Fifteen titles make up the 2020-2021 season of Teatro Real de Madrid. Rusalka, Peter Grimes, Norma, Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Giovanni, Siegfried, Tosca, The Birth of the Sun King, Elektra, Don Fernando, the location and Orlando Furioso are part of  the bet on the Madrid stage for the gradual return to the new normal.

 

 

In its 24th season after the reopening, Teatro Real presents an ambitious program, leading co-productions with the most important European theaters, promoting current creation, defending the Spanish musical heritage and offering great titles of the lyrical repertoire with some of the most acclaimed singers worldwide in their respective repertoires.

 

Among the 15 titles of the OPERA PROGRAMMING, which runs from the 17th century to the present day, there will be 7 new productions of Teatro Real ─Rusalka, Peter Grimes, Lessons in Love and Violence, Norma, Viva la Mamma! and the 2 world premieres Marie and Transit─; 4 invited productions ─Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Giovanni, Siegfried and Tosca─; and 4 operas in concert version: The Birth of the Sun King, Elektra, Don Fernando, the location and Orlando Furioso. 

 

This season is possible thanks to the support of all the sponsors of Teatro Real and especially to Telefónica, as the main technological patron; Endesa,as energy chief patron; and the BBVA Foundation and the Santander Foundation, as main sponsors.

 

 

NEW PRODUCTIONS

Due to its international projection, two important new European co-productions stand out that will be premiered at Teatro Real before being presented in the other co-producing theaters: Rusalka, by Antonin Dvořák (Ivor Bolton / Christof Loy), co-produced with the theaters opera from Dresden, Bologna, Barcelona and Valencia; and Peter Grimes, by Benjamin Britten (Ivor Bolton / Deborah Warner), co-produced with the Royal Opera House in London, the Paris Opera and the Rome Opera. 

 

The popular Czech romantic opera Rusalka will perform for the first time at the reopened Teatro Real with stage direction by Christof Loy, creator great triumph of Capriccio of Richard Strauss’, last season. With the complicity of Ivor Bolton, responsible for the musical direction, Loy will once again explore a mythical and mysterious universe tinged with tragic resonances and populated by nymphs, elves, princes and princesses who sing beautiful melodies and who will give life to two casts led by Asmik Grigorian and Olesya Golovneva, who will be accompanied by Karita Mattila and Alexandra Deshorties; Eric Cutler and David Butt Philip; Katarina Dalayman Okka and von der Damerau, Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev and Steven Humes.

 

Peter Grimes will reunite Ivor Bolton (musical direction), Deborah Warner (stage direction) and Michael Levine (stage design), after the great success obtained with the award-winning production of Billy Budd, also by Britten, in which they worked together. They will once again feature a choral cast led by Allan Clayton, Maria Bengtsson and Christopher Purves, in this masterpiece that speaks of the destructive power of a hypocritical and unforgiving society. 

 

Another important international co-production, Lessons in Love and Violence, by George Benjamin – joint commission and co-production of Teatro Real with the Operas in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Lyon, Chicago and Barcelona – will culminate the presentation in Madrid of the operas by this great composer , after the enormous success of Written on Skin (2016) and Into the Little Hill (2019). 

 

The opera, created like the previous ones in partnership with the playwright Martin Crimp, part of the Elizabethan drama Edward II, by Christopher Marlowe, to enter the sordid and tortuous path to rise to power as a wicked spiral from which no one is saved, reflected sharply in the staging of Katie Mitchell, highly praised by international critics at her premiere at the Royal Opera House in London two years ago. Josep Pons, musical director of Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, ​​will direct the opera in both theaters. The soloists include Stéphane Degout, Gyula Orendt and Georgia Jarman.

 

Two world premieres Spanish composers from different generations reaffirm the commitment of Teatro Real with the current creation. Marie, by Germán Alonso, with a libretto and dramaturgy by Lola Blasco, investigates the fight of a woman for her sexual freedom based on the character of Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, present in the opera by Alban Berg. It will be performed at the Teatro de la Abadía, with staging by Rafael Villalobos and with the participation of the singers Xavier Sabata, Jordi Domènech, Nicole Beller Carbone and Valentina Coladonato, who will perform with the Ensemble Proyecto Ocnos under the direction of the composer.

 

Tránsito, with music and libretto by Jesús Torres, is a foray into the universe of exiles Spanish republican after the Second World War, in a time of doubts and disappointments evoked in the heartbreaking drama of the same name by Max Aub. The opera will premiere in Naves Matadero, with Lydia Vinyes-Curtis, Isaac Galán, María Miró, Javier Franco and José Manuel Sánchez; stage direction by Eduardo Vasco and musical direction by Jordi Francés, at the head of the Titular Orchestra of Teatro Real.

