Formerly known as the Salle Patiño, La Cité Bleue is a concert hall located in an octagonal 1960s building within the Cité Universitaire in Champel. Recently renovated, it features high-tech acoustics and has a seating capacity of 300. The venue aims to promote performances that bring together leading artists from music, theater, dance, visual arts, and circus arts.
Sabine Devieilhe reveals an unexpected facet of her art in this intimate recital, leaving grand operatic heroines aside to explore cabaret, café-concert and musical theatre. Accompanied by the ensemble I Giardini with arrangements by Emmanuel Touchard and stage direction by Laurent Pelly, the programme pairs Francis Poulenc and Erik Satie with Stephen Sondheim, Édith Piaf, Joséphine Baker and Charlie Chaplin. The performance balances virtuosity, a luminous timbre and precise diction, where the smile flirts with melancholy. In coproduction with I Giardini and Les Grandes Voix.
Directed by Laurent Delvert with original music by Jacopo Raffaele, this pop-opera is a sparkling satire of musical theatre inspired by Carlo Goldoni’s L’impresario delle Smirne. A struggling troupe scrambles to save its season when a wealthy patron arrives, triggering lies, flattery, extravagant demands and comic negotiations. The staging and colourful characters deliver sharp, vivacious comedy that, beneath the laughter, exposes artists’ fear, stage fright, precarity and resilient hope.
In French.
Metamorphoses offers a chamber reimagining of two repertoire monuments through intimate transcriptions. Richard Strauss’s Métamorphosen in a seven‑instrument version unfolds a poignant, wartime elegy, while Ferdinand Ries’s chamber transcription of Beethoven’s Third Symphony reveals the work’s dramatic architecture and visionary drive. Led by violinist Pierre Fouchenneret, cellist Raphaël Merlin, violist Elise Vaschalde and pianist Simon Zaoui, with soloists from the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, the programme traces a cross‑century dialogue of loss and revelation.
Curated by cellist François Kieffer, this concert offers a focused journey through Beethoven’s string quartets, juxtaposing early and middle-period masterpieces. The programme brings together Quatuor Modigliani and Quatuor Arete, with repertoire spanning Op. 18 No. 1 and the stormy Op. 59 No. 2 to the luminous Op. 74 “Harp” and the profound late Op. 127. Performances emphasise transparency of texture, intense chamber dialogue and an expansive emotional arc.
Part of a two-day cycle marking the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death, this programme presents a concentrated portrait of his string quartet legacy. Quatuors Novo and Elmire perform early and late works, juxtaposing op.18’s clarity with the intensity of op.95 and the reflective finale of op.135. Each concert opens with a short literary introduction, framing the music’s conversation-like textures and the quartet’s intimate expressive range.
For the bicentenary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, a two-day immersion presents the complete string quartets as a living cycle. Conceived with cellist François Kieffer of the Modigliani Quartet, the programme traces Beethoven’s striking evolution from the Op. 18 quartets to his late visionary works. Ensembles including Modigliani, Arete, Elmire, Novo, Métamorphoses and Leonkoro alternate, offering contrasting interpretations. Each concert opens with a literary introduction resonant with Beethoven’s universe.
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