Tenor Josè Carreras accompanied by Gladys Rossi and David Giménez - Saturday, 4 June - Piazza di Spagna
The
Grandmaster Josè Carreras, born in Barcelona in 1946, has been
singing from the very start. He sang as a soprano at the Gran Teatre
of Liceu in the plays Nabucco and Lucrezia Borgia when he was only
11-years old. Then at the mature age of 18 he became a tenor and
from that moment on he debuted in some of the most prestigious
theaters and festivals in the world including the Teatro alla Scala
in Milan, the New York Metropolitan Opera House, the San Francisco
Opera and the London Royal Opera.
English critic, Alan Blyth saw a young Carreras in the Maria Stuarda
performance at the Royal Festival Hall and recalled, "It was one of
those occasions when one immediately and instinctively recognizes
that one is in the presence of a new and very special talent … a
profoundly beautiful tenor, a vivid presence of a born communicator.”
He has also worked with the most important orchestra directors such
as Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel,
Riccardo Chailly, Colin Davis, Giuseppe Sinopoli and with important
directors as Franco Zeffirelli, Jean Pierre Ponnelle, Giorgio
Strehler, Luigi Comencini and Harold Prince. His concerts with
Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo became very popular as they
became the “Three Tenors.”
Carreras has won numerous awards such as the Grand Prix du Disque de
l’Academie in Paris, a Grammy Award in 1991, the Sir Laurence
Olivier Award, the Gold Medal at the New York Spanish Institute, the
Gold Medal for Art from His Majesty the King of Spain, the Albert
Schweitzer Music Award in 1996 and the Classical BRIT Awards in
2009.
He is also the Honorary President at the London Arts Orchestra,
Cavalier and Grand Officer of Italy, the Medal of Honor recipient
from the Bavarian government, Commandeur de la Médaille du
Sahametrei of the Cambodian government and an Ambassador of Goodwill
of UNESCO.
He was diagnosed with leukemia in 1988, but overcame the disease and
returned to the stage. He is the enthusiastic president of the Josè
Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation that today remains one
of his most important priorities.
Gladys
Rossi was only eight-years-old when she started studying
violin and piano in the music school of Belleria, close to Rimini,
her home town. She started her vocal studies in 2001 and debuted
playing Gilda in Rigoletto, at the Busseto Theater in 2003, under
the auspices of the “Arturo Toscanini” Foundation.
She later sang in France in Le Nozze di Figaro in January 2004 and
interpreted Gilda of Rigoletto again in Piacenza in April of the
same year. In 2006 she had a great success as Frasquita in Carmen at
Teatro Regio in Turin. The following year she was Musetta in La
Bohème at Teatro Comunale of Bologna and later interpreted the role
of the Night Queen in Die Zauberflote in Bilbao
She has continued to perform and most recently was Nannetta in
Falstaff at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome in 2010 and Oscar in Un
Ballo in Maschera at the G. Verdi Theater in Salerno.
She has accompanied the grandmaster Carreras in concerts and this
year she will do it again now at JOSP Fest.
Master
David Giménez will conduct the
orchestra playing for Josè Carreras. He started his musical studies
in the Conservatory of Liceu in Barcelona, and then he went into
study at Hochschule für Musik in Vienna and lastly at the Royal
Academy of Music in London, with Sir Colin Davis.
He debuted in Hamburg with the City Symphony Orchestra. He has
directed singers and orchestras all over the world in concert halls,
such as the Zurich Tonhalle, the London Symphony, the Chicago
Symphony, the Orchestre de Paris, the Royal Opera House Orchestra of
Covent Garden and the Philharmonia Orchestra de Londres.
In regards to his symphony concerts direction, Giménez has worked
with important interpreters, such as Yo-Yo Ma and Vadim Repin. He
directed in the Staatsoper of Vienna (Carmen and Sly), in the
Deutche Oper of Berlin (Aida), in the Gran Teatre de Liceu of
Barcelona (Sly), in the Teatro Real of Madrid (La Bohème) and in
many others.