 

Teatro Real will premiere a new production by Norma, by Vincenzo Bellini, with musical direction by Maurizio Benini and two great voice in which will alternate in the title role Yolanda Auyanet and casts Hibla Gerzmava,, seconded by Clémentine Margaine and Annalisa Stroppa; Michael Spyres and John Osborn; and Roberto Tagliavini and Fernando Radó, in the main roles. 

 

The stage direction will be by Justin Way, who, together with the renowned set designer Charles Edwards, has conceived a minimalist montage with strong symbolic power prepared for easy roaming. Teatro Real will thus have its own production of this iconic opera of romantic belcantismo, with flexibility to be adapted to different spaces, such as the Ljubljana Festival, where it will take the stage five months after its premiere in Madrid, on a tour of the Titular Choir and Orchestra of Teatro Real.

 

Viva Mamma!, New production of Teatro Real in coproduction with the operas of Lyon and Geneva, is the name coined by film director Helmut Käutner to the dramma giocoso of Gaetano Donizetti Le Convenienze ed Inconvenienze Teatrali, which will premiere in Madrid with a hilarious and ingenious staging signed by Laurent Pelly and acclaimed by the public and critics since its premiere. In his satirical entanglement, which reveals the back room of an opera rehearsal where a gallery of caricatured characters parades, the one of the histrionic Mamma Agata, mother of the seconda-donna, stands out, whose crazy role Donizetti awarded to a baritone and who will be interpreted in Teatro Real by Carlos Álvarez and Luis Cansino, in charge of both casts. He will be accompanied by Sabina Puértolas, Borja Quiza, Gabriel Bermúdez, Sylvia Schwartz, Xabier Anduaga, Carol García and Enric Martínez-Castignani, under the musical direction of Evelino Pidò. 

 

INVITED PRODUCTIONS

Un Ballo in Maschera, by Giuseppe Verdi, will open the season with a production from the Teatro de la Fenice, in which stage director Gianmaria Aliverta claims the American setting devised by Verdi’s librettists to circumvent censorship.

 

Nicola Luisotti, main guest director of Teatro Real, will direct two casts of great Verdian voices, who will alternate in the leading roles: Michael Fabiano, Ramón Vargas, Anna Pirozzi, Tatiana Serjan, Artur Rucinski, George Petean, Daniela Barcellona, María José Montiel, Elena Sancho Pereg and Isabella Gaudí.

 

Don Giovanni, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, will bring to the Royal the acclaimed staging of Claus Guth, in which Don Giovanni, killed since the beginning of the opera by a fatal blow, recalls, dying, the episodes of his dissolute life in an environment dark and disturbing. 

 

Ivor Bolton, a distinguished Mozart director, will be in charge of two casts with Christopher Maltman and Adrian Erod; Brenda Rae, Adela Zaharia and María José Moreno; Mauro Peter and Airam Hernández; Anett Fritsch and Federica Lombardi; Erwin Schrott and Marko Mimica; in the leading roles.

 

 Siegfried continue tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner,with musical direction by Pablo Heras-Casado and disturbing and demanding production of Robert Carsen and Patrick Kinmonth starring a cast selected Wagnerian: Andreas Schager, Andreas Conrad, Tomasz Konieczny, Martin Winkler, Ricarda Merbeth and Ronnita Miller, among others.

 

Tosca, by Giacomo Puccini, with Nicola Luisotti in the musical direction, will close the season with a production conceived by Paco Azorín, responsible for the stage direction and set design of the pucciniano drama, which flows directly and effectively, leaving room for expression of the characters, who will be embodied by three star casts and who will bring to Madrid Sondra Radvanovsky, Maria Agresta, Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Michael Fabiano, Yusif Eyvazof, Jonas Kaufmann, Carlos Álvarez and Luca Salsi. 

 

OPERA IN CONCERT VERSION

Within the framework of the defense of the Spanish musical heritage A romantic opera that triumphed at Teatro Real in the 19th century,be rescued from oblivion Don Fernando, the location, by Valentín de Zubiaurre with a review by the great Verdian expert Francesco Izzo and the collaboration of the ICCMU, Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences, will. José Miguel Pérez Sierra will be in charge of directing the score in front of a cast that includes José Bros, Miren Urbieta Vega, Damián del Castillo, Fernando Radó and Cristina Faus, among others.

