The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana revives the best moments of Wagner's 'The Ring of the Nibelung', with Gustavo Gimeno

Les Arts és Simfònic

• The Valencian conductor leads 'The Ring Without Words', Lorin Maazel's 75-minute orchestral synthesis of Richard Wagner's 'Tetralogy'.
• The concert, which also includes Strauss's 'Death and Transfiguration', will be performed on Friday the 7th at Les Arts and on Saturday at the Auditori de Castelló.

Valencia (31.1.25). The Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana (OCV) returns to the music of 'The Ring of the Nibelung' by Richard Wagner, one of the ensemble's greatest successes, with Gustavo Gimeno on the podium for a double concert, scheduled for this Friday, February 7 at Les Arts and Saturday the 8th at the Auditori i Palau de Congressos in Castelló.

The Valencian maestro, true to his annual appointment with the OCV, proposes a work closely linked to the origins of the theater's main orchestra: 'The Ring Without Words', the 75-minute orchestral synthesis that Lorin Maazel - the first main conductor and founder of the group - made of Richard Wagner's tetralogy 'The Ring of the Nibelung'.

In its first year of existence, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, under the direction of Zubin Mehta, attracted the attention of international critics for its 2007 performance of 'The Rhinegold' and 'The Valkyrie', prologue and first day, respectively, of the monumental Wagnerian epic.

Between 2008 ('Siegfried') and 2009 ('Götterdämmerung'), the Les Arts orchestra with Mehta on the podium would culminate with an undeniable success the performances of one of the greatest 'tour de force' that exists for an opera house, which concluded with two complete cycles of the four titles that make up the Wagnerian 'Ring'.

From that moment on, the German Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire became one of the emblems of the OCV with memorable interpretations of Wagner, Mahler and Strauss with reference batons such as Lorin Maazel and Zubin Mehta in their beginnings and, more recently, Marc Albrecht, James Gaffigan or Gustavo Gimeno himself, who in recent years has signed with the OCV praised evenings dedicated to the Mahlerian symphonic universe.

Lorin Maazel premiered 'The Ring Without Words' with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1987, a proposal in which he synthesized the fifteen hours of the monumental 'Tetralogy' into a 75-minute symphony, in which, despite the absence of the vocal part, he maintained the narrative development of the work.

Maazel did not structure the piece in movements, as is the case in symphonies, in accordance with the German composer's concept of 'infinite melody' to allow the narrative of the 'Ring' to flow, in which he uses Wagnerian letimotivs to replace the omitted text.

The concert also includes another of the Les Arts resident composers' favorites, Richard Strauss, with a score still unpublished for the orchestra: 'Death and Transfiguration' ('Tod und Verklärung'),

This is one of the most powerful and evocative symphonic poems, in which Strauss captured the last moments of an artist's life who, on his deathbed, remembers and relives in his thoughts all the moments lived before his last breath.

Gustavo Gimeno will conduct 'The Ring Without Words' by Wagner/Maazel and 'Death and Transfiguration' by Strauss on Friday, February 7 at the Auditori de Les Arts at 7:30 p.m.

The following day, the Valencian maestro will offer the same program with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana at the Auditori i Palau de Congressos in Castelló , also at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are still available for both concerts.