The MUN stages its first opera: Puccini's Tosca

Under the musical and stage direction of professional experts, the opera has the participation of 150 students: musicians, singers, actors and stage producers from the Museum's Artistic Talent Program

On April 16 and 17, the Museo Universidad de Navarra will offer the opera Tosca, by Puccini, in co-production with the association Gayarre Friends of the Opera (AGAO). Tickets are still available at locker and on the web.

Today took place the presentation to the media of this proposal with musical direction by Borja Quintas and stage direction by Liuba Cid, in addition to international soloists of recognized prestige: the Venezuelan soprano Ana Lucrecia García (in the role of Floria Tosca), the Spanish-Peruvian baritone Jorge Carlos Tello (as Baron Scarpia) and the Argentine tenor Facundo Muñoz (in the role of Mario Cavaradossi), among others.

With these voices and other top-level professional figures, students of the MUN Artistic Talent Program: University of Navarra Theater, Choir and Symphony Orchestra will share the stage, as well as students from the University of Navarra. Performing Arts Production Program of the School of Communication. In total, there are 150 participating students.

In this way, Tosca contributes to the purpose of the MUN to involve young people in its programming and to provide them with opportunities to train alongside great professionals in music and the performing arts. The zarzuela of the umbrellas (2022) and the stage cantata Carmina Burana (2023) are the two successful projects that precede the premiere of this great degree scroll.

The director of the MUN, Jaime García del Barrio, highlights that although compared to other museums, this one has a high percentage of young people (33% are between 19 and 29 years old), the aim is for the figure to continue growing. Thus, designed for all audiences, Tosca is a proposal especially attractive for young audiences to begin to delve into the operatic genre. As the General Manager of AGAO, Iñigo Laboreria, is an opportunity to build the foundations for "the public of the future". Laboreria also talks about this project as "an immense stimulus for the growth of the genre" in Navarre.

On the other hand, the director Borja Quintas points out the challenges for the young orchestra: not only the score itself, but also the requirements "of a very complex stage show": with participation in this opera, the musicians will learn for the first time "to react live to a series of unpredictable stimuli that occur in real time": that is, "the official document of a pit."

This first operatic production of the MUN presents an original staging that is completed with projections and lighting games. Stage director Liuba Cid explains that this Tosca has "a visual narrative of its own". "The idea is to transmit to the public an aesthetic experience that allows them to understand the dimension of this great romantic tragedy, the beauty and expressiveness of music; but also the great human concepts that flow in the libretto and the score: love in all its dimensions; freedom and other more complex and contradictory feelings such as ego, jealousy, political ideals, revenge or betrayal," he says.

The soprano Ana Lucrecia García plays Floria Tosca, a character that she finds "an exciting role, not only because of Puccini's fantastic music, but also because of the whole range of emotions through which she moves". He finds it equally exciting to interpret it within this context. project in which to catch the "pure enthusiasm" of young people in training, and where they can share their experience.

As is well known, the MUN has a board of trustees that collaborates in the financing of its activity. For this operatic production, we have the extraordinary contribution of one of its members.

Borja Quintas has developed his degree program, among other countries, in Spain and Russia. He has conducted some of the best orchestras in the world, such as the London Symphony Orchestra and the New Russia Symphony Orchestra.

He combines the symphonic world with the lyrical, and has cultivated different genres: theater, flamenco print, sacred drama or audiovisual media. He has accompanied the most acclaimed voices on the international scene, such as Plácido Domingo, María Bayo and Ainhoa Arteta. Committed to young groups, it is director He is the artistic director of the WYD Symphony Orchestra, Choir and Choir, the University of Navarra Symphony Orchestra, the CSMA Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras and the UCAM Symphony Orchestra.

In addition, it is Full Professor of Orchestral Conducting at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón and director Academic of the Master's Degree Director of the Katarina Gurska Higher Institution.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Liuba Cid holds a PhD laude from Arts and Humanities by the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid, where she is also a researcher and professor. In addition, she is an academic of the Performing Arts of Spain.

He has directed more than 50 theatrical productions, with premieres at international film festivals. reference letter, such as the Almagro International Classical Theatre Festival or the Castell de Peralada Festival. His shows have taken to the stages of the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, Miami Dade County Auditorium, Cairo Opera House and Alexandria Opera, among others.

She collaborates with the University of Navarra and the University of Granada as a researcher and specialist in matters related to scenography, stage direction and training theatrical. Since 2009, she has been the director of the Mephisto Teatro Company, a project Ibero-American theatre that integrates actors, designers and choreographers from all over Europe, Ibero-America and Spain.

Venezuelan soprano Ana Lucrecia García studied at the technical school of Reina Sofía Music in Madrid, with Alfredo Kraus, and with Teresa Berganza. He has played Fiordiligi in Così Fan Tutte, at the Palacio de Festivales in Santander and at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid. In 2008, she made her Seattle Opera debut with Aida, which she has also sung in Athens, Oman, Qatar, and Staatsoper Berlin.

In recent seasons, he has sung Nabucco, Macbeth and Il Trovatore at La Scala; Un Ballo in Maschera in Frankfurt; Attila at Theater an der Wien, Aida at the Opéra Bastille in Paris and at the San Carlo in Naples. In addition to the roles of Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana) at the New National Theatre in Tokyo; Turandot at Semperoper Dresden and Amneris (Aida) at Arena di Verona. She has also sung Verdi's Requiem at the NCPA in Mumbai, Aida (title role) at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia and at the Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa, Warsaw.