MÉDÉE CONCERT VERSION

Possessing a first-rate tragic talent, comfortable in French prosody, the Czech singer will offer a multi-faceted portrait of Médée: from the pain of Jason’s abandonment to humiliation, passing through madness and her murderous fury. Voice, gaze and gesture aligned in an intense performance in Charpentier’s first at the Liceu.

Sir Simon Rattle

Conductor. Born in Liverpool, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music. Between 1980 and 1998, he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Assistant of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was appointed Principal Conductor in 1990. In the 2023/24 season, he will serve as the Principal Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich. He is also Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and founding patron of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2021/2022 season with the recital Magdalena Kožená, Sir Simon Rattle & Friends

Magdalena Ko En

Mezzo-soprano. She studied voice and piano at the Brno Conservatory and with Eva Bláhová at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She has worked with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Roger Norrington. In 2003, she made her debut at The Metropolitan Opera in New York as Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) and has since returned on countless occasions. She made her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu with a Vivaldi Concerto in the 2009/2010 season and has returned with the concert Amor entre el Cel i l'Infern (2017/18) and the recital Magdalena Kožená, Sir Simon Rattle & Friends (2021/22).

Carolyn Sampson

Soprano. She works as a concert and opera singer on stages in the UK, Europe and the USA. Her operatic repertoire includes roles such as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and the title role in Semele, both operas performed at the English National Opera in London. She has also sung the title role in the Lully opera Psyché at the Boston Early Music Festival She made her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2002/2003 season in The Fairy Queen.

Reinoud Van Mechelen

Tenor. He graduated in voice from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles in Dina Grossberger's class in 2012. In 2017, he was awarded the Caecilia prize as young musician of the year by the Belgian music press union. In 2007, he joined the European Baroque Academy (France) directed by Hervé Niquet. In 2011, he became a member of William Christie and Paul Agnew's Jardin des Voix and subsequently a soloist with Les Arts Florissants. This is his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.