It had already announced it when closing its last edition this summer. The Castell de Peralada Festival intends to continue the tradition of other major European competitions and extend its programming to the designated dates of Easter. The passion for the lyrical or the baroque and the interest in bringing in big names of the moment, while supporting emerging artists and extolling the talent of the territory, will also be the leitmotif of this outpost of the festival, whose tickets go to the sale on Monday 5 -with a 10% discount for subscribers to La Vanguardia as long as they are purchased on its ticket sales website- at 12 noon.
The countertenor Jakub Józef Orlínski, the tenor Freddie de Tommaso, the polyphonic formation Cantoría and Scarlatti's La Giuditta interpreted by Vespres d'Arnadí under the direction of Dani España and in the voices of Serena Sáenz and Xavier Sabata are the proposals of this edition that it will be held entirely in the church of the Carmel.
"It is not a genuinely Easter festival, but the Peralada festival extends throughout the year, so that this and the summer festival are communicating vessels and we will see some of the Easter artists later in the summer," Oriol commented. Aguilà, artistic director of this square. "It didn't make sense to have a space like Carme and not use it for these dates," he added.
What for Salzburg is the Pentecost Festival, for example, a proposal that has as much weight as the summer festival itself, for Peralada it will be a three-day celebration, from April 6 to 8, intended in part to cover musical needs. from a public that also travels to the Empordà around these dates.
The poster has been announced by Peralada this Wednesday: the event will start with a concert by the very successful countertenor Jakub Józef Orlinski, whose activity on social networks, in addition to his interest in break dancing, his sympathy and his physical attractiveness, have made him into a classic star known to the mainstream public. A true idol of the masses.
The Polish singer will offer a concert with works by Händel and Vivaldi together with the Il Giardino d'Amore ensemble founded by maestro Stefan Plewniak in Krakow a decade ago. The project titled Hero! He will have traveled that same week to the Palace of Versailles.
A star who is already gaining great international renown and who is not so recurring in these parts is the Italian-British Freddie de Tommaso, winner of the Plácido Domingo award for best tenor and also of the 2018 Concruso Viñas. He was a last-minute substitution at Covent Garden as Cavaradossi in Tosca alerted critics to this young tenor - now 29 years old - who had become the youngest tenor to play such an iconic role on a front-row stage.
Stage couple of the great female voice of the moment, that of the Norwegian Lise Davidsen, Freddie de Tomaso will offer in Peralada, on April 8, a lyrical recital with arias by Verdi, Bellini or Puccini, and songs by Franck, Mendelssohn or Cilea, in addition to Ave Maria de Gounod and Schubert. A program specially designed for Peralada.
On Good Friday, April 7, it will be the turn of Alesandro Scarlatti's great oratorio La Giuditta, premiered in Naples in 1690. Dani Espasa has chosen the synthetic version for three voices that will be those of the Barcelona soprano Serena Sáenz, recently awarded in the Birgit Nilsson of Stockholm and in the Operalia; the countertenor Xavier Sabata, whose presence at Peralada is always a must, and the tenor Thomas Walker, whom Peralada discovered in The Fairy Queen, last edition.
Considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera, Scarlati composed this oratorio on a libretto by Cardinal Pietro Ottonobi based on the biblical Book of Judith. But after a year he recomposed it for three voices and with a text by Antonio Ottoboni, the cardinal's father. This second one is known as La Giuditta de Cambridge because of the place where the handwritten score is kept.
"It is a jewel to be rediscovered -says Espasa-. We will be 15 musicians in the ensemble, a string orchestra and continuo instruments for which the church of El Carme is ideal". The three characters that appear in this version, Nutrice, Giuditta and General Oloferne, whom the protagonist decapitates, are like those that appear in paintings such as Caravaggio's, adds the master Espasa. The countertenor Xavier Sabata will be Nutrice and the one in charge of interpreting "Sleep, o fulmine di guerra", one of the most beautiful lullabies in the history of music.
Lastly, the Cantoría ensemble will perform the same day at 11:00 p.m. the Office of Darkness on Good Friday, by Tomás Luis de Victoria, a very spiritual and appropriate proposal for the time of Easter that also means the debut of Cantoría in Paralada. Although a couple of the members come from Murcia, this group that emerged around the Esmuc receives numerous awards for its exquisite work.
"The concert is a recreation of the Office of Darkness" and reconstructed with the liturgy of the 16th century, which implies that it contains Gregorian chant (as it was done until the Second Vatican Council put an end to it) and polyphony", says Jorge Losana, tenor and director of the ensemble. "Victoria, from Ávila, is one of the composers who infuses the most emotion into the polyphony of liturgical music. She music that she calls to find oneself ".
Cantoría has been singing secular music and salads, exploring the dramatic and theatrical side of Renaissance music. "The next challenge - they indicate - is to look for the most emotional part and contact with the public". This Office has been reconstructed as a summary of one hour, tenebrary included, that is, the calendar of 15 candles that represents the 11 apostles (without Judas), the three virgins and Jesus Christ.
The festival includes some previous dialogues programmed with the collaboration of Amics del Liceu. The first is a talk between Espasa and Sabata on the universe of La Giuditta (March 15, in Barcelona) and a conference on the Office of Darkness by Father Jordi Agustí Piqué, a monk from Montserrat and dean of the Pontifical Institute for Rome liturgy. A talk that will be held on March 22 in Barcelona and on March 23 in Girona with the participation and performance of Cantoría.
The poster for the Easter festival is by Gino Rubert, specifically a fragment of a large contemporary altarpiece that he painted for the MNAC under the title Vanity Fair (an altar without a hero). This vanity fair that incorporates real figures from the world of art is currently on display at the Center d'Art Tecla Sala in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, in the context of a retrospective dedicated to the Barcelona painter. But from there he will travel to Peralada to settle in one of the rooms of the cloister of the castle. Gino de Rubert recalled that the wine that is watered at that great party that he recreates is precisely a Peralada...
