There was a time when orchestra conductors were revered as demigods, guarantors of an otherworldly power, mystically founded on the mobilization of sonic resources to achieve the sacrosanct truth of music. The tension of a supposed perfectionism has happily given way to other ways of participating—no less genuinely, through interpretive excellence—in that truth.
Since his early years leading the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, as one of the visible heads of the educational project El Sistema, created by Maestro Abreu, Gustavo Dudamel has consistently emphasized the popular roots of music, in a deeply humanistic sense; that is, bringing to light its transformative power and its condition as a language to which no one can truly be a stranger. A language that allows us to connect without concepts to emotional life, and from there to rediscover a kind of balance, integrated into the whole from the experience of vibration itself.
Bcn Clàssics, the organizers of the events on May 10 and 11 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Palau de la Música Catalana, recall the words spoken by Dudamel in a recent appearance on the program Col·lapse: "Music is a beautiful power that cannot be isolated only for a group of people," on the contrary—he insists—it can become a factor of integration. The emotion it arouses, despite "being ephemeral, remains forever." The maestro does not hesitate to use the term "miracle" to refer to the connection it enables with oneself and with others through differences: "Why couldn't the world work by understanding each other through our differences?"
Music can become a factor of integration through the emotion it arouses, despite its ephemeral nature.Statements aligned with many others that can be read in specialized or popular media. An example of this is the piece dedicated to him by the magazineIconon the occasion of his appointment as musical director of the Paris Opera, which included the words of Alexander Neef: "He is not an authoritarian man, he creates consensus and gives confidence."Dudamel has recognized on different occasions that he learned to conduct with his friends, that his dream was to be at the head of his city's youth orchestra, Barquisimeto, feeling like one more in the group. Since then, his primary mission ---his commitment--- has been to "create a situation of enjoyment, an atmosphere of respect and exchange."
That open spirit, that will to foster the discovery of classical music through the emotions it arouses in listeners of all backgrounds, has, of course, been translated into concrete actions. We can recall that at the end of last season, in July 2024, he offered a concert on Barcelona beach, conducting the Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Thousands of people ---more than 30,000, in reality--- were able to enjoy the music of John Williams, which the maestro has recorded with the Los Angeles Symphony, of which he has been titular since 2009. At the head of this same orchestra, precisely, he triumphed last April at Coachella, marking a milestone: it is the first time in the Festival's history that a classical ensemble has participated.
More than 30,000 people were able to enjoy John Williams' music conducted by Dudamel on Barcelona beachWithin the framework of the concert series organized by BCN Clàssics, both the Palau de la Música and the Gran Teatre del Liceu will host the performance of the centenary London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) under the baton of a conductor with whom it had never, until the current season, collaborated.The Venezuelan maestro will offer high-voltage programs on May 10 and 11and, as a grand finale, a concert version ofWest Side Storyalong with Nadine Sierra, which is expected to be memorable again, at the end of July.
Strauss and Ravel at the Liceu
The orchestral grandiloquence of Richard Strauss's scores inaugurates the concert series in a venue accustomed to stage performances. The symphonic poem centered on the adventures of Don Juan draws on previous reworkings of the ill-fated character, a myth extremely influential in Mozart's version during Romanticism due to the infinite longing ---necessarily unsatisfied, being both executioner and victim of his own destiny---, which takes on a spectacular flight in the Straussian score. The sinister aspect does not disappear, but the impetus that the powerful London Symphony can provide to the wordless narration invites the listener to leave the world behind. The series of poems Shéhérazade, sung by soprano Marina Rebeka, and the still exotic Spanish Rhapsody, both works by Maurice Ravel, will also transport the audience to another dimension.
A concert, that of the Liceu, generous in incentives ---both for the programmed composers and for the display of orchestral virtuosity--- in this first series of collaborations that the Venezuelan maestro is establishing with the LSO, which will culminate with the suite from Der Rosenkavalier, also by Richard Strauss.
