The Peralada Festival 2025 will premiere 'Responsoria Hebdomadae Sanctae' by Bernat Vivancos at Easter
- The 2024 Summer Festival closed yesterday with a recital by Yuja Wang and a very positive evaluation of the artistic and public response, reinforcing the Festival's commitment to excellence, creativity and emerging Catalan talent
- The Peralada Festival will be the guest of the prestigious Savonlinna Opera Festival (Finland) next summer with its 2022 production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen
- The 2025 Easter Festival, which will begin on 17 April, also includes the cantata cycle Membra Jesu Nostri by Dietrich Buxtehude, performed by the vocal ensemble Cantoría
Peralada, 12 August 2024 - On Good Friday next year, 18 April 2025, as part of the third Easter edition of the Peralada Festival, the Holy Week responsories Responsoria Hebdomadae Sanctae, for mixed a cappella choir, will be performed for the first time. This work was commissioned by the Festival and is by the Barcelona composer Bernat Vivancos (1973). Vivancos' tenebrae responsories will be performed by the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Sigvards Klava. As already announced, the cycle directed by Oriol Aguilà continues the Festival's commitment to act as a driving force for creativity, promoting the talent of local musicians and creators and developing a very special atmosphere of communion at Easter in the Carmen Church in Peralada Castle during the most intense period of Easter.
Vivancos, who was part of the Escolanía de Montserrat, a choir he later conducted from 2007 to 2014, says that "one of the greatest gifts" he has ever been given was in 1984 (he was 11 years old) when he belonged to the Escolanía and it participated in the recording of the responsories of Holy Week (Officcium Hebdomadae Sanctae) by Tomás Luis Vicente de Victoria (1548-1611), under the direction of Father Ireneu Segarra. "Rehearsing, performing and recording that piece had a very strong musical and personal impact on me", Vivancos explains. "Victoria's sacred emotionality, his mysticism, his harmonies, his spirituality, but above all, the relationship between each of the notes he composed and the text - sacred, almost as if it were a prayer - captivated me. [...] Now, 40 years after that experience, I dare, with total humility and respect, to compose based on the same texts with the vivid memory of the music that had such an impact on me."
In addition, the musical group Cantoría (2016), conducted by Jorge Losana, will once again be part of the programme of the Peralada Easter Festival. Cantoría, who were part of the programme of the first Festival in 2023, will offer the cycle of cantatas composed by the German-Danish organist Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) gathered under the title Membra Jesu Nostri. This is one of the landmarks of 17th century religious music. It consists of seven cantatas that focus on each of the parts of the body of the crucified Christ, becoming a reflection on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The cantata is arranged in ascending order, emulating the vision of believers: from the feet to the face, passing through the knees, the hands, the chest and the heart. The piece includes the insertion of gospel texts of the seven words sung in Catalan with a plainchant, and the staging foresees the participation of a dozen singers, two violins, a viola da gamba, violone, theorbo and organ.
A very positive evaluation of the 2024 Peralada Festival
Yesterday, a sensational recital by the Chinese pianist Yuja Wang closed the 2024 Peralada Festival. The Festival's artistic director, Oriol Aguilà, was very positive in his evaluation of this year's event: "We have remained faithful to our commitment to excellence, to new creation, to emerging home-grown talent, with the intention of giving creators carte blanche to work", explains Aguilà. This summer, world-class performers such as the tenor Piotr Beczala (Tchaikovsky), the soprano Anna Pirozzi (Puccini), the soprano Sara Blanch (Rossini), the soprano Sonia Yoncheva and the tenor Ismael Jordi (zarzuela) have performed at Peralada. They have presented programmes devised expressly for the Empordà festival, which they do not usually perform at the great theatres and auditoriums. But there was also the opportunity to enjoy Folclor, the new show by the Acosta Danza company; an extraordinary evening of dance by Aleix Martínez, Terra llaurada; and, above all, the premiere of the chamber opera Don Juan no existe. Sobre lo que olvidamos y lo que permanece, composed by the young Helena Cànovas (Tona, 1994), with libretto by Alberto Iglesias, musical direction by Jhoanna Sierralta and stage direction by Bàrbara Lluch. Cànovas won the 2022 Carmen Mateu Prize for young European creators in the field of dance and music, which implicitly included a commission from the Festival, which is the producer of the piece.
Another of the shows that particularly pleased the artistic direction of the Festival is the recital Renaissance Reloaded, by the Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana conducted by Júlia Sesé, which is a reflection of the Festival's commitment to a series of values: recognising women in the field of composition and works composed by creators under the age of 40 (two of which were commissioned by the Festival). The Ad Libitum Concert series, featuring tenor Julian Prégardien (La Bella Molinera) and the saxophone quartet Kebyart, shared the stages of the church and the gardens of the Celler Perelada, in a show format that included wine pairings and culinary tastings and was very well received by the public.
Intimate spaces generate communion
The main venues of the Peralada Festival have once again been the Carmen Church and the Mirador del Castillo, something that Oriol Aguilà highly values: "These intimate spaces that we are using at the moment allow us to generate a communion between artists and public, which set new dynamics in motion and allow the public to enjoy unique artistic experiences." This year's summer Festival was attended by a total of 3,900 spectators, with an average occupancy rate of 95%. Of the programme's 14 shows, 12 sold-out. But the church and the Mirador are not the only places where the Festival takes place. As in recent years, the Summer Campus has also been active. This year, it included a composition workshop given by Helena Cànovas at the Centre Superior Conservatori del Liceu (May), a "Gran Barra" ballet class given by the Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta and his academy's ballet teacher, Verónica Corveas, in the square in front of the El Jardí Theatre in Figueres (July) and, finally, a choreography workshop given by the dancer Aleix Martínez in the Peralada sports centre (July).
As well as all this, until December it is possible to visit the exhibition Vida detenida & Waiting for the Light, by Pedro Almodóvar. The exhibition, which opened in July, shows a series of images that could have been captured from interiors shown in the director's films. Inspired by the emotion radiating from the still life paintings by Madrid realists such as Antonio López and Isabel Quintanilla, Almodóvar began to observe the everyday with different eyes and to experiment with the language of photography. During the visit, a selection of these still life images by the filmmaker can be seen.
Peralada to be a guest at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland
The Peralada Festival has accepted an invitation from the prestigious Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland to bring its production of the five-act Baroque semi-opera The Fairy Queen (Henry Purcell), which premiered in the summer of 2022 in the Festival's auditorium, to Savonlinna for three performances, on 29 and 31 July and 2 August 2025. The Fairy Queen (1692), the fairytale inspired by William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, became a tribute to the magical nights of opera experienced at the Festival and the many titles performed on its stage. The opera within a play is a resource that Shakespeare also explored and which was used by stage director Joan Anton Rechi to create a highly original dramaturgy in which dreams and reality are confused throughout the work. The characters from the popular Shakespearean play are transformed into the spirits of iconic lyric roles such as Madam Butterfly, Tosca, Escamillo and Don Giovanni. The musical direction of The Fairy Queen is by Dani Espasa, who also performs, as well as the Catalan countertenor Xavier Sabata, who is master of ceremonies and one of the ideologists of the production.