Plácido Domingo inaugurates the 2014-2015 Season of the Palau de les Arts

– He combines directing Puccini's Manon Lescaut with his first zarzuela in Valencia, Luisa Fernanda by Moreno Torroba, under the baton of Jordi Bernàcer

– Roberto Abbado makes his debut at the head of the OCV with Don Pasquale , by Donizetti. Nicola Luisotti returns for Verdi's Nabucco

Gustavo Gimeno will direct the new production of Bellini's Norma , directed by Davide Livermore and starring Mariella Devia.

– The program includes a concert by Gustavo Gimeno featuring symphonies by Beethoven, Stabat Mater by Rossini, and Bluebeard's Castle by Bartók

– The Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo makes a new foray into the Baroque repertoire with the opera Narciso , by Domenico Scarlatti, and the oratorio Juditha triumphans , by Vivaldi

Valencia. Plácido Domingo opens the 2014-2015 season at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía. The singer, conductor, and artistic director takes center stage in the first months of the opera season with Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Moreno Torroba's Luisa Fernanda , which runs through December and January.

On December 9, Puccini's Manon Lescaut opens the ninth opera season. The Valencian arts center revives the production by British director Stephen Medcalf, originally for the Teatro Regio di Parma, which had to be cancelled earlier this year. This is the second production Medcalf has premiered in Valencia, following the critical and popular success of his conceptual and symbolist version of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte ( The Magic Flute ).

Plácido Domingo, one of the leading interpreters of Renato des Grieux, takes over the musical direction of this opera, the third he has conducted at the Palau de les Arts after Le Cid by Massenet and Tosca by Puccini, and which he recently recorded at the opera house with Andrea Bocelli and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana.

The rising Uruguayan soprano María José Siri (Manon Lescaut) will perform in Valencia as the character immortalized by Abbé Prévost in the novel Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut . Also making his debut at the arts center is Puerto Rican tenor Rafael Dávila in the role of Renato des Grieux. Rounding out the leading trio is Italian baritone Gabriele Viviani (Lescaut).

In total, the Palau de les Arts has scheduled six performances of Puccini's opera. In addition to the premiere on December 9, Manon Lescaut will be performed on the 12th, 16th, 19th, 21st, and 27th of that month. Jordi Bernàcer will conduct the final performance.

Throughout December, Plácido Domingo will combine conducting with performing his first zarzuela at the Valencian opera house. On December 15th, Moreno Torroba's Luisa Fernanda will premiere, with Domingo as Vidal Hernando and Jordi Bernàcer conducting. This marks the first time the Alcoy-born conductor has undertaken the musical direction for all performances of a single production in the Main Hall.

The Palau de les Arts presents Federico Moreno Torroba's most successful zarzuela in a production by Emilio Sagi for the Teatro Real in Madrid. The cast features leading Spanish stars, including tenors Celso Albelo and José Bros as Javier Moreno, Davinia Rodríguez (Luisa Fernanda), also from the Canary Islands, and Isabel Rey (Duchess Carolina), from Valencia.

The Main Hall will host four more performances of Luisa Fernanda , by Moreno Torroba. December 18 and 22, as well as January 9 and 12.

Roberto Abbado, Gustavo Gimeno and Nicola Luisotti

Roberto Abbado makes his debut conducting the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana with Donizetti's Don Pasquale , one of the essential works of opera buffa . The Italian conductor, renowned for his work at theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, and the Vienna State Opera, is distinguished by his extensive operatic and symphonic repertoire, which has led him to conduct leading European and American orchestras.

Italian bass Michele Pertusi (Don Pasquale), American soprano Nadine Sierra (Norina), and Russian tenor Maxim Mironov (Ernesto) will sing for the first time in Valencia. Polish baritone Artur Ruciński, who starred in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and sang in Massenet's Manon in Valencia, will portray Doctor Malatesta.

The opera house has scheduled six performances of Don Pasquale . After its premiere on January 31, Donizetti's opera headlines the February opera season, with performances on the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 11th, and 13th of that month.

On March 8, the rising star conductor Gustavo Gimeno will present Bellini's Norma in the Main Hall. A disciple of Claudio Abbado and recently appointed principal conductor of the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Valencian musician is enjoying a meteoric rise, having succeeded Mariss Jansons as head of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and Lorin Maazel with the Munich Philharmonic.

Davide Livermore, artistic director of the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo and creator of successes such as Puccini's La Bohème , Verdi's Otello and La forza del destino for the Palau de les Arts, has created a new production of this bel canto classic, which can also be seen on March 11, 14, 21, 24, 27 and 31.

Italian soprano Mariella Devia sings Norma, one of the most complex roles in the repertoire, usually reserved for divas of the caliber of Montserrat Caballé, Maria Callas, Renata Scotto, Beverly Sills, or Joan Sutherland. 'Casta diva', sung by the high priestess in the first act of this opera, is one of the most celebrated arias in the genre.

Mariella Devia, one of the leading ladies of contemporary bel canto, premiered this role in 2013 at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. This marks the Italian star's second appearance at the Palau de les Arts, where she participated in the 2008 Puccini Gala conducted by Plácido Domingo.

Verdi's Nabucco , the first major success of the composer from Busseto, whose famous chorus 'Va, pensiero' became one of the symbols of the Italian unification movement, closes the operatic season in the Main Hall. The Palau de les Arts hosts the premiere of this lyrical tragedy on April 30, with performances also scheduled for May 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, and 14.

In the pit was the Italian Nicola Luisotti, who previously conducted the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele in 2011. The maestro from Viareggio is the music director of the San Francisco Opera and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Described by the Washington Post as an 'Italian phenomenon,' he is a regular in the pits of London's Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the opera houses of Paris and Vienna, and Venice's Teatro La Fenice.

Symphonic programming 

Henrik Nánási, music director of the Komische Oper Berlin, opens the symphonic season on November 7 at the Auditori with a program dedicated to Béla Bartók. On the program are Divertimento for String Orchestra and the opera Bluebeard's Castle , presented in a semi-staged version. The young maestro conducts Hungarian bass Gábor Bretz (Bluebeard), Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Zhidkova (Judith), and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana in this one-act opera.

Gustavo Gimeno will give his second concert with the Valencian Community Orchestra (OCV) on November 16. The Valencian maestro, who already had his first performance with the orchestra at the Palau de les Arts in Castelló this year, will present Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6 at the Auditori. The program at this venue also includes, among other events, an evening with baritone Carlos Álvarez on March 26 and Rossini's Stabat Mater on April 10. 

Plácido Domingo Improvement Center

The foray into the Baroque repertoire for the 2014-2015 Season comes courtesy of the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo. Antonio Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha triumphans is the first of the offerings from the artists involved in this project, for which Davide Livermore proposes a concert-performance format on November 21, 22, and 23, 2014.

On January 27, 2015, to mark the anniversary of Mozart's birth, the singers of the Centre de Perfeccionament offered a concert show featuring works by the genius from Salzburg, as well as by Vicente Martín i Soler, Mozart's contemporary and rival in imperial Vienna of the 18th century.

In the operatic section, Livermore continues his revival of works outside the standard repertoire, as he did in 2013 with Vivaldi's L'incoronazione di Dario . This time, the Turin-based director presents a new production of Domenico Scarlatti's Narciso , in co-production with the Innsbruck Early Music Festival (Austria), with Swiss conductor Diego Fasolis as musical director. Narciso by Domenico Scarlatti will be performed on May 22, 28, and 31, 2015, at the Teatre Martín i Soler, with an educational performance on May 25.