David Giménez Carreras
Encyclopedia
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
. He is the Music Director
Music director
A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...
of the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès. and a principal guest conductor of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra
George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra
The George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra is a musical institution of Romania.Founded in 1886, under the supervision of Eduard Wachman, the Romanian Philharmonic Society had as purpose the creation of a permanent symphonic orchestra in Bucharest...
. Giménez Carreras is the nephew of tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
José Carreras
José Carreras
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
and has conducted many of his concerts, including the 1998 outdoor concert in Barcelona attended by 50,000 people to mark the 10th anniversary of the José Carreras International Leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
Foundation.
Career
Giménez Carreras began his musical training at the Conservatori Superior de Música del LiceuConservatori Superior de Música del Liceu
Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu is a music college in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was created in 1837 with the name Liceo Filo-dramático de Montesión....
in Barcelona. He then joined the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, studying with Prof. Karl Osterreicher. He later studied for three years at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
in London, with Colin Metters
Colin Metters
Colin Metters, is an English conductor, orchestral trainer and conducting pedagogue and since 1983 the principal professor of conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London.-Biography:...
and Sir Colin Davis. He made his professional debut as a conductor in 1994 in a concert given by José Carreras and has gone on to conduct concerts featuring many prominent opera singers including Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....
, Agnes Baltsa
Agnes Baltsa
Agnes Baltsa is a leading Greek mezzo-soprano.Baltsa was born in Lefkada. She began playing piano at the age of six, before moving to Athens in 1958 to concentrate on singing...
, Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, Dennis O'Neill
Dennis O'Neill
Dennis O'Neill CBE is a Welsh operatic tenor and recording artist.-Early career:Born of Welsh and Irish parents, he studied privately with Professor Frederic Cox in Manchester and then in London...
, Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....
, Angela Gheorghiu
Angela Gheorghiu
Angela Gheorghiu is a Romanian soprano opera singer. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has sung as soprano leading roles at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States...
and Roberto Alagna
Roberto Alagna
Roberto Alagna is a French-Italian tenor. He was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Early years:Alagna was born outside of the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian immigrants . As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets for tips...
. His debut at London's Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
came on December 27, 1999 when he conducted a concert by Alagna and Gheorghiu. He also conducted the couple's joint concert at the Théatre de l´Opéra in Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
in 1997, and most recently Roberto Alagna's 2008 'Viva Verdi' concerts at the Auditorio Baluarte in Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is a theatre at 15 avenue Montaigne. Despite its name, the theatre is not on the Champs-Élysées but nearby in another part of the 8th arrondissement of Paris....
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and the Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...
in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
Giménez Carreras's debut as an opera conductor came in 1995 when he conducted Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
at the Staatsoper Stuttgart
Staatsoper Stuttgart
The Staatsoper Stuttgart is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, Germany.-History:The Stuttgart Staatsoper forms part of the Stuttgart State Theatre , which is a a three-branch-theatre complex and represents the largest theatre of its kind in Europe...
, an opera he was later to conduct at the Hungarian State Opera House
Hungarian State Opera House
The Hungarian State Opera House is a neo-Renaissance opera house located in central Budapest, on Andrássy út. It is home to the Budapest Opera Ball, a society event dating back to 1886.-History:...
in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
(1996), the Macerata Opera Festival
Macerata Opera
The Macerata Opera is the name given to the coordinating bodies of the provincial and local government in Macerata, the provincial capital of the Marche region of Italy, which puts on performances of three or four operas each July and August under the name Sferisterio Opera Festival...
(2006), and the Festival Jardins del Cap Roig in Calella de Palafrugell
Calella de Palafrugell
Calella de Palafrugell is one of three coastal towns belonging to the municipality of Palafrugell, province of Girona, Spain, the other two being Llafranc and Tamariu. It is part of the Costa Brava, the coastal region of northeastern Catalonia, in the comarca of Baix Empordà...
(2007). On June 4, 2000 he made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu conducting Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...
