Posts tagged ‘concert’

Rolando Villazón celebrates Giuseppe Verdi.

Anyone considering opera always comes back to Giuseppe Verdi. And for anyone thinking of Verdi, Rolando Villazón immediately springs to mind. With his performances as Alfredo in La Traviata, the Duke in Rigoletto and the title role in Don Carlo, the tenor has glitteringly made his mark on recent interpretations of the operas by Giuseppe Verdi. So naturally, it goes without saying that Rolando Villazón is celebrating the great Italian opera maestro on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2013.

“Verdi is a master of melody. He can express the feelings of his characters through the language of the orchestra in a manner like virtually no other composer. Verdi’s music combines the special qualities of bel canto and Verismo in a way unlike any other” says Villazón. The great tenor will be performing his very personal tribute to Giuseppe Verdi at the Salle Pleyel (22nd April 2013), at the Victoria Hall of Geneva (29th April 2013), at the Grand Théâtre d’Aix-en-Provence (2nd May 2013) and at the Halle aux Grains of Toulouse (24th June 2013), where he will be singing dramatic operatic arias from I Lombardi, I due Foscari, Oberto, Il corsaro, Un Ballo in Maschera as well as other selected arias and songs. A world-class anniversary serenade, also recorded on CD, is a major contribution to the Verdi anniversary year.

Watch Rolando Villazón in Willy Decker’s production for Don Carlo:

Les Grandes Voix : 2013-2014 season

Les Grandes Voix. More than ever. All gathered here: Jonas Kaufmann will be back for two lieder concerts around the music of Schubert and Mahler; la Netrebko, who we didn’t expect in Paris before 2015, will appear here in the great verist repertoire. Rolando Villazón, as Edita Gruberova, will stop in Mozartian lands, Bryn Terfel will play the Wagnerian heros, Patricia Petibon will meet up with her baroque New World… The season will present all the artists who are and who make Les Grandes Voix every year: Roberto Alagna, Juan Diego Flórez, Angela Gheorghiu, Andreas Scholl and Natalie Dessay.

The series will continue its exploration of concert versions of operas, in order to be as close as possible to singing, to the voice in its very substance. A way also to be as close as possible to drama, to reach the heart of Music. We will do it for sure, with Juan Diego Flórez and Daniela Barcellona in Donizetti’s La Favorite, with Roberto Alagna as Otello or with Marie-Nicole Lemieux as one of the most sparkling Rossini’s Italiana.

Les Grandes Voix loves Puccini but next to the great arias we regularly present, we have chosen to present a rare Puccini, Le Villi, which will be performed by the Orchestre National de France and the Choeur de Radio France along with ones of the most essential singers of the international lyric stage who will stand up for it, like the rising soprano Ermonela Jaho.
The beginning of autumn will feature Puccini, with an astonishing duet: the tenor José Cura will make a come back to the series along with Camilla Nylund, who will lend her voice to La Fanciulla del West.

We love both of them in opera casts, les Grandes Voix will applause them together in a composite recital mixing Russian romance and opera duets: the tenor Ramón Vargas and the bass Ildar Abdrazakov will have, for sure, stories to share. At last, as the Wagner year is coming to an end, two giants of the well-known Bayreuth festival will make a stopover in Paris: Gary Lehman and Anja Kampe will offer us large excerpts from Tristan.

Next to the not to be missed regular artist, the essential ones of the today stage, the Grandes Voix will go into a new generation of talents which will add spice to the current season.
On the instrumental side, we would like to take you to the new piano of the British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor and the violin of Ray Chen, worthy pupil of Vengerov, who will play the Kreutzer Sonata but here, to everybody!

Perhaps you remember the counter-tenor Valer Barna-Sabadus who contributed to a smoothly enthousiasm in Artaserse, here he will sing the Haendel repertoire, just like Sonya Yoncheva under the direction of Nathalie Stutzmann. The young and promising Sabine Devieilhe will lend her voice to the Rameau year. All things said, we would like to draw your attention on two young tenors who will turn out to be for sure great ones in the futur: Atalla Ayan and Thiago Arancam, to be continued…

• More information on Les Grandes Voix‘s official website;
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• Visit Rolando Villazón’s official website.