Lucia di Lammermoor, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, Eugenio Oneguin, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata and Andrea Chénier, are the bets of the opera season of the theater, with casts including singers with promising ascending careers, such as Iván Ayón and Yaritza Véliz, with consecrated voices such as: Nadine Koutcher, Alfred Kim, Vitaliy Bilyy, Rame Lahaj, Vlada Borovko, Karah Son and Joel Prieto, and outstanding Chilean interpreters, such as Evelyn Ramírez, Ricardo Seguel and Javier Arrey, among others. The Municipal also announced new schedules for its shows, discounts on tickets and season tickets, and a dynamic room format that will allow attendees to organize while maintaining physical distance.

 

 

Seven opera titles, five ballet, ten concerts and seven piano recitals will offer Teatro Municipal de Santiago during its 2021 season, announced today through a videoconference open to the public and led by the Mayor of Santiago and Chairman of the Board of Directors from the Municipal Theater, Felipe Alessandri, together with the General Director of the institution, Carmen Gloria Larenas. The proposal contemplates 9% more functions for next year, concentrated essentially on the casts of national artists, as a way to support the country’s cultural sector.

 

The season, prepared by the artistic team of the Theater, will bring great works from the universal repertoire, as well as classic pieces long awaited by the public. The opera titles will be Lucia di Lammermoor, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, Eugenio Oneguin, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata and Andrea Chénier, a work that has not been presented at the Municipal since 1985.

 

The opera will bring prominent voices from the international and national lyric scene, as well as singers with promising ascending careers. Among them will be the Madrid tenor, Joel Prieto, who will play Tamino in Die Zauberflöte in the company of the outstanding Chilean soprano and member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Program, Yaritza Véliz (Pamina). Lucia’s role in Lucia di Lammermoor, will feature the Belarusian soprano, Nadine Koutcher, while Edgardo will be played by the Peruvian tenor, Iván Ayón Rivas. He is joined by Alexandra Jovanović (the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte). The public will also be able to enjoy the solid voices of the Chilean baritone Ricardo Seguel (Sharpless in Madama Butterfly), María Luisa Merino (Bersi in Andrea Chénier), Evelyn Ramírez (Suzuki in Madama Butterfly), Javier Arrey (Giorgio Germont in La Traviata), Patricia Cifuentes (Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor), Patricio Sabaté (Escamillo in Carmen), Álvaro Zambrano (Lenski in Eugenio Oneguin), the Georgian mezzo-soprano Natalia Kutateladze (the main role in Carmen), the Russian soprano Vlada Borovko (Tatiana in Eugenio Oneguin), the South Korean bass In Sung Sim (Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte), among others.

 

In ballet, the public will be able to enjoy Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Giselle, Carmen and Swan Lake, in proposals created by Marcia Haydée, Luis Ortigoza and Jaime Pinto.

 

The concert season, meanwhile, will be inaugurated by the baton of Alejandra Urrutia in March, women’s month, and the debut at Municipal de Santiago of the outstanding director Alejo Pérez, one of the names that has focused attention on the musical environment . The teacher and current titular director of the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater,, will also arrive in Chile for the first time Hendrik Vestmann. Alejo Pérez, who was one of the main directors of the Royal Theater of Madrid during the time of Gerard Mortier and a regular guest at the Lyon Opera, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and the Stuttgart Opera, among others, will direct works by C. Debussy, PI Tchaikovski, M. Ravel, C. Saint-Saëns in July. Meanwhile, Vestmann, who has conducted major concerts at Komische Oper Berlin, Adelaide Festival, Auckland Arts Festival, West Australian Opera and other stages, will be in charge of Mozart’s Requiem and Die Zauberflöte in June.

 

The repertoire of the concert season also includes great pieces from the symphonic and symphonic-choral repertoire, such as the first eight symphonies by Lv Beethoven, Mass Requiem by G. Verdi and Requiem by WA, Mozart, The Passion according to Saint Matthew (JS Bach) and Carmina Burana (C. Orff), among other works. Some great soloists who will be in the season are the pianists Alfredo Perl and Luis Alberto Latorre and the outstanding violinist and concertmaster of the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra awarded a scholarship from the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Society, Alexander Abukhovich.

