Tenors César Arrieta and Klodjan Kaҫani lend their voices to Nemorino, the young peasant who is in love with Adina, in L’elisir d’amore, one of the most often performed and acclaimed operas by Bergamo composer Gaetano Donizetti, that will open the 2019/2020 Ópera de Tenerife season with four performances by the members of Opera (e)Studio.

This coproduction of Ópera de Tenerife, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre, will first be performed tomorrow, [Thursday, the 24th] and then on Friday, the 25^th, Saturday, the 26^th and Sunday, the 27]. All the performances of this project, which this year is funded by the European Commission programme Creative Europe, will be on at Auditorio de Tenerife’s Sala Sinfónica at 7:30 pm except for the last one which starts at 6:00 pm.

Both singers will play the role on alternate days: Kaҫani will be on stage tomorrow and on Saturday while Arrieta is singing on Friday and Sunday. Tickets can be purchased through Auditorio de Tenerife’s usual sale channels: at the box office from 10:00 am to 7:30 pm, Monday to Saturday except holidays, via www.auditoriodetenerife.com or by phone on 902 317 327.

Venezuelan singer, César Arrieta, started training from an early age in the Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles [National System of Young and Children Orchestras and Choirs] in his native city and at the Escuela Superior de Canto de Madrid. Although this is his first time on the island, he has heard of the work done at Ópera de Tenerife because of “the high artistic level of the productions”.

The tenor learned about the Opera (e)Studio programme through some friends who had taken part in Don Pasquale (2016) and decided to enter this year because of the title chosen. The singer says that Nemorino is an essential role for tenors”. Although he has never been on stage with this opera, he has sung many of its pieces in concerts and admits that “there was a lot of Nemorino in my life before we met face to face”.

Klodjan Kaҫani, an Albanian singer who studied at Universiteti i Arteve di Tirana, came to the island for the first time last season for the production of Lucia di Lammermoor in the role of Normanno, so he knows the work Ópera de Tenerife carries out very well.

For Kaҫani, who took part in the production of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Fondazione Arena di Verona, this is the first time he is tackling L’elisir d’amore, a title in which the complexity of Nemorino stands out as it also puts the stress on the evolution of the character through the opera.

These two young tenors, along with eight other singers, came to the island to take part in the seventh Opera (e)Studio, the comprehensive programme for singers’ artistic improvement. The training, directed by Giulio Zappa from the beginning, consists of different masterclasses given by international first-rate professionals and goes on with the typical rehearsals of every opera production, which is the phase that is currently in progress. The programme concludes with the performance of the opera.

L’elisir d’amore marks the beginning of the season and has Antonio Méndez -principal conductor of Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife- as musical director. This Ópera de Tenerife show is done in coproduction with Teatro Comunale di Bologna and Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre is the debut in Europe of stage director Pablo Maritano, who transports us to the Golden Age of Hollywood. It all comes with the stage design of Serena Rocco, costumes by Lorena Marin and Virginio Levrio as lighting designer.