08.11.2025

PATRICIA PETIBON with de Falla’s La Vida Breve in Nantes & Angers

Taking this week to the stage of the Theatre Graslin in Nantes, and a week later at Le Quai in Angers, Patricia Petibon joins the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under musical director Roberto Forès Veses for a series of concert performances of Manuel de Falla’s principal operatic work La vida breve. She takes on the central character of Salud, a young gypsy woman from Granada, full of passion, integrity, and vulnerability. Deeply in love with Paco, a man from a higher social class who has secretly promised to marry her, the outcome is doomed, since Paco’s family has arranged his marriage to another woman of his social class. Her famous aria “¡Vivan los que ríen!” bursts with energy and life — a fleeting moment of joy before tragedy.

His only lyric tragedy, the work is striking in its inspiration, which remains just as powerful in the ballet El Amor Brujo, composed ten years later upon his return from a long stay in Paris. From a gypsy camp to the Albaicín district of Granada, the characters all belong to the people, and the music borrows generously from flamenco, transfigured by the voices and the orchestra.

Patricia Petibon’s relationship to Spanish music goes far back to the beginning, from her first interest and passion for Spanish culture and music while still at school. In her earlier career she performed Zarzuela alongside Plácido Domingo and dedicated a whole album with Deutsche Grammophon to a unique selection of luso-iberian repertoire entitled “Melancolia” under Josep Pons and the Orquesta Nacional de Espana to critical acclaim. In recital, Petibon continues to incorporate the music of de Falla and his contemporaries into her programmes, creating with it a unique story and theatricality for which she remains unparalleled on stage.
 

Cast

Lucie Roche, soloist in El amor brujo

Patricia Petibon, Salud
Lucie Roche, La Abuela; Salud's grandmother
Sophie Belloir, Carmela
Carlos Natale, Paco
Jean-Luc Ballestra, Sarvaor; Salud's great-uncle
Laura Gallego Cabezas, La Cantaora

Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire
Chœur d’Angers Nantes Opéra | Xavier Ribes, choir director
Roberto Forés Veses, musical director