 

“Today, despite the limitations of space on the stage and in the hall due to the sanitary measures necessary to protect the health of everyone, the public and artists, we are with you presenting a different, flexible and dynamic season. For the future, even with its share of uncertainty, we must continue to be leaders in the training of the artists of tomorrow. We believe in Chilean talent and we know of the influence that the Municipal has when it comes to encouraging the development of new generations of art exponents, “said the Mayor of Santiago and President of the Santiago Municipal Board, Felipe Alessandri.

 

“The 2021 Season is a reflection of the commitment of the Municipal Theater of Santiago with artists and people, in those exceptional times. We have made an additional effort to contribute to reviving the cultural sector from our work, and also reaching more people, accompanying them and breaking down access barriers. For this reason, we will have more functions, more opportunities with reduced prices and a flexibility policy so that everyone can enjoy the magic that happens on the Municipal stage, “added Carmen Gloria Larenas, General Director of the Theater.

 

During 2021, the Theater will also keep its digital season, Municipal Delivery, released in the framework of the pandemic, which achieved wide public reception, and which only in its first four months had a reach of more than eight million users around to their concerts, talks, online classes and other digitally shared content. “Municipal Delivery allowed us to see an audience that was geographically distant, but who loves and enjoys music, dance and the different artistic expressions that are experienced in the Theater. It is an audience that we are not going to leave alone, we will continue to accompany them and share with them our productions and the work of our artists, ”added Carmen Gloria Larenas.

 

The season considers a drop of 15% in the prices of season tickets and up to 25% in the purchase of tickets at the box office. Thus, the prices of shows such as concerts will start from $ 1,000. In addition, the Municipal announced new schedules for its functions, with shows at 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm from Monday to Thursday, at 5:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and at noon on Sundays, thus expanding the alternatives for the public. The measure, in addition, is due to the positive reception that the hourly adjustments implemented during 2019 had and is ahead of the flexibility and telework that will be installed in the country once the health crisis is overcome.

 

As part of the prevention measures of the Covid-19, the organization has contemplated a capacity of between 30% and 35% of the capacity of the theater once the previous stages of confinement have been overcome, in addition to the implementation of sanitation of the spaces, the mandatory use of face masks and alcohol gel, disposition of shoe and hand disinfectants, in addition to all the measures established by the authority at that time. To distribute to the public safely with reduced capacity, the Municipal developed a new concept of Dynamic Room that will allow adapting the space while maintaining social distance between attendees. In this way, those who attend the shows will be able to buy individual or group tickets and it will be the purchase platform itself that will offer them seats that meet the number of tickets required and the proper distance with other attendees. Also, as part of preventive measures, the opera season will be held in concert format, in order to ensure the social distance between musicians and singers and maintain the musical balance of the works.

 

Download the 2021 season here

 

OPERA: FROM MOZART TO GIORDANO

Seven opera titles will be offered by the Municipal de Santiago in 2021, a season that will not only bring great lyrical voices from Chile and the world, but will also have leading national creators in the art direction, who will be charge of the aesthetic experience of each work, both on stage and off stage.

 

Love, madness and death will come in March with Lucia di Lammermoor (G. Donizetti), directed by Paolo Bortolameolli. The play will have the belcanto expert, Nadine Koutcher (Belarus) playing Lucia, and Iván Ayón Rivas (Peru) as Edgardo. The star cast, meanwhile, will feature Patricia Cifuentes (Chile) and Dario Schmunck (Argentina). The art direction will be in the hands of Monse Catalá Ramos.

 

In April one of the most beloved operas by the public and represented in the world will be presented, Carmen (G. Bizet), with Maximiano Valdés in the musical direction and Jorge Gallardo in the art direction. It will be the debut of Natalia Kutateladze (Georgia) as the charming and free Carmen, the same role that the Chilean Evelyn Ramírez will have in the star cast; while the Slovak tenor, Peter Berger and the Chilean Patricio Sabaté, will star in Don José. The title will also have back in the international cast Oksana Sekerina (Russia) as Micaela, after her successful role in The Force of Destiny in the 2019 season of the Municipal Theater.

 

The season will continue in June with one of WA Mozart’s most popular titles, Die Zauberflöte, to be directed by current Oldenburgisches Staatstheater chief conductor Hendrik Vestmann. The Estonian-born director has had engagements at Komische Oper Berlin, Macau International Festival, Adelaide Festival, Auckland Arts Festival, West Australian Opera, among other settings. The Magic Flute will have Yaritza Véliz (Chile) and Joel Prieto (Spain) alongside Chileans Paulina González and Diego Godoy as Pamina and Tamino. The work will also feature in the international cast with one of the most recognized Papageno in the world, the Spanish Joan Martín-Royo.

