More than 3,000 international spectators are interested in the activities of the Palau de les Arts

• Audiences from Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom account for the majority of ticket purchases for the 2010-2011 Season and the IV Festival del Mediterrani
• Major tour operators include Valencia as a mandatory stop on their music tourism circuits

Valencia (3.5.11).- More than 3,000 international spectators have shown interest in the activities of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía programmed for the 2010-2011 Season and the IV Festival del Mediterrani.

In total, the arts center's box office has made individual arrangements with 1,316 spectators from more than 42 countries, including destinations as remote as Argentina, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Venezuela.

International tour operators and specialized travel agencies also include the Palau de les Arts as a key stop on their music tours, placing it alongside other cities with a rich operatic tradition such as London, Paris, Vienna, and New York. A total of 490 people have visited Valencia this season through this option, and more than 797 have booked tickets for the activities of the 4th Festival del Mediterrani.

Specifically, the new production of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore has been one of the most sought-after titles by international audiences, with a total of 319 seats sold. This opera, staged by Damiano Michieletto and conducted by Omer Meier Wellber, attracted, among others, a group of 25 Canadian music lovers, accompanied by bass and president of Musical Youth of Canada, Joseph Rouleau. Distinguished figures in the world of opera, such as Ioan Holender, the longest-serving general manager of the Vienna State Opera, and Bjørn Simensen, former director of the Norwegian National Opera, have attended performances of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and L'elisir d'amore , respectively.

The Festival del Mediterrani, presided over by Zubin Mehta, has established itself as a key event on the summer music calendar, following productions such as Wagner's tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, staged by La Fura dels Baus, and Puccini's Turandot , directed by filmmaker Chen Kaige. In fact, the French newspaper Le Figaro dubbed Valencia "The Salzburg of the Mediterranean" on the occasion of the premiere of Götterdämmerung , the final work of Richard Wagner's magnum opus.

For the upcoming edition, which begins on May 28 with the premiere of a new production of Puccini's Tosca directed by Jean-Louis Grinda, some performances are already completely sold out due to strong international demand. Specifically, this is the case for tickets to the performances of Tosca on June 10, Fidelio on June 11, and Zubin Mehta's concert of Mahler's Third Symphony on Sunday, June 12. The opportunity to offer the largest number of performances in the fewest number of days has generated significant interest from tour operators and agencies specializing in the cultural sector.

Germany and Italy are the countries with the highest demand for performances at the Palau de les Arts. These two countries have also bestowed the greatest accolades upon Valencian opera productions. The German market has been the most receptive to the DVD recordings of Valencian productions of Wagner's Ring Cycle , which have won the Echo Klassik Award for Production of the Year, and Die Walküre , which received the German Record Critics' Award. The German press has been particularly positive about the new music director of the arts center, Omer Meir Wellber. Wellber, who debuted at the Semperoper in Dresden last October, has received unanimous praise from newspapers such as Die Welt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, publications that subsequently reaffirmed their interest in the Israeli conductor after his performance of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in Valencia. German audiences account for 54% of the seats reserved for the IV Festival del Mediterrani and also represent 25% of the total individual ticket sales for the 2010-2011 Season.

However, it is the Italian public, representing 27% of ticket sales, that has shown the greatest interest in purchasing tickets for the fifth season of the arts center, through travel agencies and tour operators. In fact, it was Italian critics who first recognized the artistic quality of the Palau de les Arts, awarding the Franco Abbiati Prize to the productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre .

After Germany and Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are the countries that show the greatest interest in the activities of the Palau de les Arts, with a significant percentage of countries such as Canada and the United States.