The countertenor media Jakub Jósef Orlinskian outstanding performer on the classical scene partly due to his skill with social networks and his facets as a breakdancer and model, will start tomorrow afternoon the first edition of the Peralada Easter festival, an “extension” of the summer event, explains its director Oriol Aguilà, who wants to deseasonalize the “saturated” cultural offer of the Costa Brava.
With the bet on Orlinski, a young 32-year-old opera star, the festival makes “a complete statement of intent” for attract young people to classical musicexplains Aguilà, with proposals that “open up to new audiences and that, with their artistic excellence, also take care of those most loyal to the festival”.
Aguilà confirms that the next editions are guaranteed and that, although it will not have Holy Week as the thematic axis, the new festival will take into account the “spirituality” of Easter and its relationship with music, embodied this year by Ofici of darkness of Good Friday by the Cantoria quartet.
Accompanied by Il Giardino d’Amore directed by Stefan Plewniak, the Pole will debut in Peralada with Héroe!, a show with arias by Handel and Vivaldi with which they aspire to make the public “an active part of the concert”.
And it is that Orlinski considers that it is necessary to escape from stereotypes and insinuations, and if necessary, let the audience interrupted performances with spontaneous applause, as was done during the Baroque, without the rigidity that is currently attributed to classical music.
The performer considers that it is not music “for the upper class” and that it can connect a lot with young people, because in the end, it is a way to transmit emotions.
“An emotion like love, which is what the pieces convey, was the same four hundred years ago,” he says. “When we make these works, this feeling is alive and palpable”, he points out, to explain how manages to connect with the new generations.
Of the same opinion is the violinist and director Stefan Plewniak, with whom he has been working for thirteen years and has a connection that “can be felt on stage”. Like Orlinski, he considers that the main challenge is hard for young people “at the first concert” of classical music, so that they discover that there is “a beauty” that “is for everyone”.
In this sense, he highlights the advantage of technology, which allows you to “approach the public in a different way” and focus on “tribes or groups of followers” who have “truly” chosen them. “Maybe there are fewer people, but it’s an audience that follows you with conviction,” he says.
«La Giuditta» by Scarlatti, el plat fort
The highlight of the first Easter festival will be the interpretation of the oratorio La Giuditta by Alessandro Scarlatti, tomorrow, with a luxurious cast and under the musical direction of Dani Espasa de Vespres d’Arnadí. It will be Vespres d’Arnadí’s eleventh collaboration with Peralada, which demonstrates “the festival’s commitment and trust in us, a national orchestra specialized in baroque music”, as Dani Espasa acknowledges. Returning for a premiere edition and doing it with “this little wonder” is a luxury, he adds. Espasa already knew the oratorio and did not hesitate to choose it because “Scarlatti is one of the composers that interest me the most lately”. “He is a key composer for the history of music who needs to be claimed and discovered more because, apart from his genius as a composer, he was daring and innovated a lot both in the world of opera and cantata », Espasa admires.
In the Carmel church, the tenor Thomas Walker, the soprano Serena Saénz and the countertenor Xavier Sabata, who share long experience in the field of opera and interpretive virtues that will be evident in situ, will be presented in a concert version. Cristina Vila Bartis. Peralada