 

Baroque opera It will be represented by two very diverse proposals, both in concert version and with specialized singers and orchestras in that repertoire. The birth of the Sun King (Le Ballet Royal de la Nuit), a delicious 17th-century ‘miscellany’ of opera and dance conceived by various composers, will be recreated by the Ensemble Correspondances conducted by harpsichordist Sébastien Daucé. Orlando Furioso, by Antonio Vivaldi, will be performed by the versatile Greek group Armonia Athena, with the imprint of its multifaceted and award-winning director George Petrou, renowned expert in the baroque universe. 

 

Finally, a single performance will be offered Elektra by Richard Strauss’s with the Philharmonia Orchestra, which will perform alongside an impressive female trio ─Irene Theorin, Lise Davidsen and Anna Larsson─, under the orders of the famous Finnish director Esa-Pekka Salonen.

 

 

VOICES OF THE REAL

The cycle will have 5 concerts: the first will star the versatile American artist Audra McDonald, followed by four magnificent singers who are part of the “great family” of Teatro Real: Philippe Jaroussky, Joyce DiDonato, Javier Camarena and Piotr Beczala.

 

 

CAMERA SUNDAYS 

The musical program is completed by the cycle of 7 concerts starring soloists from the Titular Orchestra of the Teatro Real; the Concert of the Friends of Teatro Real Foundation in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven, in which the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Cor de Cambra of the Palau de la Música Catalana, under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel, will perform the compelling 9th Symphony ; and the Viñas Tenor Contest Concert, starring the winners of its 58th edition, together with the Titular Orchestra of the Teatro Real under the direction of Álvaro Albiach.

 

 

OPERA IN CINEMA

A program articulated with the productions of the season, will offer in the main room 4 operas recorded on its stage: Faust, by Charles Gounod (Dan Ettinger / Àlex Ollé); Il trovatore, by Giuseppe Verdi (Maurizio Benini / Francesco Negrín); and award-winning productions Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (Ivor Bolton / Deborah Warner) and Gloriana (Ivor Bolton / David McVicar).

 

 

REAL JUNIOR

They make up the children’s and youth programming of 8 shows of different formats – music, dance, cinema, puppets, puppets, shadow theater, musical tales, etc. – designed for different ages, of which 3 are their own productions and 5 new productions that will be seen for the first time at Teatro Real and a total of 83 performances aimed at family audiences and schools.

 

The season of EL REAL JUNIOR kicks off with the Gala Everyone at Gayarre!, this time in the main room, which will evoke the stellar moments of the 70 children’s workshops held for 9 years with this successful cycle conceived by Fernando Palacios, which will offer new 18 family functions in the cozy Gayarre Room, closely related, as always, with programmed operas. It will be followed by an inspired version of The Story of a Soldier, Igor Stravinsky’s with choreography and dramaturgy by Ferran Carvajal and interpretation by JORCAM soloists; the magical circus and puppet show Totolín-Entredós, created by the company Etcétera Teatro; the celebrated film version (awarded with an Oscar in 2011 for the best animated film) of Pedro y el Lobo, by Sergey Prokofiev, with performance by the Titular Orchestra of Teatro Real conducted by Luis Miguel Méndez; Tales of the warmth of home,creating for puppets and shadow theater on tales of the Brothers Grimm conceived by the company Karromato Prague; the concert At the piano … Johann Sebastian Jazz! with a two-piano dialogue between Alexis Delgado and Iñaki Salvador in the Orchestra Hall; the poetic proposal A smile without a cat (suite) inspired by Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland, with music by composer José Luis Greco and performance by JORCAM soloists; and, finally, the fun Royal Junior Festival to celebrate the start of the summer holidays in style, with the complicity of the JORCAM Choir and Orchestra and surprise guests, under the direction of Rubén Gimeno.

 

 

PROGRAMMING DANCE

The dance program will bring to Teatro Real 3 companies representing different choreographic and stylistic universes. The Munich Ballet interpret Giselle will, in the version of Peter Wright revised by its current director, Igor Zelensky. The National Dance Company He will present three works: Apollo, by George Balanchine; Concerto DSCH, by Alexei Ratmanski; and White Darkness, by Nacho Duato. And the Royal Ballet of Flanders will offer the absolute premiere of a new version of the work In memoriam, conceived by its director, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

 

 

TRAINING PROGRAM

The program will significantly increase and diversify in the coming season, and will cover both classroom and training online.

 

In the section of The Open Opera, which reveals the assembly process of an operatic production from the inside,have been organized 6 workshops: Un Ballo in Maschera, Siegfried, Peter Grimes, Lessons in Love and Violence, Viva la Mamma! and Tosca. Likewise, also in close relationship with the season, 4 monographic courses: Understanding… Mozart, Benjamin Britten, George Benjamin and the American musical theater. 

