#SomosMásABAO The opera season returns to the stage of Bilbao with new titles and much awaited premieres ABAO BILBAO OPERA PRESENTS ITS 70TH SEASON WITH THE WOMAN AS THE CENTRAL THEME • Six new titles have been included in the artistic catalogue of the association. • After the necessary rescheduling, the flagship project Tutto Verdi comes to an end with the premiere in Bilbao of Alzira, a 2019 Opera XXI Award winner. • Leading figures and internationally renowned conductors star in an ambitious and intense season full of premieres. • BBVA Foundation collaborates with ABAO’s cultural activity as the season’s main sponsor Bilbao, 18 June 2021. The 70th Season of ABAO Bilbao Opera will open on Saturday, October 23rd, with numerous proposals, cultural activities, social events and a growing artistic programme with six new titles and a permanent commitment to maximum quality in all its scope of action. After having to stop and reschedule part of the artistic activity during the pandemic and reinventing themselves with new proposals, such as the successful ABAO on Stage programme, ABAO Bilbao Opera continues working with the same enthusiasm, effort and aim: disseminating culture and opera, and presents the 2021-2022 season with optimism and hope for the gradual return to as much normality as possible. The 70th season proposes an ambitious, exciting and varied programme full of top artistic quality premieres. MAIN LANDMARKS OF THE NEW SEASON • ABAO Bilbao Opera and BBVA Foundation, the season’s main sponsor, contribute to promoting operatic excellence and culture and bringing top-quality shows to the public. • The new season brings Italian, French and German repertoire. Renowned titles such as Les contes d’Hoffmann, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci and Madama Butterfly, as well as works that are barely known in Spain, such as Alzira, less frequent titles such as La clemenza di Tito, and two gems yet to be discovered by the public of Bilbao: La voix humaine and Eine florentinische tragödie. • Amongst the scheduled operas and concerts there are 6 new titles, which join the catalogue of the ABAO Bilbao Opera repertoire in their 68 years of history, 2 productions of their own and 1 co-production. • 4 of the eight productions that are presented in the general season are national premieres: Les contes d’Hoffmann, La clemenza di Tito, Alzira and Madama Butterfly. • A total of 59 performances will be held: 41 in the general season at Euskalduna Bilbao, 17 for children and young people in the Abao Txiki Season at the Arriaga Theatre, and 1 Rossini Concert performance also at the Arriaga Theatre. José María Olabarri 2-4. 48001 Bilbao T. 944 355 100 [email protected] www.abao.org #SomosMásABAO • ABAO Bilbao Opera recovers the month of April for the season with the Rossini Concert and the performances of Alzira. • Alzira’s premiere in Bilbao stages a co-production by ABAO Bilbao Opera, together with the Grand National Theatre of Peru and the Opèra Royal Wallonie-Liège, which received the 2019 Opera XXI award to the Best Latin American Opera Production. • The flagship project Tutto Verdi comes to an end with the staging of title number 30 of the Verdian catalogue. • Six major conductors visit the new season: Carlo Montanaro, Daniel Oren, Riccardo Frizza, Pedro Halffter, Nicola Luisotti and Henrik Nánási to lead four orchestras: Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Euskadiko Orkestra, Orquesta Sinfonica Verum and Orquesta Bilbao Sinffonieta, which, together with the Opera Choir of Bilbao, enlarge their repertoire, consolidating the artistic renown of ABAO’s regular collaborators. • 10 singers make their debut, together with outstanding performers who have successfully performed in the major opera houses of the world, such as Michael Fabiano, Jessica Pratt, Elena Zhidkova, Jorge de León, Ekaterina Semenchuck, Ambrogio Maestri, Daniela Barcellona, Ainhoa Arteta, Angela Meade, Sergio Escobar or Juan Jesus Rodriguez. • ABAO TXIKI offers 4 productions in different formats for different ages. Three of the shows will have school sessions with the participation of some thirty educational centres, restating ABAO’s commitment to education and bringing opera to children and young people. • The didactic and educational programme offers numerous free activities in various action programmes that include didactic lectures, workshops, symposia and conference cycles. • The Gazteam programme is reinforced with activities and financial incentives for people under 25 and 30 to attend any performance in the best seats available at a flat rate of €25 and €30. • The “Opera y +” programme at Cruces University Hospital consolidates its activity in the areas of nephrology, paediatrics and neonatology as well as the day hospital (oncology), and extends to the inflammatory bowel disease unit. The programme is carried out with the collaboration of Obra Social LaCaixa. 