Teatro Real opens its 2020-2021 Season with the preview of Un ballo in maschera, by Giuseppe Verdi.

Their Majesties the Kings will preside this Friday, September 18, the inauguration of the 24th season of the Teatro Real, with the opera Un ballo in maschera, by Giuseppe Verdi, which will be offered in a production from the La Fenice Theater in Venice and a response in collaboration with the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville.

16 functions will be offered with a maximum capacity of 75% of the seats and with the health security measures implemented in the 27 representations of La traviata last July, modified in accordance with the regulations recently approved by the Community of Madrid.

The stage director Gianmaria Aliverta and the set designer Massimo Checchetto have made important modifications to the original production of the Teatro de La Fenice in Venice to adapt it to the sanitary protocol of the Teatro Real, keeping its dramaturgical concept intact.

Nicola Luisotti, the first guest conductor of the Teatro Real, will conduct his sixth Verdi title at the head of the Titulares Choir and Orchestra of the Teatro Real, after the enormous success obtained with Don Carlo and La traviata last season. And she will be leading two great voices casts, in which the female lead role (Amelia) will be played by four different sopranos: Anna Pirozzi, Saioa Hernández, María Pia Piscitelli and Sondra Radvanovsky. The casts are completed by tenors Michael Fabiano and Ramón Vargas (Riccardo); the baritones Artur Ruciński and George Petean (Renato), the mezzo-sopranos Daniela Barcellona and Silvia Beltrami (Ulrica) and sopranos Elena Sancho Pereg and Isabella Gaudí (Oscar).

As with the performances of the La traviata, the soloists, choir, actors and theater workers will strictly comply with the Health Safety Protocol designed by the Teatro Real Medical Committee, in accordance with the guidelines of the Community of Madrid.

The Liceu opens the season on September 20 at the Montserrat Monastery with the extraordinary concert “Del Dolor a la Esperanza”

The Gran Teatre del Liceu opens the season on September 20 at 9:00 p.m. in collaboration with the Monastery of Montserrat. This through the concert From Pain to Hope, a universal ceremony that will connect nature, spirituality, art and conscience to send a message of hope to humanity that we must build together.

Televisió de Catalunya will use 10 cameras to record, perform and broadcast on Sunday September 27 at 10:10 a.m. on TV3 the concert directed by Josep Pons and which will feature the voices of the soprano Nadine Sierra, the mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca, the tenor Xabier Anduaga, the bass Tareq Nazmi, the Escolania de Montserrat, the Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

“At this time of great concern, Montserrat and the Liceu want to express confidence in the values ​​of culture to look forward with enthusiasm. We must not stop, and, at the beginning of a season in which we must continue to grow, we affirm that music and art are safe environments to feel better, ”says Liceu president Salvador Alemany.

This act of reflection and gratitude wants to address everyone regardless of their spiritual posture. It is for this reason that a language as universal and powerful as art, and more specifically music, will be the one that conveys the ceremony and helps to overcome trauma. And it will do so with the transition from the tears of Mozart’s Requiem to the trust in the man of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, an expression of this path from pain to hope.

Two of the most relevant artists of the 20th century have also wanted to be part of this ceremony. On the one hand, the atrium of the Basilica will be the canvas for two pieces, Melina and Darrow, by one of the most unquestionable artists who has worked the most on spirituality in a visual way, Bill Viola. And on the other hand, the piece that will open the concert will be the premiere of the adaptation of Virgencita by one of the most important composers of our time, Arvo Pärt. Two collaborations that will help transmit this rehabilitating and transforming message and establish a dialogue between the arts as a pretext to reflect the role that art plays in society and in the world.