 

In July, meanwhile, it will be the turn of Russian romanticism with Eugenio Oneguin (PI Tchaikovski) under the direction of the Italian master Roberto Rizzi Brignoli. The Russian repertoire expert Maxim Aniskin (Belarus) and the soprano Vlada Borovko (Russia) will bring this proposal to life, which will be directed by Pablo Núñez. The star cast will star Petr Sokolov and Anna Bondarenko.

 

Another classic loved by the public will arrive in August, with Madama Butterfly (G. Puccini), who will have in his main roles Karah Son (South Korea), who has already played Cio Cio San on prominent stages of the world, and the outstanding Chilean, Paulina González, while in the role of Pinkerton There will be Migran Agadzhanyan (Armenia), who will debut in La Traviata during the next season of the MET, and the tenor Giorgi Sturua, who has had outstanding roles at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, at the Georgian National Opera, among other stages. Chilean baritone Ricardo Seguel, meanwhile, will be part of the international cast in the role of Sharpless. The baton will be in the hands of Pedro-Pablo Prudencio, while Miryam Singer will be in charge of the art direction.

 

September will come with the traditional toast of La Traviata (G. Verdi), with the direction of José Miguel Pérez-Sierra and the leading voices of Nadine Koutcher (Belarus) and Andrea Aguilar (Chile) as Violetta, and Rame Lahaj (Kosovo) and Santiago Ballerini (Argentina) as Alfredo. After his successful role in Rigoletto, the baritone also returns Sebastian Catana (Romania) as Giorgio Germont, the same role that the outstanding Chilean Javier Arrey will have in the star cast. The art direction will be in charge of Pablo Núñez.

 

The opera season will close with the long-awaited Andrea Chénier. 36 years after his last presentation at Municipal de Santiago, the realism of this work by Umberto Giordano will be directed by Roberto Rizzi Brignoli. Alfred Kim (South Korea) and Samuele Simoncini (Italy) will play Andrea Chénier while Elena Mikhailenko (Russia) and Ewa Vesin (Poland) will play the role of Maddalena. The international cast will also have the voice of the Chilean mezzo-soprano, winner of the Women in Music Contest 2017, María Luisa Merino. The art direction will be Ramón López.

 

BALLET: THE RETURN OF THE CLASSICS

May will be the start month of the Municipal’s ballet season, which will open with Carmen, in a choreographic proposal created especially for the Santiago Ballet by Marcia Haydée in 2014. The adaptation revives the best-known arias from the famous opera by G. Bizet, such as “Habanera” and “La Song del Torero”. During July and August it will be the turn of the romantic ballet with Giselle, in a new choreographic version by Luis Ortigoza, based on the proposal of Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli. The magic of Swan Lake will return to the Municipal in October, in a version created by Marcia Haydée and released in 2009 by the Royal Ballet of Flanders. The scenery and costumes for these three titles will be in charge of Pablo Núñez.

 

November will be the month of Sleeping Beauty, in a version by Marcia Haydée that delivers a particular proposal by the witch Carabosse. Traditionally starring women, Haydée gives this role to a man, in an original interpretation of the famous tale by Charles Perrault.

 

The year of ballet will close with the Christmas classic, Nutcracker, where PI Tchaikovski’s music joins Jaime Pinto’s choreography, in one of the ballet titles most appreciated by the public.

 

The lighting of the entire ballet season will be in charge of Ricardo Castro.

 

CONCERTS: GREAT WORKS OF THE SYMPHONIC AND SYMPHONIC-CHORAL REPERTOIRE AND THE DEBUT OF ALEJO PÉREZ

The debut at the Municipal of Alejo Pérez, a tour of the greatest symphonies of Lv Beethoven and R. Schumann, and a review of the greatest works of the repertoire symphonic-choral will be the keys to the concert season of the Municipal Theater of Santiago.

 

In July, the outstanding baton of the Buenos Aires director and current musical director of the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Alejo Pérez, will arrive at the Theater to direct the Santiago Philharmonic in the Prelude to a Faun’s Nap (C. Debussy), the Concert for violin and orchestra in D major op.35 by PI Tchaikovski, Bolero by M. Ravel and Symphony no. 3 C. Saint-Saëns. Acclaimed for his stylistic awareness and ability to bring every detail of the most complex sheet music to life, Alejo Pérez has enchanted his expertise at the Salzburg Festival, Teatro Colón, Chicago Opera, as well as Japan (Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra / Nikikai Opera ), among other scenarios, earning a safe place in the international opera and concert scene.

