The Perelada Festival has taken seriously the matter of giving continuity to the offices of darkness every Good Friday and has commissioned a response to the contemporary Catalan composer who shows the most affinities with ancient music. Thus, Joan Magrané from Reus will premiere his Tenebrae Responsoria (Sixth Fair in Parasceve) in the Carme church on March 29, 2024. It will be in the 2nd Easter edition of the Empordà festival, from March 28 to 30. The artistic director of the contest, Oriol Aguilà, has also advanced that the choir and orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Versailles will offer a Charpentier program under the direction of Chloé de Guillebon.
Magrané has revealed his influences: "Couperin for the two solo voices (two sopranos, here converted into a soprano and a cello) and Gesualdo for the choice of texts", as he explained to the festival. “A few years ago I had the thought of putting music to the responses on Holy Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Or to do it only with one of the three nights”.
The definitive form would have come from the crossroads of ideas between the musical director Francesc Prat and the cellist Pau Codina. It was about imagining a work of such a dimension that it would be suitable for a concert and that would fuse vocal and instrumental music, "a path that I have been trying to advance for a long time," says Magrangé. Soprano María Hinojosa and the GIO Symphonia quickly joined the idea of putting some of the texts of the Lessons in Darkness on Good Friday to music.
The Peralada Festival closed its 37th edition on Saturday, intense and concentrated in a few dates which, in the words of Aguilà, has allowed it to "maintain its pulse and ties with the public and artists", while the long-awaited new audience. In an intimate and medium format (with a capacity of 240 in the Carme church and 290 in El Mirador), the festival has sold out all the tickets.
And it has done so by discovering new figures in the field of opera –the tenors Freddie de Tommaso, Jonathan Tetelman and Jonah Hoskins–, experiencing exciting moments with the return of Jordi Savall or the soprano Diana Damrau, and celebrating Victoria de los Ángeles, by the hand of the soprano Núria Rial and the pianist Rubén Fernández (it will be broadcast by RNE's Radio Clásica), and the critic Roger Alier, with the final recital by Serena Sáenz and Jonah Hoskins. He has also delved into the chamber operas of Gian Carlo Menotti with The telephone and given free rein to the Capella Mediterranea.
In the new section Ex Ex (Exceptional Experiences) we enjoyed the composer and pianist Héctor Parra and the pianist Imma Santacreu, and the open rehearsal of Alba, the dancer and choreographer Aimar Pérez Galí. In addition, 16 sanguinas by Parra were shown in the exhibition La lingua del corpo, inspired by the composition of his new opera Orgia, which will arrive at the Liceu in April 2024.
