June 30, 2017
Saimir Pirgu to sing Verdi’s Messa da Requiem in Madrid and Granada
On June 30 and July 1 & 2, 2017, Saimir Pirgu will be the tenor soloist in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, with an additional performance on July 5 at the Palacio de Carlos V as part of the Granada International Festival. The Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España will be led by Maestro David Afkham; alongside Saimir Pirgu, soprano Aga Mikolaj, mezzo-soprano Marina Prudenskaya and baritone Christopher Purves will perform.
“Verdi’s Messa da Requiem is one of my favorite works”, says Saimir Pirgu. “I sang it for the first time when Maestro Riccardo Muti invited me to the Salzburg Festival to perform it with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and I distinctly remember the incredibly strong emotion I felt in that circumstance.” After Salzburg, the Albanian born Italian naturalized tenor has frequently performed Verdi’s masterpiece: with Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, with Riccardo Muti at the Vienna Musikverein, with Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, under Gianandrea Noseda in Paris, Barcelona and Valencia, and under Yannick Nezét-Séguin at the Donostia-San Sebastian Festival.
Performances this year after this Messa da Requiem will lead Saimir Pirgu to the Teatro San Carlo Naples for his role debut as Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra, to the Arena of Verona for a gala performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Sympony, to the Teatro Colon Buenos Aires as Alfredo in La traviata, to Zurich as Pinkerton in a new production of Madama Butterfly (role debut), to the Liceu Barcelona as Roméo in Roméo et Juliette and to the New National Theater Tokyo as Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore. He will also star in a gala solo concert at the Richenberger Winterthur in Switzerland.
Information about the Messa da Requiem in Madrid and Granada:
David Afkham, conductor
Aga Mikolaj, soprano; Marina Prudenskaya, mezzo-soprano; Saimir Pirgu, tenor; Christopher Purves, baritone.
30 June, 1 and 2 July: Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid; 5 July: Palacio de Carlos V, Granada International Festival.
http://ocne.mcu.es/programacion/una-misa-una-opera