Find the complete 2018-2019 Opéra de Nice Season and book your tickets online now.

The people of Nice are particularly attached to their opera, a real architectural jewel of the French Riviera. The French Riviera is not a deserted region from the beginning of autumn. The cultural life is prosperous and the opera concentrates a good number of events of classical music. With a deliberately heterogeneous repertoire, the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra under the artistic direction of György Györiványi-Ráth offers concerts that always prove of very good quality.

This 2018-2019 season, Beethoven is particularly honored with great masterpieces as the Symphony No. 7 or No. 6, the famous pastoral. You must book your concert tickets quickly because a great artist is also on display. Pianist Lise de la Salle performs the piano concerto No. 2 of the great German composer. Soloists follow one another on the stage. Particularly noteworthy is the arrival of violinist Charlie Siem, whose fashionable style should not overshadow the play developed in Sibelius's magnificent Violin Concerto.

The oratorio of Honegger, Jeanne d´Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the stake) is performed by the actress Sylvie Testud with the Nice Opera Choir and Coro Filarmonico Music Nova San Remo, a great moment of theater and music in perspective. The Italian school is offering it´s best with violinist Francesca Dego, cellist Enrico Dindo or pianist Pietro De Maria. Dénes Várjon and Marc Coppey (in a rarely performed repertoire with Konzertstück Dohnányi) also perform at the Nice Côte d'Azur Opera. Also noteworthy is the arrival of Jean-François Zygel who plays his music on the images of Faust, the famous Murnau film.

But the opera scene is obviously devoted to dance and lyric productions. Do not wait to book your tickets to attend a dance performance with the Nice Mediterranean Ballet as for the end of the year with the choreographer Eric Vu-An.

On the opera side, the great works are presented alongside a less performed repertoire of high quality, as for example the excellent Rake's Progress of Stravinsky a work that remains to be discovered by many music lovers, especially with Julien Behr, Amélie Robins and Isabelle Druet. Another luxury distribution is to be noticed. Berlioz's Damnation of Faust under the inspired direction of John Nelson brings together John Irving and the sublime mezzo Karine Deshayes. The other big Faust on the bill is Gounod's with Stefano Secco and Nathalie Manfrino.

In the French repertoire, Carmen's success eclipses another fine opera by Bizet. The Pearl Fishers contains beauties interpreted by Gabrielle Philiponet, Julien Dran and Alexandre Duhamel. The lighter genre is not forgotten at the Opera of Nice Côte d'Azur which displays the great successes of the operetta and the musical with My Fair Lady and Wiener Blut by Strauss. As the year of Bernstein obliges, the American composer is also on display with the concert version of his Wonderful Town led by György Györiványi-Ráth. Finally, music lovers will not miss Mozart's masterpiece with Don Giovanni directed by Daniel Benoin, director of the théâtre d'Antibes nearby.

Finally, the last major event of this beautiful season 2018-2019 is the concert of the great Leo Nucci who sings Verdi scores.