The acclaimed Majorcan tenor closes the Seville opera house’s season as Verdi’s hero, while also releasing a Lieder album before taking on new challenges in A Coruña, Oviedo, Tenerife and Barcelona’s Liceu.
The role of Radamès is a milestone in any tenor’s career. “This is my debut at the Teatro de la Maestranza, and I’m really looking forward to it,” says Joan Laínez, already focusing on his upcoming engagement at Seville’s historic opera house, where he will take on the lead in Aida – Giuseppe Verdi’s beloved yet notoriously demanding masterpiece. Laínez’s trajectory is somewhat unusual: the Majorcan tenor has carved out a prominent place for himself on the European circuit in his early maturity, taking on some of the most exacting roles in the repertoire. Now he’s gearing up to tackle one of the most iconic of them all: Radamès, the man caught between the love of Aida, the Ethiopian princess, and the obsessive desire of her rival Amneris, daughter of Egypt’s Pharaoh.
Laínez knows the character inside out, having already sung it at the Oviedo Opera – an experience that proved a turning point in his career and has allowed him to arrive at the Maestranza with a more rounded take on the role. It joins a gallery of characters that already includes Pollione (Norma at Italy’s Taranto Opera Festival), Don José (Carmen on the Fundació Òpera Catalunya tour), Turiddu (Cavalleria rusticana with the Castilla-La Mancha Symphony Orchestra) and Canio (Pagliacci at the Salzburg Oper im Berg Festival), among others.
With this impressive track record, the Majorcan singer – who has just released the album L’àlè del record, featuring works by Joan Manau – is making his debut at Seville’s coliseum with a clear-eyed view of the challenge. “Radamès is daunting both because of how well-known his aria and duets are, and because of the sheer difficulty of performing him, but I adore the character. I’m coming to the Maestranza more relaxed because I’ve already debuted it in Oviedo, so now I have a clearer idea of how to pace my energy across the whole performance as I sing it,” he explains.
At the Seville opera house, he will step into the shoes of Verdi’s hero for two performances, on 24 and 27 June, in a new production directed by Paco Azorín, with Dominic Limburg conducting the Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra and the Maestranza Chorus. Laínez will share the stage with Chunxi Hu as Aida, María Luján Mirabelli as Amneris and Fabián Veloz as Amonasro, among others.
In recent seasons, the Spanish singer has picked up a string of prestigious awards that have cemented his international standing: in 2021 he took second prize at the Corsica Lírica international competition in France; the following year he won the Audience Award at the Jole de Maria competition in Tivoli, Italy; he has also been a finalist at the Stignani Competition in Imola, and in 2023 he bagged first prize at Salzburg’s Grandi Voci competition.
After his Sevillian run, the tenor’s next season will see him take on Števa (Jenůfa) in A Coruña, Des Grieux (Manon Lescaut) at Oviedo Opera, and a double bill at Tenerife Opera with Marcellus (Hamlet) and Lechmere (Owen Wingrave), alongside his long-awaited debut at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in Casagemas’s Schiava e Regina. On the horizon are roles such as Don Carlo, Florestan (Fidelio) and Don Álvaro (La forza del destino). ◆