Orquesta de Valencia returns in style to Paris for first time in 72 years

Paris, Apr 11 (EFE).- The Orquesta de Valencia performed at the famous Salle Gaveau in Paris in their first visit to the French capital in 72 years in what was also their first performance abroad in 12 years.

The orchestra’s last performance in Paris was in 1950, when the group toured France and the United Kingdom with Valencian conductor José Iturbi, who also began his international career as a pianist at this Parisian concert hall.

For two hours, the orchestra, conducted by Alexander Liebreich, delighted the several hundred people who filled the auditorium, among them the Mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó; the Spanish Ambassador to France, Victorio Redondo; the Spanish Ambassador to UNESCO, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes; and the Valencia government’s Secretary for Culture and the President of the Palau de la Música de Valencia, Gloria Tello.

THE ORQUESTA DE VALENCIA RESUMES INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCES

“In Valencia, music is something important, which we value very much, it is a very musical society. (…) with this recital we want to convey to the Parisian people the interest and the feelings the Valencian people have for music,” Valencia Mayor Joan Ribó told Efe.

Ribó added that there is a will to “internationalize Valencian music.”

For her part, Tello said that for the musicians “it is very important to be able to show their potential and their talent outside Spain”, to “not only to export our music and our quality, but also import to Spain what is being done in other countries such as France.”

She added that there is an effort to collaborate with several European and American orchestras.

MUSICAL PROGRAM WITH INFLUENCES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD

The first part of the concert began with Liebreich presenting the work “Stille Musik” (Silent Music) by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrot, in support of Ukrainians and as a rejection of the Russian invasion of their country, which began on February 24.

The orchestra continued the recital with “Mi mere l’Oye” (Mother Goose), an impressionist piece by French composer Maurice Ravel.

Next, German mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter took the stage to perform “Les nuits d’eté” (Summer Nights) op. 7 by French composer Hector Berlioz, based on six poems by French compatriot Théophile Gautier.

ORQUESTA DE VALENCIA CLOSES CONCERT WITH MENDELSSOHN’S 5TH SYMPHONY

After a break, the orchestra returned to the stage to begin the second part of the program with the overture to the opera “La capricciossa corretta” (The Capricious Woman Reformed) by Valencian composer Vicent Martí i Soler.

To end the program, the Orquesta de Valencia played the 5th symphony, the “Romantic” by Germany’s Felix Mendelssohn.

After several minutes of applause and ovations for the artists, the orchestra played as an encore, together with the mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter, the aria “En la taberna de Lillas Pastia” (In Lillas Pastia’s Tavern) from the opera Carmen, by Georges Bizet and inspired by Seville and Spain at the beginning of the 19th century. EFE