The Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation presented the 13th edition of the Lied Festival Victoria de los Ángeles (LIFE Victoria) this morning at the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site, the Festival’s official headquarters. This edition is marked by youth—not only emerging young talent but also established artists—featuring the debuts of names such as Elsa Dreisig, Serena Sáenz, Huw Montague-Rendall, Nardus Williams, Helen Charlston or Mauro Peter and the return of Laurence Kilsby, Mercedes Gancedo or Romain Louveau, among others. These debuts complement the line of support for young talent with the LIFE New Artists who open each recital of the Festival. These names are joined by Mark Padmore, Günther Groissböck, Joseph Middleton, Julius Drake, Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Sholto Kynoch or Rubén Fernández Aguirre, among others.

“We are particularly pleased to present young artists, not only those who are starting out, but also others who are singing in the best theaters in the world and who, perhaps in some cases, are given fewer opportunities to perform song recitals than opera,” according to Marc Busquets, artistic director of the Festival, adding “some are widely known by the Barcelona public but others will surely surprise the audience, which is also what we seek from the Festival—that they begin to be known here.”. “Support for young talent is the foundation of the Foundation and one of the main objectives of its mission, if not the most important, by the express wish of Victoria,” said Helena Mora, president of the Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation.

This year’s theme and image are inspired by Mendelssohn’s Lied Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (On Wings of Song) which Victoria de los Ángeles performed so many times, even dedicating an album to it, ‘On the Wings of Song’, which she recorded with Rafael Frübeck de Burgos in 1965, a truly definitive recording. These wings of song are also those of Victory, both of los Ángeles and of the Samothrace that has accompanied us throughout the centenary, as it was the object she would take to a desert island, as she herself confessed in a BBC interview in the seventies.

And also wings of freedom, a concept to which many of this year’s artists have dedicated their programs, motivated by the current moment. “The fact that many artists have wanted to dedicate their recitals to reflecting on freedom in the current moment has led us to redirect the thematic line of the Festival, which was initially intended to be a concluding coda to the centenary of Victoria de los Ángeles,” says Busquets, adding “it is a phenomenon that we have celebrated and embraced, as Art must always have this reflective part of society and must anticipate what may happen, to make us aware of it. Thus, both the image of winged victory, the colors, and the content of the programming are a celebration and vindication of freedom, a concept that can lose value depending on who uses it.”

Pianist Julius Drake will accompany bass Günther Groissböck in his debut at the Festival (Sant Pau, March 28) offering his program Freiheit? Freiheit! (Freedom? Freedom!), a reflection on this term. A recital that will be preceded by that of the young duo formed by Miquel Esquinas (piano) and Elisa Scudeller (violin) in which they champion first women composers and second, freedom, with the Sonata that Poulenc dedicated to Lorca after his assassination or the fifth movement of the Quartet for the End of Time composed by Olivier Messiaen in 1941 in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp. Cellist Roger Morelló Ros (Sant Pau, April 4) will highlight the figure of Pau Casals as an artist, humanist, and defender of freedom with his program The Voice of Casals, while pianist Clara Santacana, winner of the Xavier Montsalvatge Prize at the Les Corts International Competition, will offer her program Birds in Freedom, in reference to the composer’s work (Sant Pau, May 7). Tenor Mark Padmore returns to the Festival after his impactful Winterreise of 2022 and does so together with Julius Drake, now dedicating it to another of the greats, Robert Schumann, and his passionate and free creative capacity (Sant Pau, April 29).

‘La voix humaine’ in Seville and New York

The lack of freedom and personal erasure will be represented in Francis Poulenc’s opera ‘La voix humaine’ here in the original version that the composer created before the orchestral one, which was seen at the Festival in 2019 for the first time with Julius Drake and which has recently been seen at the Palau de la Música Catalana and the Machynlleth Festival in the stage production by Marc Busquets. This same production with the same artists will travel to the Espacio Turina in Seville (February 19) along with La dame de Monte-Carlo performed by Sara Carmona and Drake, and also to New York at the 89 Reade space in Tribeca (March 6), in co-production with the Festival.

