The MUN programs its first opera: Tosca, by Puccini

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

The Museo Universidad de Navarra offers on April 16 and 17 the opera Tosca, by Puccini, in co-production with the Asociación Gayarre Amigos de la Ópera (AGAO). Tickets are still available at the box office and on the web.

Today took place the presentation to the media of this proposal that has musical direction by Borja Quintas and stage direction by Liuba Cid, as well as 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 (playing Mario Cavaradossi). among others.

With these voices and other top professional figures will share the stage with students of the MUN Artistic Talent Program: Theater, Choir and Symphonic Orchestra of the University of Navarra, as well as students of the Performing Arts Production program of the School of Communication. A total of 150 students will participate.

In this way, Tosca contributes to the MUN's purpose of involving young people in its programming and providing them with opportunities to train alongside great professionals in music and the performing arts. La zarzuela de los paraguas (2022) and the scenic cantata Carmina Burana (2023) are the two successful projects that precede the premiere of this great title.

The director of the MUN, Jaime García del Barrio, emphasizes that although compared to other museums, this one has a high percentage of young audiences (33% are between 19 and 29 years old), the aim is for the number to continue to grow. Thus, designed for all audiences, Tosca is an especially attractive proposal for young audiences to begin to get into the operatic genre. As AGAO's manager, Iñigo Laboreria, points out, it is an opportunity to build the foundations for "the audience of the future". Laboreria also speaks of this project as "an immense stimulus for the growth of the genre" in Navarra.

For his part, music 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": by participating 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": in other words, "the job of the pit".

This first opera production at MUN presents an original staging complete with projections and lighting effects. Stage director Liuba Cid explains that this Tosca has "a visual narrative of its own." "The idea is to transmit to the audience an aesthetic experience that allows them to understand the dimension of this great romantic tragedy, the beauty and expressiveness of the 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," she says.

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". She considers it equally exciting to play her in this project in which she will be infected by the "pure enthusiasm" of young people in training, and in which she will be able to share her experience.

As is well known, the MUN has a board of trustees that collaborates in the financing of its activities. For this opera production, the MUN counts on the extraordinary contribution of one of its members.

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

He combines the symphonic world with the lyric, and has cultivated different genres: theater, flamenco print, sacred drama or audiovisual media. He has accompanied the most acclaimed voices of the international scene, such as Plácido Domingo, María Bayo or Ainhoa Arteta. Committed to young ensembles, he is artistic director of the JMJ Symphony Orchestra, Choir and Escolanía JMJ, the Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad de Navarra, the Orquestas Sinfónica y Filarmónica del CSMA and the Orquesta Sinfónica UCAM.

He is also Professor of Orchestra Conducting at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón and Academic Director of the Master of Conducting at the Centro Superior Katarina Gurska.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Liuba Cid holds a PhD cum laude in Arts and Humanities from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, where she is also a researcher and professor. She is also an academician of the Performing Arts of Spain.

He has directed more than 50 theatrical productions, with premieres at leading festivals such as the Almagro International Classical Theater Festival and the Castell de Peralada Festival. His shows have been staged at 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 theater training. Since 2009, she is director of the Mephisto Teatro Company, an Ibero-American theater project that integrates actors, designers and choreographers from all over Europe, Ibero-America and Spain.

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

In recent seasons, she 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 Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia and at Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa, Warsaw.