 

For those who want to start or expand their operatic culture, Teatro Real offers 4 knowledge courses on opera, 1 on History of voices and 3 around Fundamental Concepts: From the beginning to the 19th century, The Romantic Opera and The Contemporary Opera; and also 3 interdisciplinary courses: The role of women in the history of opera, Didactics of the performing arts and Music and emotional intelligence.

 

The courses for higher education students will continue within the University on Stage program and have been designed 3 training courses in performing arts and business management from culture: Opera and leadership: the art of working with high-performance teams, Scene photography and Regiment and protocol. 

 

 

EL REAL JOVEN

In addition to these training proposals, Teatro Real has created EL REAL JOVEN, a program of cultural revitalization and loyalty for young people between the ages of 18 and 35, which will have exclusive spaces, preferential sales channels and events designed for this group in collaboration with its own committee made up of representatives from different areas of civil society.

 

 

PARALLEL ACTIVITIES

Parallel to these programs, Teatro Real has devised, as in previous seasons, a very rich program of parallel activities to each operatic production, with the collaboration of prestigious cultural institutions such as (in alphabetical order): UNHCR, National Library, Madrid Regional Library, British Council, Czech Center of Culture, Circle of Fine Arts, SGAE Foundation, International Institute, Polish Institute of Culture, National Archaeological Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art of Madrid, Museum of Decorative Arts, Lázaro Galdiano Museum, National Sculpture Museum, Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Naval Museum, Museum of Romanticism, Student Residence, Routes of Emperor Carlos V and Nebrija University.

 

Within this permanent dialogue with different forms of artistic expression and musical languages, the sixth edition of the will take place UNIVERSAL MUSIC FESTIVAL in the summer, and the third edition of the cycle FLAMENCO REAL, with performances throughout the season at Teatro Real.

 

Teatro Real will increase the national and international diffusion of its programming through new recordings and retransmissions and the expansion of the catalog of MyOperaPlayer, an international audiovisual platform created and supervised by Teatro Real, which offers recordings from a large number of theaters in Europe, America and Asia. 

 

Finally, within the framework of its SOCIAL CLASSROOM, Teatro Real continues to welcome children throughout the academic year in unfavorable situations, whether physical, psychological or social, with a program that uses music as an integrative and therapeutic vehicle, developed with the support of the Fundación Acción Social por la Música. 

 

LOCATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTION

LOCATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTION: About will go on sale 255,000 localities (including those of the fertilizers) of the next season.

 

CATEGORIES OPERA SUBSCRIPTION: Are offered 2 shifts of subscriptions 10 operas, 5 shifts of fertilizers of 9 operas (one on weekends), 1 shift a bonus 7 operas 3 shifts of subscriptions 6 operas (one also on weekends), 2 turns of abonus 5- operaand 2 shifts of fertilizers (Selection I and II) of 3 popular titles. 

 

DANCE PASSES: are offered 4 shifts of dance tickets with 3 shows each.

 

“VOCES DEL REAL’: Offered 1 shift payment of 3 concerts.

 

FAMILIES OF ‘CAMERA SUNDAYS’: It is offered 1 turn Fertilizer 7 concerts (includes Viñas Concert)

 

‘OPERA IN CINEMA’ PASSES: It is offered 1 round of subscription of 4 screenings.

 

‘EL REAL JUNIOR’ PASSES: are offered 3 different types of passeswith weekend functions: 2 shifts for the main room on Saturday and Sunday with 3 shows; 2 turns for the Gayarre Hall and Orchestra Hall with 4 shows also on saturday and sunday; and the Sunday subscription All to Gayarre! in the morning and evening shift. 

 

REAL YOUNG: The commitment to young people is reinforced with new and expanded initiatives such as the first inaugural Gala of the season for young people with Un Ballo in Maschera at special prices on 16 September. The is also created Youth Chair, with more than 5,000 tickets in seats for young people distributed in Platea, Principal and Entresuelo, which will have a preferential sale for young Friends and for other young people up to 35 years before going on sale to the public. Children under 26 will get these tickets for 20 €and those under 35 for 30 €. Likewise, the Last Minute online sale will be opened, in which those under the age of 26 years can purchase an entry for 20 euros and young people between 26 and 35 years old can purchase tickets for 35 euros.

 

FRIENDS OF TEATRO REAL: From 60 euros per year you can already enjoy the advantages of being a Friend of the Teatro Real, with a 75% deductible donation.

 

YOUNG FRIENDS OF TEATRO REAL: From 25 euros per year you can already enjoy the advantages of being a Young Friend of Teatro Real.