The Orchestre de Paris, led by Alain Altinoglu and featuring tenor Léo Vermot-Desroches, presented the entirety of the aria Sémiramis for the first time, including the Prélude et Danse and the Scène I – Air de Manassès. This premiere, held at the Philharmonie de Paris, is part of the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of both Ravel and his close friend and collaborator, the pianist Ricard Viñes from Lleida.
The confirmation of Ravel's authorship was made possible by studying Viñes' personal diary, carried out by the commissioner of the Any Viñes (Viñes Year), Màrius Bernadó. This discovery is considered an “exceptional event” in the international music scene, given the French composer's relatively small catalog of works.
“"Viñes had an obsessive personality and kept everything. The two main collections of Viñes, the Municipal Archive of Lleida and the University of Lleida, gather more than 10,000 documents, offering a unique portrait of Parisian artistic life."
The manuscript of Sémiramis was located in 2000 at an auction and acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, but remained largely unexplored for two decades. Prior to yesterday's full premiere, the Prélude et Danse had already been world-premiered on March 13, 2025 in New York by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
In Catalonia, the piece has also been heard in auditoriums such as the Palau de la Música and the Auditori Enric Granados in Lleida, performed by the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès under the direction of Néstor Bayona.