Talented young names

Youth especially marks this edition. The opening evening will be led by the renowned soprano Elsa Dreisig who, together with Romain Louveau, will perform Schumann’s Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love) (Sant Pau, February 11). Louise Alder returns to the Festival, together with tenor Mauro Peter in his debut and with Joseph Middleton, another regular at the event, who will perform Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch (Italian Songbook) , which will be performed here for the first time (Sant Pau, March 1). Another of this year’s highlights will be the debut of the Barcelona soprano Serena Sáenz together with Rubén Fernández Aguirre who will offer a recital in the recently named Victoria de los Ángeles hall at the Auditori L’Illa de Les Corts (May 11). After his impactful opening recital together with Natalia Labourdette and Kunal Lahiry, tenor Laurence Kilsby will perform solo together with Ella O’Neill on piano (Sant Pau, May 27).

Impactful debuts

In the field of debuts, baritone Huw Montague-Rendall will make an impact with his recital featuring mélodie by Ravel and Fauré as well as Lieder by Mahler or Schönberg together with Joseph Middleton (Sant Pau, May 7). Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston will debut in recital in Barcelona after doing so in opera at the Liceu performing Sesto in Giulio Cesare and will do so together with Sholto Kynoch on piano (Sant Pau, June 10) while soprano Nardus Williams will offer a different evening of song together with Elisabeth Kenny on theorbo, in which we will explore emotions before the Lied (Sant Pau, April 4), in a program they debuted at London’s Wigmore Hall. The young duo formed by tenor Hugo Brady and Mark Rogers on piano will debut in Spain, as part of the exchange with the Oxford International Song Festival, the primary International partner of LIFE Victoria. Portuguese pianist António Areal will debut with a solo program centered around the stories of Richard and Cosima Wagner, as well as Robert and Clara Schumann (Sant Pau, March 1). All piano recitals are part of the Alicia de Larrocha series organized within the Festival, in honor of this pianist and friend of Victoria de los Ángeles.

Continuous training and LIFE New Artists

The Festival will offer three rounds of masterclasses with Nancy Fabiola Herrera and Sholto Kynoch. The mezzo-soprano will replicate the masterclasses in Catalan song, Spanish song, and Zarzuela that she offers annually at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York within the Victoria de los Ángeles Legacy line, which receives direct support from the Foundation. She will do so on April 25, 26, and 27 at the Escuela Superior de Canto in Madrid and on May 12, 13, and 14 at the Byron Bookstore in Barcelona. A space that will also host masterclasses by the pianist and director of the Oxford International Song Festival, Sholto Kynoch (Byron Bookstore. June 11, 12, and 13).

Within the LIFE New Artists program, which promotes the debuts of young performers at the Festival, the following will participate: Belén García and Esther Vilar, Maria Isart and Quimey Urquiaga, Joaquim Font and Guillem Batllori, António Areal and Lucía García (winner of the Victoria de los Ángeles prize at the Les Corts Competition), Llum Colomer and Lucía Peregrino (winner of the Victoria de los Ángeles prize at the Nuevas Voces Competition of the Teatro de La Maestranza in Seville) and Maria Bañeras and Alicia Daufí.

This year we also introduce a new way of presenting names: instead of placing the singer’s name first and then the pianist’s, they will be listed in alphabetical order, vindicating the figure of the pianist in the Lied. “Lied recitals differ from opera recitals: in opera, the pianist acts as a “substitute” for the orchestra and acts as a repetiteur. In Lied, they do not; the work is 50/50 and it makes no sense to minimize their presence in programs and posters, where sometimes they do not even appear. It is simply a mistake that, just because it is tradition, does not mean it shouldn’t be changed.” says Busquets.