' Tolomei," Meyerbeer's "Il Crociato in Egitto," "Robert le Diable," and "Dinorah," Massenet's "Chérubin," Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini," and Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro."
Ilse Eerens
Praised for her luminous voice, musical sensitivity and versatility, Belgian soprano Ilse Eerens enjoys an international opera and concert career in repertoire that spans from Bach to works of the 21st century.
Most recent engagements include returns to La Monnaie as Sophie/Der Rosenkavalier, to the Salzburger Festspiele as 1.Dame/Die Zauberflöte, to the Opéra National de Lyon as Hero in Berlioz' Beatrice et Benedict and in arias by Donizetti and Rossini as part of New Year's concerts, Mozart’s Davide Penitente with the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Hans Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You with Basel Sinfonietta, Bach’s Messe in h-moll with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Pamina in concert performances of Die Zauberflöte with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Fauré’s Requiem with the Brussels Philharmonic, Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dvorák’s Requiem with the Antwerp Symphony and Philippe Herreweghe, Bach’s Matthäus Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, with Ton Koopman at the Bachfest Leipzig, Capella Mediterranea and Het Residentie Orkest, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge with the Beethovenorchester Bonn, Celia in Lucio Silla with Choeur Accentus in Beaune and Paris as well as Schubert's Mass in A flat in Rouen.
Ms Eerens has also worked with conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Hartmut Haenchen, Lorenzo Viotti, Kazushi Ono, Peter Dijkstra, Richard Egarr, Laurence Equilbey, Dirk Kaftan, Jean-Christoph Spinosi, Michael Schønwandt, Kenneth Montgomery, Mark Wigglesworth, Jaap van Zweden, Constantinos Carydis, Claus Peter Flor, Antonello Manacorda and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
Awards include the Arleen Auger prize in the International Vocal Competition in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, where she was the only the finalist who excelled in all the three categories of Opera, Oratorio and Lieder, and the 3rd prize at the ARD Musikwettbewerb 2006.
Ms Eerens has been teaching singing as a main subject and chamber music at the LUCA-School of Arts Lemmensinstituut, Leuven for several years and will also be affiliated with the Royal Conservatory of The Hague from September '23.
Lyrical artist
Camille De Rijck
Journalist at La Libre Belgique, Diapason, and Director of Forumopera
Camille De Rijck launched Forumopera.com in 1999, and he continues to serve as its Editor-in-Chief to this day. The website is the first French-language media dedicated to opera and garners approximately 180,000 monthly visitors.
From 2006 to 2015, he was the Co-Artistic Director of the Cypres label, where he acted as an executive producer for recordings by La Monnaie and the Paris Opera. In this capacity, he produced and assembled all of the recordings of the composer Philippe Boesmans, of whom he is a prominent specialist. Boesmans dedicated his latest opera, "On Purge Bébé," to Camille De Rijck, and it premiered at La Monnaie in 2022.
On Musiq3, the classical and cultural channel of the RTBF (Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française), he produced and hosted various programs between 2014 and 2023, including "La Matinale," "Demandez le programme," "Chambre avec vue," and "La Conversation." On La Première (RTBF), he was a cultural columnist on the shows "Déclic" and "Week-end Première" and authored the column "Divas et vieilles dentelles."
Between 2014 and 2019, and again in 2023, he presented the Queen Elisabeth Competition on television and radio. He created numerous radio portraits and documentaries, including one on the American writer Paul Bowles.
In 2022, he joined the Culture team at the Belgian daily newspaper La Libre Belgique.
He is a contributor to the magazine Diapason, where since 2018, he has conducted extensive interviews with artists. He has written numerous discographical notes for labels such as Harmonia Mundi, La Dolce Volta, NoMadMusic, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, and Naïve. He has also penned texts for La Monnaie, the Paris National Opera, the Aix-en-Provence International Festival, and the Britten/Pears Foundation in Aldeburgh.
In 2017, he published a book of interviews with Christophe Rousset, titled "Pour que l'instrument chante" (Philharmonie de Paris). On the occasion of Philippe Herreweghe's 70th birthday, he released a book of interviews with him (Phi). He is currently working on a new book of interviews with the pianist Pavel Kolesnikov.
He is the co-director of the Via Appia book series on music, developed within the Humensis group, along with Sylvain Fort. This series features texts by André Tubeuf, Jean-Guihen Queyras, and Philippe Jaroussky, and will soon include a book by René Jacobs on Mozart.
In 2019, he delivered lectures on music journalism at the University of Bologna and the University of Geneva. In 2020, he conducted a media training session for Alain Altinoglu's conducting class at CNSDMP. In 2020, he became a professor at the Royal Institute of Music and Pedagogy (Namur), where he leads seminars and, since 2023, teaches Marketing and Communication courses. In 2023/2024, he will give a series of lectures at the National Orchestra of Lille, the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi, and the Royal Academy of Belgium.
Camille De Rijck is a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic.
