Prague Philharmonia with Flórez and Villazón in Paris
The Prague Philharmonia has performed at a unique musical event - a joint recital of two opera stars, the tenors Juan Diego Flórez and Rolando Villazón, in Paris.
The concert of the two "supertenors", as the singers are sometimes called, took place at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on Tuesday 8 July 2008 and was their first appearance on the stage together, therefore also an impatiently expected highlight of the Paris season.
The singers were met with a stormy applause as they entered the stage and the ovations grew in the course of the evening. The programme included arias from several operas and zarzuelas as well as duets from Bellini's The Capulets and the Montagues, Rossini's Otello, and the singers performed jointly several Latin American songs. The Prague Philharmonia under the batton of the young Italian Maestro Michele Mariotti also performed several orchestral numbers – the overture to Bellini's The Capulets and the Montagues, intermezzos for Rossini's Guillermo Tell and the zarzuela La Boda de Luis Alonso by Geronimo Giménez. According to the influential French newspaper Le Mond these orchestral numbers "clearly showed the great qualities of the Prague Philharmonia".
The Prague Philharmonia had accompanied Rolando Villazón many times before at recitals in Prague, Paris and several German cities.