's Sly
Sly (opera)
Sly, ovvero La leggenda del dormiente risvegliato is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, based on the Prologue to William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew Sly, ovvero La leggenda del dormiente risvegliato (English: Sly, or The Legend...
in the Liceu's first ever performance of the opera. His other European opera performances have included Fedora, with Agnes Baltsa in the title role and Plácido Domingo and José Carreras alternating in the role of Count Loris Ipanov at Zurich Opera
Zurich Opera
Oper Zürich is an opera company based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company gives performances in the Opernhaus Zürich which has been the company’s home for fifty years.-History:...
(1998); The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
(1998), Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
(2004) and Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
(2006) at the Festival de Ópera de Las Palmas
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria commonly known as Las Palmas is the political capital, jointly with Santa Cruz, the most populous city in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands and the ninth largest city in Spain, with a population of 383,308 in 2010. Nearly half of the people of the island...
; The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
at the Opéra National de Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
(2003); Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
at the Teatro Principal de Mahon
Mahon
Mahón is a municipality and the capital city of the Balearic Island of Minorca , located in the eastern part of the island. Mahon has the second deepest natural harbor in the world: 5 km long and up to 900m. wide...
(2003); Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
at the Romanian National Opera
Romanian National Opera
The Romanian National Opera is one of the national opera companies of Romania, situated in a historical building in Bucharest, near the Cotroceni neighbourhood....
in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
(1999) and the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
(1999); Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
at the Festival Internacional de Santander
Festival Internacional de Santander
The Festival Internacional de Santander is one of Spain's oldest music festivals. Each year, during the month of August it presents two to three operas as well as performances from visiting ballet and theatre companies, solo recitals, and choral, symphonic, and chamber music concerts...
(2004); La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
at the Festival Terre Verdiane in Busseto
Busseto
Busseto is a comune in the province of Parma, in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy. It was the capital of Stato Pallavicino. Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi was born in the nearby village of Le Roncole and he moved there in 1824...
(2004), and La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
at the Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...
in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
(2006).
Further afield, he made his local debut in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 2003, conducting Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
at the Israeli National Opera. He has also conducted in many major concert halls in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
, largely in performances by José Carreras, including the tenor's reprisal of the title role in Sly for Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...
's Japan Tour in 2002. Giménez Carreras made his North American debut in 1994, conducting the Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Colorado’s only full-time professional orchestra, the Colorado Symphony embraces a tradition of musical excellence by presenting a diverse array of symphonic performances throughout the year...
. Since then, he has conducted many of José Carreras' US concerts, as well as Montserrat Caballé's 1995 concert at the Ravinia Festival in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. In addition to his concert work in the US, he has conducted Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
(1999) and Madame Butterfly (2000) for Fort Worth Opera
Fort Worth Opera
According to the company, Fort Worth Opera is the oldest, continually performing opera company in the state of Texas and among the oldest in the United States. While originally presenting operas one at a time over a fall/winter season, it changed to a "festival" format in 2007...
; Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
(2001) for Baltimore Opera; La bohème (2001) and L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
(2002) for Portland Opera
Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its mainstage performances take place in the Keller Auditorium, while the Portland Opera Studio Theater at the Hampton center is used for performances of chamber operas...
; and Rigoletto (2003) for New Orleans Opera
New Orleans Opera
Opera has long been part of the musical culture of New Orleans, Louisiana. Operas have regularly been performed in the city since the 1790s, and for the majority of the city's history since the early 19th century, New Orleans has had a resident company regularly performing opera in addition to...
.
Selected discography
- Montserrat Caballé, Montserrat Martí: Two Voices, One Heart, (Gran Teatre de Liceu Symphony Orchestra, David Giménez Carreras conductor), RCA Victor/BMG Classics, 1995.
- José Carreras: My Romance, (Tallis Chamber Choir, The London Musicians Orchestra, David Giménez Carreras conductor), Erato, 1997.
- Wolf-Ferrari: Sly, (José Carreras (tenor), Isabelle Kabatu (soprano), Sherrill MilnesSherrill MilnesSherrill Milnes is an American operatic baritone most famous for his Verdi roles. From 1965 until 1997 he was associated with the Metropolitan Opera....
(baritone), Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre de Liceu, David Giménez Carreras conductor), Koch Schwann, 2001. - Por amor: Romanzas y dúos de zarzuelaZarzuelaZarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...
(María Gallego (soprano), José Bros (tenor), Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid, David Giménez Carreras conductor), Discmedi Blau, 2007.
External links
- David Giménez Carreras Official website