There are several references to The Marriage of Figaro and, as if it were an ironically decadent rewriting of that score ---a fin de siècle reading, without disguise--- it points to a change of regime in sensuality, in the management of affections and therefore also of eroticism, leaving the male figure at least questioned.
Mozart and Mahler at the Palau
Gustav Mahler, a personal friend of Richard Strauss, knew Mozart's score firsthand, due to his position as director of the Vienna Opera. In his maturity, he had the opportunity to conduct the New York Philharmonic, as Leonard Bernstein would later do, whose Mahlerian versions earned him international fame, being among the most successful in terms of spectacularity and spiritual affinity. Gustavo Dudamel's closeness to music and musicians has been compared to that effusiveness of the American conductor who ---as Norman Lebrecht explained in The Maestro Myth--- even altered the imperturbability of some members of the Wiener Philharmoniker, especially in his first collaborations.
As we were saying, our times are different, and these manners no longer scandalize the professors of the great orchestras, who tend to appreciate ---on the contrary--- the proximity and generosity in the indications during rehearsals. Nor the freedom required to interpret Mahler, well combined with the rigor demanded for the ensemble to function as an organism. Lebrecht himself pointed out in his Why Mahler? How 10 Symphonies Changed the World that peculiar mixture, as something desired by the composer himself, who requested that future masters make the score their own so that it would vibrate with the passion and veracity with which he had conceived it. All of them, Mahler recognized, have a root in his own existence, but the first, programmed at the Palau on May 11, is explicitly initiatory, for tracing, following the style of the coming-of-age novel (Bildungsroman), a life trajectory.
Extraordinary and practically out of season will be the double concert, on July 29 and 31, of West Side StoryAlso, in Dudamel's career, Mahler's imprint is unquestionable. In that monograph, Lebrecht wrote: "In October 2009, the Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel performed Mahler's First Symphony in his presentation as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Dudamel was 28 years old, Mahler's age when he composed that work. This was the first score he had studied with his mentor, José Antonio Abreu, and he had been conducting it since he was 17. An international phenomenon, sponsored by Abbado, Rattle, and Barenboim, Dudamel was welcomed in Los Angeles with grana y oro, posterson the streets and a nickname,the Dude. It remained to be seen if thehypewas justified. His inaugural concert blew away my doubts. Dudamel's interpretation is both energetic and rhythmically precise (…), always stimulating, explosive towards the end."
The beginning of these Mahlerian worlds ---his symphonies--- with their own laws and inexhaustible interpretive possibilities will coincide in the same concert with the end of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's symphonic opus. If the First was called Titan, in allusion to Jean Paul's novel, the Jupiter is undoubtedly one of the most prodigious creations of the 18th century. Although the nickname is anachronistic, alien to the author ---as so often--- it refers to a power, a primal force such that it threatens to break out of its element, classical balance and vain gallantry. Exultant from the beginning, after a slow movement in which time stops and a mischievous scherzo, the final fugue is reached. A Molto allegro that seems to never end, shining from eternity.
Bonus: West Side Story with Nadine Sierra
Extraordinary and practically out of season will be the double concert (on July 29 and 31) that once again brings together the most revered artist on the Liceu stage in recent times, and an iconic image of the current season ---under the motto Chasing a dream--- for her acclaimed participation in La Sonnambula. Nadine Sierra will culminate with her characterization of Maria from West Side Story. A modern adaptation of the tragedy of the lovers of Verona, obviously popular for Shakespeare's version, it incorporates in its musical format the Tristanian feedback of love and death. The composer of the soundtrack, Leonard Bernstein ---a recognized master in communicating affections through sound vibration--- achieved an even greater degree of popularity thanks to the 1961 film, bringing to all corners that beautiful power that allows working from differences for a kind of common understanding. Can you guess who was the maestro in charge of conducting Bernstein's score for the remake filmed by Steven Spielberg in 2021?