Javier Camarena and Leo Nucci, new stars of the Palau de les Arts season
15.10.2014
Valencia. The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía announces that Mexican tenor Javier Camarena and Italian baritone Leo Nucci have joined the casts for the 2014-2015 subscription season.
Javier Camarena is considered the operatic sensation of the moment after his extraordinary feat at the Metropolitan Opera in New York last April, where, at the audience's request, he repeated the aria 'Si, ritrovarla io giuro' in the middle of a performance of Rossini's La Cenerentola . Only Luciano Pavarotti and, more recently, Juan Diego Flórez have accomplished this feat before the Metropolitan Opera audience in the last 70 years.
A regular in the casts of Munich, New York, Vienna and Zurich, he has worked with directors of the stature of Claudio Abbado, Adam Fischer, Daniele Gatti, Zubin Mehta, Marc Minkowsky and Carlo Rizzi.
The Mexican tenor will perform Stabat Mater, by Rossini, on April 10 at the Auditori del Palau de les Arts alongside the Italian soprano Maria Agresta, the Armenian mezzo-soprano Varduhi Abrahamyan and the Chinese bassist Liang Li.
Giacomo Sagripanti is the musical director of this Rossini opera. The 32-year-old maestro is one of the most promising conductors in the Italian repertoire, with work at the Semperoper in Dresden, the Bolshoi in Moscow, La Fenice in Venice, and the Zurich Opera, among others. He has recently garnered critical and popular acclaim for his Rossini performances at the Pesaro Festival ( Il barbiere di Siviglia ) and at the Paris Opera (La Cenerentola ).
For his part, Leo Nucci, one of the great stars of the world opera scene, will sing the last three performances of Verdi's Nabucco , which will take place on April 10, 12 and 14, 2015.
An outstanding interpreter of the Verdi and verismo repertoire, Leo Nucci is an essential name in the casts of the great opera houses around the world, with engagements in London, Milan, New York, Beijing and Vienna.
His voice and immense stage presence have led him to work with the greatest conductors, such as Herbert von Karajan, Sir Georg Solti, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, James Levine and Zubin Mehta, among others.
Grand Officer of the Italian Republic, Chamber Singer (Kammersänger) and honorary member of the Vienna, and Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic, Leo Nucci will join the gallery of opera stars who have graced the stage of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía with his debut on April 10.