Marcel Vanaud
Lyrical artist
Marcel Vanaud entered the Brussels Conservatory and honed his voice under the tutelage of Frédéric Anspach. He earned a first prize in singing with the highest distinction and a first prize in lyrical art. He then continued his studies at the Liège Conservatory under Pierre Fleta, obtaining a higher diploma. He also received laurels in several international competitions. He made his debut at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie (ORW) in the roles of Orfeo in Glück's "Orfeo and Euridice" and Papageno in Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte." Subsequently, he portrayed Ourrias in Gounod's "Mireille," Escamillo in Bizet's "Carmen," Lescaut in Massenet's "Manon Lescaut," and other significant roles. In 1982, Marcel Vanaud made his U.S. debut in Pittsburgh in Ravel's "L'enfant et les sortilèges," conducted by André Previn. A year later, he performed the role of the High Priest in Glück's "Alceste" and appeared in a production of "Un ballo in maschera" at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. In 1984, he performed in "Les pêcheurs de perles" at New York Opera. In 1986, he sang in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" in a production by La Monnaie in Paris and Vienna. He recorded Offenbach's "Les contes d'Hoffman" for EMI and played the title role in Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro" at the Santa Fe Festival. In 1987, Marcel Vanaud continued his international career by portraying Lescaut in "Manon Lescaut" in Montreal and later in San Francisco. He also performed in "Don Giovanni" in Brussels, "Don Carlo" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and "L'Enfance du Christ" at the Théâtre du Châtelet. He was involved in several recordings, including a recital of opera arias with the ORW orchestra under the direction of Robert Bléser, "Les Béatitudes" by César Franck with the Radio-France choirs and the new Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Armin Jordan, and "Le Roi d'Ys" alongside Barbara Hendricks with the Radio-France orchestra under the direction of Armin Jordan. He also participated in the recording of "La Marseillaise" conducted by Michel Plasson. In 1989-90, he played the role of Giorgio Germont in "La Traviata" at the Palais des Sports in Liège. He took on the role of Athanaël in Massenet's "Thaïs" for the first time at the Opéra d'Avignon, later reprising it in Liège. He made his debut at La Scala in Milan in Giacomo Manzoni's "Doctor Faustus," directed by Bob Wilson. In 1990, he sang in Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" and "Don Carlo" at the Opera of Flanders. That same year, he also recorded Enesco's "Oedipe" for EMI and performed Faust at the Chorégies d'Orange. In 1991, he made his debut at the Dutch National Opera in Gluck's "Iphigénie en Tauride" and achieved great success at the Opéra Comique in "Les Pêcheurs de Perles" and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in the title role of Paul Hindemith's "Cardillac." In September, he played the role of Chorèbe in Berlioz's "Les Troyens," conducted by Charles Dutoit in Los Angeles. In 1991-92, he sang his first Capriccio in Strasbourg, "Le Roi d'Ys" in Rouen, and "La Damnation de Faust" for the 25th-anniversary celebrations of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie. In 1992-93, he performed in "La Traviata" in Los Angeles and played the role of Wolfram in Wagner's "Tannhäuser" in Rouen. He also appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in "Le Cid" alongside Placido Domingo and portrayed Ourrias in "Mireille" at the Opéra Comique. In the following years, he sang "Stiffelio" at the Vienna State Opera, "Rigoletto" in Saint-Étienne and at the Rendano in Cosenza, and Béatrice in "Béatrice et Bénédict" at La Monnaie. He performed Chausson's "Le Roi Arthus" and "Il Trovatore" and "Tosca" at Liège, "Carmen" in Amsterdam, "Oedipus Rex" in Nice, "L'Enfance du Christ" in Buenos Aires, "Aïda" in Geneva, "Simon Boccanegra" and "Thaïs" in Toulon, "La Traviata" in Carcassonne, Maastricht, Liège with the ORW, and in Macao, "Falstaff" in Strasbourg, and "La Damnation de Faust" in Saint-Étienne, "Manon Lescaut" in Seville.
Marcel Vanaud is also a voice teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. He recorded a CD featuring great Verdi arias and a selection of arias from the French Opera, conducted by Roger Rossel (Lygia Digital).
Stefano Pace
Directeur général et artistique de l'Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
Born in Rome in 1958, Stefano Pace studied Architecture in his native city and made his professional debut during his studies, signing his first decor set at the age of 19. He created then many theatre and opera sets throughout the world, in collaboration with directors such as Jonathan Kent, Maurice Béjart, John Dexter or Krisztof Zanussi.
In addition to his activities as an architect, set designer and scenographer, Stefano Pace has held several management positions since 1994, notably in the technical field but also in artistic production and management, at the Opéra National de Paris, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London.
From March 2015 to September 2022, Stefano Pace has been Superintendent of the Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste.
In October 2022, he becomes General and Artistic Director of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège.
The variety and richness of his international experience, in very high-level positions, have enabled this multilingual Franco-Italian to acquire great management skills, a vast knowledge of the world of opera and solid artistic and musical skills.
Manuel Rondal
Agent artistique - Intermezzo, Paris
Manuel Rondal est Licencié et Agrégé en Musicologie de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles. Parallèlement à ses études, il poursuit sa formation musicale au Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles où il obtient un Premier Prix de Chant. Sensibilisé très tôt au monde de l’opéra, à ses problématiques et à son répertoire, il occupe différentes fonctions au Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie puis à l’Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège dans les domaines des Relations avec le public, de la Communication et du Marketing. Il est ensuite Assistant à la direction artistique à l’Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège aux côtés de Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera.
En 2021, il rejoint l’agence artistique Intermezzo Management basée à Paris et spécialisée dans la représentation d'artistes lyriques, tant en France qu'à l'international.