Repertoire

An autobiographical concert-theatre evening

Dalida was chanson and pop, disco and Orient, longing and resistance – a singer and actress who transcended all boundaries. At the age of twenty, Vladimir Kornéev encountered her artistry for the first time. A single song became the turning point that led him to choose the path of a chanson singer.

For the first time, Kornéev now tells his own deeply personal story: from his birth in Georgia, through his family’s flight to Germany, from losing his ability to speak after traumatic experiences of war and violence, to finding refuge and expression in music. Dalida’s songs frame and carry this journey.

Born in 1987, the year of Dalida’s death, Kornéev finds in her an invisible counterpart. Her songs become wings over a life marked by trauma and exile – a life shaped by loss and the rediscovery of language, by first love and first encounters with the stage.

The evening unfolds as a theatre piece in concert form: poetic monologues and cinematic scenes intertwine with Dalida’s chansons – from Bambino, Je suis malade, Pour ne pas vivre seul and J’attendrai to Salma ya salama, Helwa ya baladi, Mourir sur scène, Laissez-moi danser and Comme si tu étais là. A space emerges between nostalgia and the present, where personal memory becomes universal: Who am I? Where do I belong? What gives a voice its life – and its purpose?

The arrangements – developed with Kornéev’s pianist Markus Syperek – combine the essence of chanson with cinematic breadth: piano, guitar, saxophone, bass, drums and Arabic percussion create a sonic Paris infused with the scents of the Mediterranean and Cairo. Rooted in the spirit of the originals and open to contemporary colors, elements of pop, jazz and the grand classical gesture flow seamlessly together.

With a finely nuanced voice and powerful stage presence, Vladimir Kornéev brings Dalida’s legacy into the present – inviting the audience to recognize their own story within these songs.
An evening about loss and courage, belonging and freedom. A declaration of love to mentors and teachers, to mother and father – to love, and to the music that can turn wounds into wings.

A concert evening dedicated to the freedom of love

Édith Piaf was more than a voice. She was a force - one that became the very embodiment of French chanson around the world. A woman who fought, who loved, and who wrote her life with uncompromising intensity.

In La Vie en Piaf, Vladimir Kornéev approaches this iconic figure in a deeply personal way: not as a monument, but as a living, breathing musical portrait. With his rich and expressive baritone, Vladimir Kornéev brings Piaf’s chansons - some also in his own German translations - into a new light: immediate, intimate, and profoundly moving.

The dramaturgy he has created weaves atmospheric anecdotes and monologues into a theatre piece in concert form - an emotional journey through Piaf’s life that captivates, electrifies, and intoxicates. Kornéev traces Piaf’s path from the streets of Paris to global legend, portraying her as a radical artist - fragile, yet unbreakable - in her relentless search for love. Her biography unfolds between the songs with cinematic clarity and poetic precision, and at a turning point of the evening, it reflects in Kornéev’s own life story.

The arrangements were developed by Vladimir Kornéev together with his long-time collaborator, pianist Markus Syperek, who also created the band versions for piano, accordion, double bass and drums, as well as the symphonic orchestrations. Rooted in the spirit of the originals yet open to new, cinematic soundscapes, the arrangements draw on elements of pop and jazz, as well as classical influences from composers such as Rachmaninoff and Chopin.

Between tenderness and force, between nostalgia and the present, a rich and multifaceted musical space unfolds - one that brings Édith Piaf’s work powerfully into the present through Vladimir Kornéev’s voice and interpretation, resonating in a universal emotional landscape long after the final note has faded.

From Berlin trough Paris to Broadway

Kurt Weill is one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His songs tell of exile, new beginnings, and the relentless search for a place to belong between worlds. Celebrated in Germany, he was persecuted by the Nazis in 1933 and forced into exile, first to Paris and then to the United States, where he went on to shape musical theatre on Broadway. His music unites theatre, jazz, opera, and chanson - always in search of truth and humanity.

In YOUKALI, Vladimir Kornéev approaches Kurt Weill’s work not only musically, but existentially. Born in Georgia, he came to Germany as a political refugee with his family at a young age. This personal experience of exile and new beginnings lends the evening a particular intimacy, resonating deeply with Weill’s life and music. In this way, Weill’s artistic journey meets Korneev’s own story of displacement, transition, and the search for belonging.

At the heart of the evening lies the love story between Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya - a relationship shaped by closeness and distance, by tension and artistic devotion. Within these contrasts lies a subtle reflection of the songs themselves.

With a finely nuanced voice and strong theatrical presence, Vladimir Kornéev interprets Kurt Weill’s multifaceted repertoire in newly developed arrangements. At the piano, he is joined weather by his artistic partner, Markus Syperek. The evening unfolds in multiple languages - German, French, English, Hebrew, and Georgian - and has a universal message.

YOUKALI describes an imaginary land where freedom, peace, and humanity are possible. Vladimir Kornéev invites the audience to remember this place as a feeling. A feeling shared live in the moment. And one that can remain - quiet, powerful, beyond the music.

Echoes of a world between ecstasy and collapse

We live in a time that feels unsteady – marked by crisis, yet filled with possibility and abundance. Paralysis and exhilaration often stand side by side. It is a feeling that may have been strikingly familiar in Berlin around 1930: a world on the brink of transformation, sensed by many, yet fully grasped by few.

Out of this tension, artists such as Kurt Weill, Friedrich Hollaender, Erwin Schulhoff and Mischa Spoliansky created a body of work that is at once critical and comic, ironic and deeply moving – music that reflects the contradictions of its time with clarity, wit and vitality.

This repertoire is set in contrast with Les Moutons de Panurge by Frederic Rzewski – a collective sonic experience that explores the phenomenon of herd behaviour with both sharp intelligence and playful force. Audience and performers are drawn into a shared escalation, building towards a moment of ecstatic intensity, before dissolving into a final acoustic chaos in which the music itself collapses.

These works speak, in a uniquely direct way, of our desires, our fears, our failures and our joy in times of upheaval. And perhaps, here and now, they can offer us something more: a path through the dense and often impenetrable landscape of our present – towards awareness, compassion, and humanity.