– After performing Rossini’s Stabat Mater in Budapest, the Canarian tenor will return to the iconic title role of Massenet’s opera at the Croatian National Theatre, before travelling to Menorca for Un ballo in maschera and to Madrid for Il trovatore, both by Verdi.
Having performed the role to great acclaim from both audiences and critics this season at ABAO Bilbao Opera, Celso Albelo returns in April to the “wonderful, introspective, and demanding” role of Werther, in the tenor’s own words. The protagonist of Massenet’s opera — which the Spanish tenor first debuted at the Ópera de Tenerife in 2016, later taking it up again that same year at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna — he will sing once more in Croatia from 25 April. Based on the character from Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, the role represents the “prototype of the Romantic hero,” explains the singer from La Laguna (Tenerife): “His is a tormented, poetic, and intensely sensitive soul, whose obsessive passion and radical idealism condemn him to a tragic fate. Massenet, through marvellously expressive music, succeeds in immersing us in his psychology, making his pain deeply moving. It is a role I tried out a few years ago, allowed to rest, but to which I have returned this season with great ease after having already debuted lyric roles by Verdi and Puccini,” says Celso Albelo. “Massenet conceived it for a lyric-spinto tenor voice, not forgetting that there is a version for baritone: in any case, the performer must be able to convey tenderness and vulnerability as well as the climaxes of overflowing passion and heroic despair. An example of this is the aria ‘Pourquoi me réveiller’, which today is a crucial piece of the repertoire and has transcended the boundaries of opera itself because of its beauty.” From the same composer, Albelo has also sung Des Grieux in Manon, and he continues, convinced that the French composer “is a genius of orchestration, melody, and lyric theatre.”
The Canarian tenor will perform Werther on 25, 27 and 29 April in Zagreb, sharing the stage with mezzo-soprano Emilia Rukavina as Charlotte; he will be conducted by Italian maestro Piero Giorgio Morandi, in a production whose stage direction, set design, and costume design bear the signature of three‑time Oscar winner Dante Ferretti, a legend of cinema and collaborator of greats such as Fellini, Scorsese, and Zeffirelli.
After having performed Rossini’s Stabat Mater at Müpa Budapest on 1 April, also conducted by Maestro Morandi, two Verdi operas await Celso Albelo for the remainder of the season: he will return to the season of Amics de s’Òpera de Maó (Menorca) as Riccardo in Un ballo in maschera, and to the Teatro Real in Madrid as Manrico in Il trovatore.