Last month also saw the release of his latest album with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Pablo Heras-Casado. Throughout the season he will perform in venues such as the Stadtcasino Basel, Tiroler Landestheater, Teatro Real and Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, the Palau de la Música Catalana and Les Arts in Valencia.
“The soloists were far and away some of the best I’ve ever heard for the Ninth, and yet one stood out: No bass soloist has sounded more robust, commanding, authoritative, strapping, weighty and dynamic than José Antonio López. His performance was one for the record books. The auditorium positively trembled with this basso profundo and his large, rich, resonant sound; his bottom notes produced full sound and power beyond anything I have ever heard live.”(Beethoven 9, debut with the LA Phil, Tony Frankel, May 2022.)
On February 24th the baritone José Antonio López appeared at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam performing Graupner’s Dido, Königin von Carthago together with Robin Johannsen, Andreas Wolf, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, La Cetra Barockorchester and Andrea Marcon, a concert that was repeated at the Stadtcasino in Basel a few days later. That same week he travelled to Barcelona to perform Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona and Marta Gardolinska at the Palau de la Música Catalana (“The Creation of José Antonio López”. A. Torrens, Revista Musical Catalana)
José Antonio López will perform the same work by Graupner, this summer at the Tiroler Landestheater, this time in a staged version directed by Deda Cristina Colonna, as part of the Innsbrucker Festwochen.
In addition, February was also the month of his debut with the pianist Daniel Heide, with whom he has begun collaborating. They performed in the prestigious Ciclo de Lied at the Teatro de la Zarzuelain Madrid, this season being its 30th edition. López is the only Spanish singer invited to perform at the event this year.
February 23rd also saw the release of José Antonio López’s latest album, a collaboration with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Pablo Heras-Casado. The recording includes music by Stravinsky and El Retablo de Maese Pedro by Falla, and was recorded by the label Harmonia Mundi during a tour in 2023. In the past he has collaborated also in recordings for Deutsche Gramophon, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, NAXOS or Chandos.
In April and May the baritone will be at the Teatro Real in Madrid to sing the role of Kothner in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, again conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado in a new production directed by Laurent Pelly alongside Gerald Finley as Hans Sachs.
José Antonio López, who has recently made his debut with ensembles such as the LA Phil with Gustavo Dudamel and the Rotterdam Philharmonisch with Lahav Shani, and who last May was again invited by the Cincinnati Symphony to perform Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with James Conlon, has other outstanding engagements during the present season, including Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony with the Orquesta Nacional de España and Guillermo García Calvo, as well as Mozart’s Requiem with La Cetra Barockorchester and Andrea Marcon. Also, he will be performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and Vasily Petrenko in Les Arts in Valencia. On an operatic level, he has recently performed at the Opéra de Lausanne and at the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, and he has just made his debut with Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi at the Oviedo Opera (“José Antonio López, an exceptional Gianni Schicchi”, Scherzo, Nuria Blanco, November 2023) and in June he will return to the Teatro Villamarta in Jerez to sing Germont in La Traviata.
José Antonio López has already been engaged to return, in future seasons, to the Theater an der Wien, Halle Händelfestspiele, Teatro Real, Gran Teatre del Liceu and Teatro de la Maestranza, among others, and has an upcoming debut at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
