It could not be. That extraordinary closing ceremony that the Castell de Peralada Festival had designed, bringing together in a recital the tenor of the moment, Xabier Anduaga, with the explosive soprano Serena Sáenz will not take place. The Basque tenor has just canceled his debut at the Empordà competition this Saturday, and he is going to be replaced by a young American named Jonah Hoskins who a couple of years ago won the second Operalia prize in the Plácido Domingo contest.
The indisposition that Anduaga (San Sebastián, 1995) alleges and that forces him to get off the bill comes after the Basque tenor has also canceled his Don Pasquale in Napa Valley, also together with Sáenz. And that he did the same at the Liceu when it was time to sing in a recital with the soprano Sara Blanch - who had been her partner in Don Pasquale right there -, going out to replace him with Pene Pati.
It is not usually the case that a singer his age chains cancellations like Anduaga does. And the fact that his appearance in Peralada is suspended prevents the festival from becoming the extraordinary showcase capable of quoting in this reduced and condensed edition of just ten days the most rampant tenors of the new generation.
Well, while Anduaga appears as the undisputed king among the young lyrical-light tenors due to his vocal beauty that finds no equal for the bel canto repertoire, among the spinto tenors the rivalry is precisely between Freddie de Tommaso, who inaugurated the festival, and the Chilean-American Jonathan Tetelman, who made his debut five years ago at the Liceu in Barcelona as Cavaradossi (replacing Fabio Sartori) and who will go on stage at the Iglesia del Carmen on Thursday.
Serena Sáenz from Barcelona, also winner of the second Operalia prize in 2022 and whose powerful vocal output has been enjoyed by the high school audience on three occasions -with Lucia di Lammermoor, The Magic Flute and Don Pasquale- will thus share a recital with a young lyric tenor who is called to be a promise. Hoskins made his European debut this 2022-23 season as Chevalier Belfiore in Il Viaggio A Reims at the Semperoper Dresden. After which he returned to the program for young artists at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and made his debut in a leading role as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore.
Born in Saratoga Springs (Utah) in 1996, Hoskins started with roles in The Magic Flute, Falstaff's Fenton or Gainni Schicchi's Rinuccio, and later made his debut in Massenet's Cendrillon, as Dean of the Faculty at the Met, and as Count Almaviva from Il barbiere di Siviglia at Pensacola Opera or as the sailor from Tristan und Isolde at the Santa Fe Opera.
The Peralada festival is pending confirmation if the entire program that Anduaga and Sáenz had planned to offer this Saturday is maintained or if the part of the Spanish repertoire changes.