70TH OPERA SEASON, 68 YEARS OF OPERA IN BILBAO The new season includes eight titles, four of them in a double bill, as well as a concert that adds two new titles, with the figure of the woman as the central theme. All the operas and artistic proposals rescue the female protagonists of the story. Women who enable us to reflect on the human condition, the passion, desires and emotions that drive them and empower them, or destroy them. Nine composers: Offenbach, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Mozart, Poulenc, Zemlinsky, Rossini, Verdi and Puccini bring operas from the Italian, French and German repertoires to the stage of Bilbao. The operas Les contes d’Hoffmann, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci in a double bill and Madama Butterfly, in addition to the premieres in Bilbao of La clemenza di Tito, Alzira, which closes the Tutto Verdi project, the double bill of La voix Humaine and Eine José María Olabarri 2-4. 48001 Bilbao T. 944 355 100 [email protected] www.abao.org #SomosMásABAO Florentinische Tragödie, and the double concert of Giovanna d’Arco and Stabat Mater at the Arriaga Theatre. A new season in which ten singers, three stage directors and three music directors make their debut with Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Euskadiko Orkestra, Orquesta Sinfónica Verum, Orquesta Bilbao Sinfonietta and the Opera Choir of Bilbao, conducted by Boris Dujin, in charge of the choral part of the season. ABAO has a reputation as an institution with great voices and brings outstanding performers who have succeeded in the major opera houses of the world, such as Michael Fabiano, Jessica Pratt, Elena Zhidkova, Jorge de León, Ekaterina Semenchuck, Ambrogio Maestri, Daniela Barcellona, Ainhoa Arteta, Angela Meade, Sergio Escobar or Juan Jesús Rodríguez, amongst others. The BBVA Foundation, whose distinguishing feature is the promotion of scientific knowledge and cultural creation, collaborates with ABAO Bilbao Opera as the season’s main sponsor. Jacques Offenbach LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN 23, 26, 29 October and 1 November 2021 • In the leading roles Jessica Pratt, Michael Fabiano, Elena Zhidkova and Simón Orfila • Staging the national premiere of a hypnotic, impressive and truly expressive production by Vincent Huguet. • In the pit, the renowned orchestra conductor Carlo Montanaro leading the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa in a fast-paced score. • Sponsored by BBVA Foundation. Offenbach’s unfinished masterpiece, Les contes d’Hoffmann, opens the season after two decades of absence in ABAO Bilbao Opera, sponsored by BBVA Foundation. It is based on the three stories by the romantic poet E.T.A. Hoffmann, who, in love with the singer Stella, embarks on a search for this ideal woman through the women he has known and loved: Olympia, a doll, Antonia, a young woman who gets ill when she sings, and Giulietta, a courtesan, and together they all form one: his beloved one. Jessica Pratt starts the season with a real tour de force by playing the four leading soprano roles: Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta and Stella, a major landmark in her successful career. Solving the equation of the four female roles, the specific personality of each of the heroines, their expression, as well as all the lyrical and dramatic imperatives involved, represents a considerable challenge for the talent and the voice of the English soprano. Michel Fabiano plays the troubled Hoffmann in an exhausting role that requires all the strength and vocal naturalness of the performer. Elena Zhidkova is in charge of playing the protective Niklausse and the maternal The Muse. The cast also includes Simón Orfila, Mikeldi Atxalandabaso, José Manuel Díaz, Moisés Marín, Fernando Latorre and Itxaro Mentxaka. José María Olabarri 2-4. 48001 Bilbao T. 944 355 100 [email protected] www.abao.org #SomosMásABAO As for the music, Maestro Carlo Montanaro leads the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa in a fast-paced score, full of hypnotic and exuberant moments, with a complex and almost restless musical structure. On the stage, the national premiere of a production by Vincent Huguet, who makes his debut in ABAO, with a classicist, impressive and modullar proposal, comprising monumental stairs and doors that represent a theatre and set the plot during a performance of Don Giovanni. Pietro Mascagni / Ruggero Leoncavallo CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA PAGLIACCI 20, 23, 26 and 29 November 2021 • Ekaterina Semenchuck and Rocío Ignacio play the leading roles as Santuzza and Nedda. • Jorge de León and Ambrogio Maestri in the leading male roles in both operas. • An ABAO Bilbao Opera production devised by Joan Anton Rechi. • Daniel Oren makes his debut with the music direction of the double bill leading the Euskadiko Orkestra In November two titles from the Verismo school that synthesize the meaning of life and drama and in which primary feelings and religious ties trigger jealousy and desire for revenge. Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni and Pagliacci by Leoncavallo are two stories that represent daily life in the temporary and physical spaces where they take place. They are both dominated by uncontrollable impulses and gender-based violence. Cavalleria rusticana is a story full of religious repression that ends in a duel and Pagliacci is a story of infidelity that ends in murder.