Famed Spanish tenor Placido Domingo will be the star attraction at the opening of the University of Guadalajara’s Conjunto de Artes Escénicas, the new performing arts complex located on the northern city Periferico adjoining the State Library and within spitting distance of the Auditorio Telmex.
On Saturday, October 21, Domingo will be accompanied by winners of past editions of his international Operalia competition for up-and-coming opera singers, which last year was held in Guadalajara.
The Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra is slated to perform, led by guest conductor Eugene Kohn. The singers will be soprano Adela Zaharia of Romania, tenor Rame Lahaj of Kosovo, tenor David Lomeli of Mexico, mezzosoprano Nancy Fabiola Herrera of Spain and baritone Juan Carlos Heredia of Mexico.
Tickets for the gala will cost from 500 to 4,000 pesos.
The new cultural complex comprises five spaces of varying sizes designed specifically for diverse genres of music, dance and theater. It forms part of the Centro Cultural Universitario, the major development that currently encompasses the library and the Plaza Bicentenario, and will later include the Museum of Environmental Sciences and the Centro de Instrumentación Transdisciplinaria y de Servicios (Citrans), a major research center for science, industry and government.
Work on the 12,500-square-meter cultural complex began in October 2010 and the final cost is expected to be 1.4 billion pesos ($US78 million). Since the UdG is a public university, the bulk of the funding has come from federal, state and municipal coffers. The main concert hall will be able to accommodate 1,800 people (more than the Degollado Theater), while the four smaller halls will have space for audiences of between 200 and 900.
Completing the complex has run almost five years behind schedule, with the original inauguration date set for the end of 2012.
Raul Padilla, president of the Conjunto de Artes Escénicas’ Patronato (governing body), boasted that the new complex would be among the best of its kind in Latin America, let alone Mexico.
The performing arts space is yet another addition to the UdG’s growing collection of cultural venues in Guadalajara. The university already operates the Auditorio Telmex, the Teatro Diana, the Teatro Vivian Blumenthal, the Cineforo, the Teatro Estudio Cabaret, as well as a radio and television station. It also hosts the massive International Book Fair (FIL) each year at the start of December.
In addition to the opening gala, a number of shows have also been scheduled at the Conjunto de Artes Escénicas through the end of the year, including performances by Le Ballet National de Marseille on Tuesday, October 24 and Wednesday, October 25 and presentations by local ballet star Isaac Hernandez (English National Ballet principal) on Friday, November 3 and Saturday, November 4.
At the beginning of November, the complex will host several works in the annual puppet festival, El Festin de las Muñecos. The Ballet de Jalisco will present the work “Sheherazade,” with music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, on Friday, November 17.