Michael Spyres / Il pomo d'oro
Tenore Assoluto
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Date
- 19:00 / Cancelled 19:00 / Sold out Saturday, 19:00
Location
Grand Auditorium Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationPricing
25% – Under 30
10% – Over 65
Cartão Gulbenkian:
50% – Under 30
15% – Over 65
- Tenor
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Il Pomo d’Oro
Il pomo d'oro was founded in 2012 and is characterized by an authentic, dynamic interpretation of operas and instrumental works from the Baroque and Classical period. The musicians, all well-known specialists, are among the best in the field of historical performance practice.
The ensemble has become known for its concert performance and recording of many operas, and has worked with conductors Riccardo Minasi, Maxim Emelyanychev, Stefano Montanari, George Petrou, Enrico Onofri and Francesco Corti. Concert master Zefira Valova leads the orchestra in various projects. Since 2016 Maxim Emelyanychev has been its chief conductor, and since 2019 Francesco Corti is principal guest conductor.
The ensemble has collaborated on performances and recordings with world renowned instrumentalists including Francesco Corti, Giovanni Sollima, Edgar Moreau, Shunske Sato, and Dmitry Sinkovsky, and superstar singers including Joyce DiDonato, Cecilia Bartoli, Jakub Józef Orliński, Michael Spyres, Ann Hallenberg, Sandrine Piau, Mélissa Petit, Franco Fagioli, Max Emanuel Cenčić, Xavier Sabata, Lisette Oropesa, and Fatma Said to name a few.
Il pomo d'oro is a regular guest in prestigious concert halls and festivals all over Europe and regularly collaborates with mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato. After the worldwide success of their programmes of ‘In War and Peace’ and ‘My favorite things’, il pomo d’oro and Maxim Emelyanychev rejoined Joyce DiDonato for a worldwide tour of her ‘EDEN project that spanned three years, finishing in September 2024. The project won numerous accolades, including a Grammy nomination, a Gramophone award, a ‘Choc’ from Classica, an an ‘Opus Klassik’ award.
In 2022 il pomo d’oro started a long-term recording project of Mozart-Symphonies and selected solo-concerts with Maxim Emelyanychev conducting. The first volume, ‘The Beginning and the End’ was released with Aparté in early 2023, featuring Mozart’s first and last symphony and piano-concerto No. 23 with Maxim Emelyanychev as soloist.
The 2023/24 season saw numerous record releases, including Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with Joyce DiDonato and Maxim Emelyanychev, ‘Al-Bunduqiyya - The Lost Concerto’ with Giovanni Sollima and Federico Guglielmo, the second volume of the Mozart project with Emelyanychev and Ivan Podyomov, and ‘Beyond’ with Jakub Józef Orliński, which won the prestigious Fryderyk Award for Early Music Album of the Year, the 2023 Caecilia Award, and the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award.
The same season, il pomo d’oro continued to tour outstanding opera-in-concert with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Handel’s Berenice, and Monteverdi’s Orfeo together with conductors Maxim Emelyanychev and Francesco Corti. Recital tours included ‘Al-Bunduqiyya’ with Giovanni Sollima, ‘Contra-Tenor’ with Michael Spyres, ‘EDEN’ with Joyce DiDonato to Asia and South America, and a sell-out 21-concert European tour of ‘Beyond’ with Jakub Józef Orliński followed by a North American tour of 7 concerts. The tour continues and next stops include further performances across Europe, Asia, South America, and the United States.
In the 2024/25 season, the orchestra continues to collaborate with incredible musicians and soloists and will see opera-in-concert productions of Handel’s Alcina and Jephtha, and staged productions of Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. The il pomo d’oro choir will perform their critically acclaimed programme of Gesualdo’s Sacrae Cantiones, and Monteverdi’s Vespers with conductor Giuseppe Maletto. In recital, the ensemble will join forces with Julie Fuchs, Michael Spyres, Pene Pati, Joyce Didonato, and Jakub Józef Orliński and will continue to work with cellist Giovanni Sollima for performances across Europe. The album of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, recorded following a sell-out European tour with Joyce DiDonato and Maxim Emelyanychev, will be released on Erato/Warner records in 2024, along with releases of new projects with lutist Miguel Rincon, tenor Pene Pati, and cellist Giovanni Sollima in the near future.
Il pomo d’oro is official ambassador of El Sistema Greece, a humanitarian project to provide free musical education to children in Greek refugee camps. Il pomo d’oro plays charity concerts and offers workshops and music lessons according to the El Sistema method on a frequent regular basis in various refugee camps in Greece.
The name of the ensemble il pomo d'oro refers to Antonio Cesti's opera from the year 1666. Composed to the wedding celebrations of Emperor Leopold I and Margarita Teresa of Spain, Il Pomo d'Oro was probably one of the largest, most expensive and most spectacular opera productions in the still young history of the genre. 24 different stage designs, a horse-ballet of 300 horses, a fireworks display of 73,000 rockets, numerous ‚special effects'- superlatives, which should make the Emperor's court the highlight of cultural splendour in Europe.
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Michael Spyres
Tenor
Michael Spyres is one of the most accomplished Tenors of his generation with already 10 DVDs and 30 CDs to his name. Born and raised in the Ozarks in an extremely musical family, he has been celebrated in the world’s most prestigious international opera houses, festivals and concert halls.
During the 2024-25 season, Michael Spyres performs the role of Manrico in Il trovatore at Houston Grand Opera, the title role of Palestrina, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos and Florestan in Fidelio at the Wiener Staatsoper, as well as Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Bayreuther Festspiele. During the 2023-24 season Spyres made his debut in the title role of Lohengrin at the Opéra du Rhin of Strasbourg and as Siegmund in Die Walküre at Bayreuther Festspiele. He also sang Licinius in a new staging of La vestale at the National Opéra de Paris and Énée in Les Troyens at Salzburger Festspiele, BBC Proms and Berliner Festspiele. Other recent highlights include the title role in Idomeneo and Pollione in Norma at the Metropolitan Opera, Don Jose in Carmen at Opéra National de Paris and at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and Jupiter in Handel’s Semele at Bavarian State Opera. Spyres has performed at opera houses and festivals worldwide such as Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Chicago Lyric Opera and Teatro Real de Madrid.
He has been the Artistic Director of the Ozarks Lyric Opera since 2015. Spyres won the Male Singer Award in the 2023 International Opera Awards, was named Best Male Singer of the Year at the 2024 Oper! Awards and received the Opus Klassik 2024 for his solo album In The Shadows. With Il Pomo d’Oro, he recorded the highly acclaimed album Contra-Tenor, a spectacular follow-up to his Gramophone Award-winning BariTenor.
Tenore Assoluto
Georg Friedrich Händel
Antonio Vivaldi
Baldassare Galuppi
Gaetano Latilla
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Nicola Porpora
Domenico Sarro
Giuseppe Sammartini
Johann Adolf Hasse
Antonio Maria Mazzoni
Michael Spyres, one of today’s most sought-after tenors, joins the ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro for a dive into the Baroque period and a tribute to the figure of the tenore assoluto – the singers of enormous virtuosity, range and vocal power who laid the foundations for baritones and modern tenors, the stars of opera history. Renowned for his extraordinary interpretations of bel canto and French opera, Spyres sings for the first time in his career a programme exclusively dedicated to the Baroque, tailored to his enormous technical qualities.
Sponsor Gulbenkian Music
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