The Palau de les Arts will offer 51 opera performances in its fourth season, which will open with Les Troyens on October 31.

The opera house will offer, among others, celebrated titles such as La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, and Lucia di Lammermoor, along with its first foray into the Czech repertoire with The Bartered Bride. Una cosa rara by Martín i Soler, La vida breve by Falla, and Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss complete the cultural center's operatic offerings. Ballet will return with the Mariinsky Ballet, featuring Carlos Acosta as guest soloist. A new production of Richard Strauss's Salome will open the third edition of the Festival del Mediterrani.
Valencia (3-7-09).- The Director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Helga Schmidt, today presented the fourth season of the Valencian arts center, which will feature 51 opera performances and will open on October 31 with Les Troyens (The Trojans) by Hector Berlioz.

This co-production between the Palau de les Arts, the Mariinsky Theatre, and the Teatr Wielki, Opera Narodowa, staged by La Fura dels Baus and conducted by Carlus Padrissa, will mark the first time Valery Gergiev has conducted an orchestra in Spain that is not under his direction. The Trojans, Berlioz's most ambitious work, as Helga Schmidt explained, demands a large vocal cast and a complex staging for any theatre. The co-production, which will have its world premiere in Valencia, will travel to St. Petersburg and Warsaw a few months later. Gergiev himself intends to include it in the Mariinsky Theatre's repertoire.

Given the high demand for Puccini among Valencian audiences, as Schmidt noted, the cultural center will once again feature Madama Butterfly in its program, this time under the baton of Lorin Maazel, music director of the Palau de les Arts. This production will be presented by Teatr Wielki, Opera Narodowa, with stage direction by filmmaker Mariusz Treliński, who will return to Valencia in the future to direct Alban Berg's Lulu.

Viennese operetta will fill the Calatrava building this December with a new production of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus (The Bat), one of Lorin Maazel's favorite works, under the stage direction of William Kerley, with whom Maazel collaborates on the opera productions staged at the Castleton Festival (Virginia), which Maazel himself chairs. The cast will feature Granada-born tenor José Manuel Zapata in the role of Alfred. Bel canto will arrive with Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, under the musical direction of Karel Mark Chichon in this co-production of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze will sing the role of Lucia in the production created by English opera director Graham Vick.

Una cosa rara will be the second opera by Vicente Martín i Soler staged at the Palau de les Arts since its inauguration, this time under the direction of Francisco Negrín and with Ottavio Dantone—who already conducted the center's resident orchestra in the concert version of L'isola del piacere—and Sergio Alapont conducting. This new production will be the first in a series of works by the Valencian composer that the Valencian arts center will record in High Definition with Unitel. The idea, as Helga Schmidt explained, is to extend the recordings to the entirety of the Valencian composer's work in order to introduce it to theaters worldwide.

In its fourth season, the Palau de les Arts will make its first foray into the Czech repertoire with Podraná nevšta (The Bartered Bride), with this production created for The Grand Theatre & Opera House Leeds by Daniel Slater and directed by maestro Tomáš Netopil.

Manuel de Falla's operatic repertoire will be heard for the first time in the Main Hall of the Calatrava building with La vida breve, programmed alongside Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. The Palau de les Arts will present a new production of Manuel de Falla's opera, directed by Giancarlo Del Monaco, who also directs Cavalleria rusticana, a production rented from the Teatro Real. This marks the first time Lorin Maazel has conducted this work by the Spanish composer.

Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, one of the most popular operas of all time, will close the Palau de les Arts' fourth season. Lorin Maazel will lead the venue's resident orchestra in this rented production, which features a cast of promising young talents, including Marina Rebeka and Kristine Opolais as Violetta Valery, and Vittorio Grigolo and Francesco Demuro as Alfredo Germont. True to its philosophy of showcasing all art forms, the Palau de les Arts will once again present ballet. The Mariinsky Ballet, accompanied by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, with Carlos Acosta as guest soloist, will offer three unforgettable evenings during the month of November.

Open House

During her speech, Mayor Helga Schmidt emphasized her commitment to bringing the Palau de les Arts and its offerings closer to the Valencian public. Therefore, on October 11th, the Valencian arts center will open its doors from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM with a full musical program. Schmidt highlighted the success of the activities for all ages held during the recent Festival del Mediterrani, such as the 40,000 attendees at the Anell de llum performance and the more than 4,000 people who witnessed the live screening of Die Walküre in the Plaza de la Virgen.

Symphonic program

The Auditori at the Palau de les Arts will once again host an excellent series of symphonic concerts, beginning on December 3rd with 'Homage to Rodrigo,' a tribute to the tenth anniversary of the death of the celebrated Valencian composer, conducted by fellow Valencian Enrique García Asensio. Maazel will return to present his highly anticipated 'Christmas Concert.' In addition, the music director of the Palau de les Arts will conduct another concert featuring works by Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, which will be repeated on November 11, 2010, at the prestigious Teatro alla Scala in Milan. One of the rising stars of the orchestra pit, Tugan Sokhiev, will conclude the concert series at the Auditori with a program of works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky.

Educational program Within its fourth season, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía will once again maintain its commitment to reaching out to younger audiences with a broad and diverse educational program, in which more than 17,000 students participated last season.

The first activity will be the educational show directed by Santiago Sánchez from Valencia, entitled Joaquín Rodrigo: The Boy Who Dreamed of Music, which illustrates some moments in the life of the Valencian composer and is included in the activities programmed by the cultural center to commemorate the Year of Rodrigo.

The Valencian cultural center will continue its educational performances for students, who this season will be able to attend performances of Lucia di Lammermoor, Una cosa rara, and La novia venden. Likewise, the Palau de les Arts will continue its program of staged readings. This year, attendees can enjoy Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor and two adaptations of the librettos of the operas La novia venden and Così fan tutte.

Furthermore, following its success with schools, the film Peter and the Wolf, directed by Suzie Templeton and based on Sergei Prokofiev's musical composition, will be screened again. A new activity will complete the extensive educational offerings: Detectives at the Opera, whose main objective is to introduce young people to the parts and structure of an opera house.

III Mediterranean Festival

Richard Strauss and his work will become the central focus of future editions of the Festival del Mediterrani, presided over by Zubin Mehta, featuring performances of some of his most famous operas, such as Rosenkavalier, Elektra, and Ariadne auf Naxos. A new production of Salome, directed by Francisco Negrín, will open the third Festival del Mediterrani, which will also include a revival of another successful Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía production, Carmen. Carlos Saura will adapt this production for this key operatic event on the summer festival circuit. According to Helga Schmidt, the cultural center will also record this production in High Definition with Unitel for commercial release.