Roger Alier will no longer welcome diners at the Sopars Lírics cycle at 7 Portes, which he founded in 2013, sitting at the piano, but he will continue to be present in spirit in this initiative that unites gastronomy and opera. The music critic and great historian of the opera genre died in June of last year, having managed to encourage around sixty young singers linked to Barcelona through these post-dinner performances at the emblematic restaurant. There, the Catalan sopranos Sara Blanch (who is now Oscar in the Liceu’s Ballo in maschera) and Serena Sáenz, who rubs shoulders at the Vienna Masketball with stars of the stature of Elina Garan?a, made their debut or sang when they were not yet known. Or like the baritone Carles Pachon. The young singers who are promising today have attended these dinners.
“Roger Alier’s hallmark was to cultivate and support young people, those who train in Barcelona or reside here because it is an important center from which to travel. And this is the case of Milan Perisic, who won the Josep Palet and Les Corts 2023 prize and is about to debut at the Paris Opera,” explains opera critic Jordi Maddaleno, a disciple of Alier for two decades and co-organizer with him of these dinners with recital.
If Perisic performs on March 21, the cycle will be inaugurated on February 22 by a mezzo, the Colombian Yeraldin León, who lives in Madrid and is a graduate of the Reina Sofía School of Music, although she has received a scholarship from the Ópera Actual foundation, the magazine that Alier co-founded and that Fernando Sans Rivière now directs. And, continuing with the tone of lower registers, on April 25, the Andalusian bassist Gonzalo Ruiz, who is training with Carlos Chausson in Barcelona and who this season has made his debut at Òpera Catalunya, will perform alongside the cycle’s pianist, Josep Buforn.
The unmissable event will, however, be the dinner on May 30, when at least a dozen singers who have been through the cycle, in this venue that is a decade older than the Liceu itself, will sing in tribute to Alier.