 

As part of the postponed celebrations of250th anniversary Ludwig van Beethoven’s, the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Pedro-Pablo Prudencio will offer the first eight symphonies of the German composer during January. The 2021 season will also tour the first four Schumann symphonies in two concerts that will mark the face-to-face debut of Roberto Rizzi Brignoli as titular conductor in June and October, in which the opening of The Poacher (CM. Weber) and the prelude to The Master Singers of Nuremberg (R. Wagner), respectively.

 

The month of women will have precisely one of them leading the Santiago Philharmonic: Alejandra Urrutia. The baton lead a talented national program that starts with Cantos night of the national composer Diego González, winner of the 2019 Composition Competition Continues SInfonia of the New World and,, Alfredo Perl, one of the most outstanding Chilean pianists of international career, will perform the Emperor Concerto finally by Lv Beethoven, the last of the piano concerts written by the genius of Bonn.

 

As a counterpoint, in April the Municipal will offer part of the iconic contemporary repertoire, in a concert with a dance spirit, led by the outstanding teacher Maximiano Valdés. First, the successful composer Leonard Bernstein with his will Symphonic Dances from West Side Story appear.The spirit of New York bars and jazz will come later with Rhapsody in blue, by the American composer George Gershwin, who in turn influenced the most jazzy passages in Bernstein’s work. For this moment, the piano will be in the hands of the Chilean Luis Alberto Latorre. The concert will close with another reference from Bernstein who, in addition, was present at the premiere of Rhapsody in blue, Igor Stravinsky, with the work Petrushka.

 

Choral singing, meanwhile, will come at Easter with The Passion according to Saint Matthew (JS Bach), under the baton of Pedro-Pablo Prudencio. The dramatic and musical sense of this work has made many consider it the opera never written by Bach. The composer’s deep religious commitment is transmitted even in his way of writing the score, with different colors for each character and the presence of the figure of the cross at the moment when the people choose the liberation of Barabbas instead of Jesus.

 

The choral symphonic repertoire will continue in May with the Requiem Mass G. Verdi, directed by Roberto Rizzi Brignoli; the Requiem Mass WA Mozart in June, led by Hendrik Vestmann; and in November Carmina Burana by C. Orff and Romantic Symphony Enrique Soro’s, 100 years after its premiere under the direction of Juan Pablo Izquierdo.

 

The Great Pianists Cycle, meanwhile, will have among its guests Alfredo Perl, who in March will offer two concerts with works by JS Bach, F. Chopin and Lv Beethoven. Ukrainian perform different works by these same authors in April. Alexander Romanovsky, winner of the Competition, will Piano International Ferruccio Busoni, who performs on the best stages in Europe, Asia and America.

 

 Goldberg Variations BWV 988 by JS Bach will be performed in May by the brilliant pianist Homero Francesch.The musician, of Uruguayan origin, has performed concerts on the main stages of Europe, America and Oceania, and has worked with directors such as Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, among others.

 

The master of Spanish Javier Perianes will arrive at the Municipal in June, when he will perform works by Lv Beethoven, F. Chopin, E. Granados and F. Liszt. In August it will be the turn of one of today’s most prominent young pianists, Alessio Bax. Distinguished for his performances of Beethoven’s sonatas, he won First Prize in Leeds and in the International Hamamatsu Piano Competition. The Italian musician will perform works by Beethoven, JS Bach and S. Rachmaninov.

 

Applauded for his interpretative versatility and wide repertoire, the Chilean pianist in October Luis Alberto Latorre will perform, who will offer a concert with works by E. Satie, C. Debussy and F. Liszt. Finally, the piano cycle will be closed by Croatian Martina Filjak in November, with works by Lv Beethoven, R. Schumann, JP. Rameau and B. Bartók. Noted for his technical mastery and magnetic presence on stage, Filjak often performs with orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Orchester Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie and Staatskapelle Weimar.

 

2021 SUBSCRIPTION AND TICKETS

As part of the reorganization of the 2020 season due to the pandemic, all subscribers will have the possibility of keeping their tickets valid for 2021, also having an additional opera title. Subscriptions may be renewed from July 23 to October 30. In November, meanwhile, the sale of tickets for the entire season will be open to all audiences.

 

As in previous years, the programming of the Small Municipal will be announced towards the end of the second semester.

Download the 2021 season here