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Can You Think of a Better Place to see Carmen Performed Than in Spain?Seville’s First International Music Festival Announced For September 2004
The Mayor of the City of Seville, Spain, Mr. Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín, and Michael Ecker, President of OOS – Opera on Original Site, Inc., producer of the internationally acclaimed and televised production of Puccini’s opera Turandot in the Forbidden City, Beijing, China, in 1998, announced that The First Seville International Music Festival will take place from September 2 to 12, 2004. Mayor Monteseirín welcomes the international opera, flamenco, and music lovers to Seville—a city, which, like no other, has inspired the setting of over 100 operas over the centuries including Carmen, Fidelio, Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and La Forza del Destino, etc.
The Festival, which is budgeted at roughly 23 million Euros, with a planned participation of more than 1500 artists, musicians and dancers, is the first of its kind in Seville, and one of the largest music festival extravaganzas to be hosted in Spain. For the first time in history the opera Carmen, led by superstar conductor Lorin Maazel with the Philharmonia Orchestra, directed by Academy Award nominee Carlos Saura, will be experienced on its original site. Contemporary greats such as Neil Shicoff, Olga Borodina, Angela Gheorghiu, Denyce Graves, and Ruggero Raimondi, will perform. Three-time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro will sign for the lighting design, Rafael Palmero for the sets, Geraldo Vera for costumes, Prof. Wolfgang Fritz of the Vienna State Opera for the sound and Motoko Ishii for the lighting of the public areas.
For further ticket, travel and accommodation package information, please visit www.carmeninsevilla.com KNOW BEFORE YOU GOHELLO SPAIN! Spain Rick Steve’s Rick Steve’s Spain and Portugal 2003 Walking the Camino de Santiago ANDALUSIA Edited by Madelyn Miller |
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Highlights Include 9 Performances of
Bizet’s Carmen On Original Site in Seville 
The highlight of the 2004 Festival will
be nine on-site performances of Carmen, the world’s most popular opera,
composed in 1869 by Georges Bizet, based on the 1845 novella by Prosper
Merimée. Although there have already been several productions of Carmen in
Seville, none have ever been staged using the dramatic original surroundings
of the Plaza de España, the Parque María Luisa, and the 14,000 seat
bullfight arena. The temperature in September in Seville is perfect, and
besides the Andalusia horses, architecture and breathtaking countryside,
there are wine and culinary delights, combining all the ingredients of a
unique Festival experience.
In addition to the performances Carmen,
the first Seville International Music Festival will include recitals and
orchestral concerts by Lang Lang, the renowned ‘cellist Mstislav
Rostropovich, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra of the Russian National
Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Ponti, violinist Maxim Vengerov, accompanied
by pianist Fazil Say; the Russian National Orchestra, with violinist Julian
Rachlin, under Mikhail Pletnev, who will also be featured as piano soloist
with the RNO under Rostropovich; and the New York Philharmonic conducted by
Sir Colin Davis with violin soloist Kyoko Takezawa. Top flamenco groups will
also appear within the framework of the Festival.
The force behind Seville’s First
International Music Festival, Michael Ecker, founded Opera on Original Site,
Inc. in 1987, with the aim to market and produce high quality operatic
events at the sites with which they are most closely associated. In addition
to producing the now historical production of Turandot in The Forbidden
City in Beijing, he has been involved with the first production of Aida in
Luxor in 1987, followed by promotion, marketing, and production planning of
the open-air performances of Verdi’s Nabucco in Jerusalem in 1988. In 1994,
Michael Ecker took on promotion and marketing the “Three Tenors in Concert”
held in Los Angeles on the occasion of the festivities surrounding the World
Soccer Cup. In 1996 he undertook marketing activities in various countries
for the open-air performances of Verdi’s opera Otello in Paphos, Cyprus.