Lausanne

Lausanne is the city where sport keeps its government and ballet its examinations. The International Olympic Committee has resided here since 1915, making this the Olympic Capital by treaty and temperament — the Olympic Museum terraces down to Lake Geneva at Ouchy — while each winter the Prix de Lausanne gathers the world's most promising young dancers, and its winners populate the great companies; Béjart chose the city for his ballet, which still bears its name into the world's theatres. The setting does its part: a city built on such slopes that it runs Switzerland's only metro, rising from lakeside palaces to the Gothic cathedral — the country's finest — where a night watchman still calls the hours from the tower, a living custom seven centuries old.

The musical establishment matches the altitude: the Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne, the opera, and the Théâtre de Beaulieu — the venue documented in the concert record — the largest theatre hall in Switzerland, stage of the Prix de Lausanne finals and of the touring orchestras, opera and dance that fill its nearly two thousand seats. Students from the federal polytechnic keep the cafés argumentative; the Lavaux vine terraces begin at the city's edge.

A watchman in the tower, dancers on the stage, the rings on the letterhead: Lausanne administers pleasure with Olympic seriousness.