The theremin, a legendary instrument invented by a Soviet scientist in 1920, is one of the very first electronic instruments – preceding the ondes martenot by several years – and its particularity is that it is the only instrument to be played without any physical contact. Pamelia Stickney (formerly Kurstin) is – since Clara Rockmore – uncontestably the greatest virtuoso of the theremin, which she treats, not as an exotic curiosity, but as an instrument in its own right, capable of reproducing the register of the human voice or of the contrabass, and which fits just as well into a classical instrumentation as a contemporary context. For her visit to the Opera, Pamelia is collaborating with the Quatuor Wassily, for whom she has made some arrangements for strings and theremin. The programme includes pieces by Messiaen, Bartók, Poulenc, Bach, Berg, Zawinul, Coltrane, Lili Boulanger, Satie as well as her own compositions.