The Plácido Domingo Improvement Center begins a new academic year
21.09.2014
– The Centre has programmed for this season the oratorio Juditha triumphans , by Vivaldi, a concert-show with works by Martin i Soler and Mozart, and the new production of Narciso , by Domenico Scarlatti.
Valencia. The Plácido Domingo Centre for Advanced Studies has begun a new academic year this week with a presentation by Davide Livermore, artistic director of this project based at the Teatre Martín i Soler of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía.
The Centre de Perfeccionament's training program is designed to provide young singers with comprehensive preparation for the professional development of their operatic careers. Throughout the season, performers will enjoy multidisciplinary training, which they can complement with practical experience in both the Centre de Perfeccionament's own productions and the operatic performances programmed in the Main Hall.
Also, last August artists from this project made their first international operatic foray with Davide Livermore in Austria, at the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, with Narcissus by Domenico Scarlatti.
Singers Federica Alfano, Valentino Buzza, Choi Hyekyung, and Chiara Osella joined Navarrese mezzo-soprano Maite Beaumont in performances of this new production. Narcissus marks the Palau de les Arts' first collaboration with the prestigious Austrian festival, featuring stage direction and set design by Davide Livermore, costumes by Mariana Fracasso, video art by D-WOK, and lighting by Antonio Castro.
The Teatre Martín i Soler will host the Spanish premiere of this co-production at the end of May 2015, featuring artists from the Centre de Perfeccionament and with Juan Luis Martínez conducting the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana. This will be the second time the Valencian maestro has conducted the resident orchestra of the Palau de les Arts, following his acclaimed debut with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in May 2012.
Domenico Scarlatti's Narciso marks a new foray by the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo into the revival of works outside the traditional repertoire. Since Davide Livermore became artistic director, the Turin-born maestro has explored a wide range of genres and styles with the artists involved in this project, aiming to provide the singers with the most comprehensive training possible.
Premieres such as L'incoronazione di Dario , by Vivaldi, or the opera Cánticos desde el infierno , with libretto by Ramón Sampedro and music by Andrea Chenna, have been some of the innovative bets of the Centre de Perfeccionament last season.
For the new lyrical season, in addition to the production of Narciso , the artists of the Centre de Perfeccionament present a varied program that includes Antonio Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha triumphans , with Federico Maria Sardelli on the podium, for which Livermore proposes a concert-show format, on November 21, 22 and 23, 2014.
On January 27, 2015, to commemorate the anniversary of Mozart's birth, the performers of the Centre de Perfeccionament presented a concert-performance featuring works by the Salzburg genius, as well as by Vicente Martín i Soler, Mozart's contemporary and rival in 18th-century imperial Vienna. It was a musical pastiche inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's short film What Are Clouds? (1967), set in the Age of Enlightenment.
