From July 23 to August 6, the 2020 Summer Festival of Teatro Auditorio San Lorenzo de El Escorial in El Escorial will take place. The Auditorium Theater will open with a capacity of 50% and under strict safety and hygiene measures to guarantee the safety of the public and workers.

Teatro Auditorio San Lorenzo de El Escorial of the Community of Madrid reopens to the public next July 23 with the new edition of the Summer Festival, a classic on summer nights in the Madrid highlands and one of the main festivals of the summer season in Spain. From that day until August 6, the Festival presents twelve music, dance, theater and humor shows that will star Ainhoa ​​Arteta, Joyce DiDonato, Goyo Jiménez, Yllana, Arcadi Volodos and Zapata, among many others. The reopening of the Auditorium Theater for the Summer Festival will be carried out under strict security and hygiene measures through a protocol that guarantees the safety of the public and workers. It will open with a capacity of 50%.

The Festival opens on July 23 with the piano recital by Arcadi Volodos, who will perform works by Liszt (Ballade nº2, Légende nº1 ‘St François d’Assise: La prédication aux oiseaux’) and Schumann (Bunte Blätter, Humoreske). The well-known Russian pianist has become a world reference in classical music, considered a genius for his unique ability to combine exceptional virtuosity with deep and expressive musicality. Since his debut in New York in 1996, Volodos has performed around the world, both in recitals and with the most eminent orchestras and conductors on the international scene.

On July 24 it will be the turn of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, which will delight the public with two symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven. The renowned musical group will perform Symphony No. 1, the first of the nine that Beethoven composed; and Symphony No. 5, one of the most popular compositions in the history of classical music, whose initial allegro is present in the universal collective imagination. The group will play under the baton of Manuel Coves, Andalusian Conductor with a long career in which he has conducted numerous Spanish and European orchestras. The concert is part of the Beethoven Year, as 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the German composer in Bonn (1770).

Ainhoa ​​Arteta, one of the great voices of Spain, will return to the Auditorium Theater on July 25 with the Origenes recital. Spanish music. Accompanied by the master pianist Javier Carmena, the soprano will tour the great musical pieces of the Spanish classical repertoire, to return to the roots of our musical culture thanks to the works of composers such as Joaquín Turina, Enrique Granados and Jesús Guridi. In this new proposal, the singer presents a program that goes beyond the concept of recital as a succession of works and that discovers part of her vital and professional journey. Ainhoa ​​is a Spain brand and so wants to capture it in this evening, showing a deep respect for the regions and their people, for the roots and, ultimately, for traditions and customs.

In this edition, viewers will travel to other times through the lives of two extraordinary women. On July 26, Capella de Ministres presents his particular musical tribute to Lucrecia Borgia, daughter of Alexander VI, three times married, with a murdered husband and an illegitimate son. And all in just 39 years and in full Renaissance. The Valencian ensemble, directed by Carles Magraner, has based contemporary music on Lucretia to show its humanity, free it from the cliché of a dissolute woman and situate its historical-social context, which will transport the public to the fascinating day-to-day of the Renaissance courts. Italian.

On July 31 Forma Antiqva premieres La Caramba, a new staged lyrical show in which he recovers the music of María Antonia Vallejo Fernández. This Spanish musical theater production – which features the voice of soprano María Hinojosa and the stage proposal by Pablo Viar pays tribute to the famous eighteenth-century tonadillera, returning to the sources that founded her legend, the subject of numerous songs, books, zarzuelas and movies of the 19th and 20th centuries. La Caramba was the object of fascination for its beauty, its enormous power of seduction, its mischievous occurrences, its grace in the art of singing and, finally, for its unusual religious conversion and retirement at the height of his career.

Antonio Galera and Noelia Rodiles will offer two piano recitals on July 27 and 28. In the performance on the 27th, Antonio Galera will perform works by Beethoven, Liszt, Debussy and Ginastera, in an intimate evening to let himself be carried away by the melody of sonatas, suites and Argentine dances. On the 28th Noelia Rodiles will play three sonatas, two by Beethoven and one by the Madrid composer Jesús Rueda (1961).

The touch of humor will come with the shows by Goyo Jiménez, Yllana and Zapata. On August 1, the television comedian Goyo Jiménez will present his greatest hits accompanied on the piano by Julio Awad. With this show, the Summer Festival has taken the license to include a proposal outside of its usual musical program that will surely amuse all kinds of audiences. Laughter is also guaranteed at Maestrissimo (Pagagnini 2), the comic-musical show that Yllana performs on August 4. A family show that reinvents the relationship between humor and classical music and in which, in the purest Yllana style, the adventures and misadventures of a string quartet are shown in an indeterminate period between the 17th and 18th centuries (Baroque and Neoclassicism ). On August 5 José Manuel Zapata premieres Del revés, a lyrical monologue in which the tenor opens his heart to the public. This brave, one-person work begins as ‘one more concert’, but soon turns into a journey through the artist’s life and music, full of humor, surprises and all kinds of anecdotes.

In addition, in this edition there will be space for dance with Volver, from classical ballet to the latest in Spanish dance, the staging that Sergio Bernal Dance Company presents on August 3. Passion, technique and great talent make up this show, which combines flamenco and bolero rhythms with choreography of classical ballet and Spanish dance. On stage will be Sergio Bernal, first dancer of the Spanish National Ballet until 2019; Joaquín de Luz, director of the Compañía Nacional de Danza and Miriam Mendoza, soloist of the National Ballet of Spain.

The Summer Festival will close in style on August 6 with a performance by Joyce DiDonato. The popular American mezzo-soprano will offer a recital full of color in which she will dazzle the audience with her voice coloration and her hypnotic expressiveness, accompanied on piano by Carri Ann Matheson. DiDonato is one of the most sought-after mezzos today, proclaimed by The New Yorker as, possibly, “the most powerful female singer of her generation”. With a voice of “nothing less than 24-karat gold” (The Times), DiDonato has been awarded numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards.

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