“A luminous and urgent performance, deftly balancing the shifts from moody ruminations to bouts of exuberance…. Heras-Casado is the thinking person’s idea of a hotshot young conductor.”
The New York Times
Premiere Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti – Wiener Staatsoper
14 Nov 2023
Apocalypse can be so colorful!
BR Klassik
It is the only opera by György Ligeti, but there is a whole world in it: “Le Grand Macabre” is a cornucopia of musical ideas. And they come into their own fantastically in the new production at the Vienna State Opera.
[…] In Vienna, Pablo Heras-Casado holds all the strings, ropes and occasionally choppy cables of the score together perfectly, the music is brilliant, and the Slovak Philharmonic Choir delivers precise vocal hullabaloo (rehearsed by Jozef Chabroň).
Triumphant debut by Pablo Heras-Casado
26 Jul 2023
TRIUMPHANT DEBUT BY PABLO HERAS-CASADO
Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado masters the difficult acoustics of the Festspielhaus right from his debut. What more famous conductors have failed at time and again, he succeeds at once: that orchestra, singers and even the fantastic choir really breathe together. It seems almost paradoxical: although Heras-Casado chooses fast tempi, the music never seems driven. For long stretches, this is fascinatingly slow, solemn music, which, however, flows as if through a natural inner gradient. Wagner’s refined sound mixtures are finely sounded out, the phrases speak – even in the orchestra, the climaxes lead to the goal. Who needs glasses?
Bayreuth Festival ‘Parsifal’ Premiere
25 Jul 2023
PABLO HERAS-CASADO INAUGURATES THE 2023 BAYREUTH FESTIVAL, ON JULY 25, WITH A NEW PRODUCTION OF ‘PARSIFAL’
Heras-Casado is the first Spanish musical conductor to occupy the podium of the Wagnerian temple, apart from the three functions of Die Walküre that Plácido Domingo conducted in 2018.
Pablo Heras-Casado will open the Bayreuth Festival, 2023, next Tuesday, July 25 at 16.00h, with a new production of Parsifal, by Richard Wagner, an unprecedented event for the international Spanish prestige in the musical field.
SWR Tour Press Reviews
12 Jul 2023
Stuttgarter Zeitung/ Backnanger Kreiszeitung.
On 25 July, the Spaniard will make his Bayreuth debut on the podium at the start of the Wagner Festival with “Parsifal”. Now he will fire up Mendelssohn’s sounds: This music has freshness, power and emotion. And emotion. […] Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (1930) is also very rhythmic, with a strong emphasis on the winds. The high strings are free here, and the great emotions pause with them. At the end, however, Pablo Heras-Casado lets them in through the back door: In the first two psalms, which are more about proclamation than internalisation, the SWR vocal ensemble declaims and intones flawlessly. The orchestra sets precise accents in the motoric forward stride.
Schubert: Symphonies Nº. 5 & 7 “Unfinished” Reviews
08 Jul 2023
NDR Kultur Album of the Week: Pablo Heras-Casado conducts Schubert by Chantal Nastasi
The Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra have already won several awards together. With their new Schubert recording, they succeed in creating a lively interpretation.
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden Press Reviews
06 Jun 2023
‘Raising expectations’ – Review by the Badische Neueste Nachrichten.
by Isabel Steppeler.
Bewitching “Parsifal” Finale with Pablo Heras-Casado at the end of the Pfingstfestspiele.
An exclamation mark at the end: The Pfingstfestspiele with the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Baden-Baden came to an end on Sunday with moving sounds. As at the opening, Richard Wagner’s work was the focus of the last concert: the prelude and the third act of his consecrated stage play “Parsifal” developed a beguiling effect in Pablo Heras-Casado’s sensual and analytical interpretation.
Freiburger Barockorchester Tour Press Reviews
22 May 2023
Kölner Stadtanzeiger
Soundtrack for a summer night.
“[…] The threads of the performance, which was magnificent in every respect, came together under the Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, who had already given Franz Schubert’s “little” C major symphony a striking profile: a perfectly balanced interplay of different movement patterns, a graceful dance of lace, which was interrupted every now and then by cheerfully booming canon salvos.”
FASZINIERT VON NEUER MUSIK
27 Apr 2023
Pablo Heras-Casado stand zuletzt 2021 im Rahmen der Konzertreihe musica viva mit zwei Uraufführungen am Pult des BRSO. Nun dirigiert er drei exemplarische Werke des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Der Bogen spannt sich von Strawinskys “Feuervogel” über Ligetis Orchesterwerk “Lontano” aus dem Jahr 1967. Außerdem auf dem Programm : das Klavierkonzert der gebürtigen Russin Elena Firsova, das sie für den Pianisten Yefim Bronfman komponiert hat. By Julia Schölzel.
‘Il ritorno d’Ulisse patria’ Press Reviews
04 Apr 2023
BR Klassik
Three completely different theatrical manuscripts on stage, held together in the pit by the Concentus Musicus Wien under Pablo Heras-Casado. He has already shown in previous productions that minimalism is not his thing: sonority and a joyfulness of colour reign supreme.
BADAJOZ / El ‘Parsifal’ de Heras-Casado
28 Jan 2023
(Music review in Spanish). “…En sus manos, la orquesta cantó y dialogó con las voces con naturalidad. Contó para ello con una Orquesta de Extremadura, debidamente reforzada con miembros de la formación joven, que ofreció un empaste admirable. Las cuerdas sonaron con sensualidad cuando arroparon a Kundry, por ejemplo, y con pleno brillo a todo lo largo de los dos días en que se dividió la interpretación de esta ópera y cabe asimismo alabar la calidad de las prestaciones de los metales y maderas, plenamente empastados con un sonido global rico en matices…”. Por Andrés Moreno Mengibar.
Der Dirigent Pablo Heras-Casado – unmittelbar erlebte Musik
27 Jan 2023
(In German). Er hat Kunstgeschichte studiert, Schauspielunterricht genommen, dazu in vielen Chören gesungen, immer mit dem Ziel „ein besserer Künstler zu werden“. Heute steht der spanische Dirigent Pablo Heras-Casado vor den großen Orchestern der Zeit und dirigiert Monteverdi genauso wie Mendelssohn.
„Musik ist die lebendigste Kunstform!“: Dirigent Pablo Heras-Casado im Interview
11 Jan 2023
(In German). Ich habe sehr früh gewusst, dass ich Dirigent werden möchte“, erinnert sich Pablo Heras-Casado und führt weiter aus: „Ich war begeistert davon, gemeinsam Ideen zu verwirklichen, eine kollektive Energie zu entwickeln und kreative Erfahrungen teilen zu können!“ Im Gespräch, das wir per Zoom-Video führen, wird genau diese positive Einstellung auch durch den Bildschirm greifbar – Heras-Casado ist ein Neugieriger, der ebenso enthusiastisch wie nahbar über seine große Leidenschaft für die Musik spricht und dessen Begeisterung ansteckend wirkt.