Gustavo Gimeno, Spain's most internationally renowned director, is rehearsing 'Jen?fa' at Les Arts, one of the season's biggest productions.

• The Valencian maestro also inaugurates the 2023 symphonic program with two concerts with pianist Javier Perianes in Valencia and Castelló

• Since 2019, Gustavo Gimeno has maintained a close relationship with Les Arts, and is an essential figure in its programming.

Valencia (05.01.23). Gustavo Gimeno returns this January with Janáček's 'Jeněfa' to the pit of Les Arts, where he made his operatic debut in 2015 with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana.

After eight years, the Valencian maestro, already established as one of the most internationally renowned Spanish conductors, musical director of the Luxembourg Philharmonic and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and future head of the Teatro Real, reunites with the audience of the Main Hall in one of the great bets of the 2022-2023 season: the breathtaking opera by Leoš Janáček, never before performed in the Les Arts repertoire.

Since the beginning of January, the Valencian maestro has been preparing with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (OCV) the first opera title that Les Arts will offer in 2023, an exceptional score, of immeasurable expressive power and timbral richness, which will allow us to enjoy the excellences of the OCV.

The Valencian maestro also directs a cast of leading figures in the operatic scene for the first time that Les Arts has programmed Janáček's opera, a regular in the programming of major theaters, with the American soprano Corinne Winters as the protagonist and who is considered the current reference interpreter of Jenčfa.

Also singing for the first time in Valencia will be German mezzo-soprano Petra Lang, who adds the role of Kostelnička to her repertoire. She will be joined by Americans Brandon Jovanovich, one of the leading dramatic tenors of our time, who will sing the role of Laca Klemeč, and Norman Reinhardt, who made a highly successful debut as Steva in this same production in Amsterdam. Elena Zaremba, a leading mezzo-soprano in the Russian repertoire, will sing the role of Stačenca Buryjovka, the matriarch of the clan.

Close relationship

Since his debut in 2014, with concerts with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in Valencia and Castelló de la Plana, Gustavo Gimeno established a close relationship with the OCV that would culminate in the challenge of conducting his first opera in the 2014-2015 season at Les Arts, Bellini's 'Norma', with the diva Mariella Devia in the lead role in seven memorable performances.

After a four-year absence, the Valencian musician has maintained a steady presence in the Valencia Auditorium's symphonic program since 2019, selling out every performance. Gimeno has been at the heart of some of the OCV's most brilliant performances in recent years, such as his exceptional Mahler concerts, including a revelatory performance of the Ninth Symphony and his equally magnificent Third Symphony with Violeta Urmana in 2021.

Among the different styles and composers that he has offered with the resident ensemble of Les Arts, Gimeno has tackled everything from the Russian repertoire, with a monograph of Stravinsky with the reading of two of his great works: 'The Rite of Spring' and 'Petrushka', as well as the challenging 'Fourth Concerto' by Beethoven with Javier Perianes as pianist, accompanied by a celebrated 'Seventh' by Bruckner as the closing of the evening.

This time, Gimeno will do double duty for the first time in a Les Arts season, since, in addition to the opera, he will conduct a concert with the OCV and the prestigious pianist Javier Perianes, on January 26 in Valencia and on January 28 in Castelló de la Plana.