In the first version of the competition of the association Ópera XXI, Gloriana and Die Soldaten, two productions of the Madrid Coliseum were awarded in the category best operatic production and best direction of scene respectively

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The Association of Theaters, Festivals and Stable Opera Seasons in Spain, ÓPERA XXI, has celebrated the first edition of the Ópera XXI Awards, with which they want to recognize the national lyrical activity during the 2017-2018 season, and in which have been awarded two titles of the Teatro Real: Gloriana, in the category of new opera production, and Die Soldaten, for the stage direction by Calixto Bieito.

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The jury was composed of musicologists Jaume Radigales and Begoña Lolo, soprano Ana María Sánchez, specialized journalists Gonzalo Alonso, Pablo Meléndez-Haddad, Fernando Sans Rivière and Juan Ángel Vela del Campo and the writer and music promoter Ramón Gener.

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In addition to the aforementioned,has been awarded Guillermo García Calvo, by the musical direction of Siegfried at the Oviedo Opera (September 2017), the soprano Mariella Devia, for her interpretation of Lucrezia Borgia in the operatic season organized by the Association of Friends of the Opera of La Coruña and Mirna Lacambra, for the development project of the operatic activity in front of Amics de la Òpera de Sabadell.

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On the other hand, the verdict on the honorary award to the person and institution for its significant contribution to the world of poetry has fallen on the figure of Josep Carreras and the Association of Friends of the Opera of La Coruña.

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The award ceremony of these new awards will take place on March 21, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona.

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The Teatro Real premiered last April its new production of Gloriana, by Benjamin Britten, in co-production with the English National Opera and the Vlaamse Opera (Flamenco Opera) of Antwerp, with musical direction by Ivor Bolton, and scenic by David McVicar. In it, the stage director places the Queen at the center of a corrupt and hypocritical palatial world, which she controls with an iron hand, in the same measure in which she is watched closely by subjects and courtiers, in a Europe immersed in struggles religious and territorial. Isabel I moves in the refined and conceptual scenography of Robert Jones, which emphasizes the acting work of the performers, and the rich Elizabethan costumes conceived by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, inspired by paintings from the National Gallery of London, which assumes an almost scenographic character.

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A month later, on May 16, he went on stage at the Teatro Real Die Soldaten, by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, coinciding with the centenary of the composer. Starting from his directives, which situate the orchestra and the performers in a central stage surrounded by the public, Calixto Bieito places them in the center of the scene, in an installation designed by the scenographer Rebecca Ringst, who simulates a barracks where the musicians’ armed ‘with their instruments are partakers of barbarism. Die Soldaten had the musical direction of Pablo Heras-Casado. The public is summoned to contemplate scenes of caserna and aggressions that are articulated and mixed with broken family dialogues and empty military conversations pulverized by shouts and cannon fire, in a mosaic built with bursts of lives intertwined in a spiral that leads inexorably to the abyss and stupor .