Victoria de los Ángeles comes back to the Paranymph Hall a hundred years later
On Wednesday, November 1, All Saints' Day, at 7.00 p.m., will take place in the Paranymph Hall of the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona, the concert commemorating the centenary of the soprano Victoria de los Ángeles, which kicks off the activities of the Victoria de los Ángeles Year. Among the attendees in the event, which can be followed live through this link, will be the president of the Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation, Helena Mora, the Minister of Culture of the Catalan Government, Natàlia Garriga, the managing director of the national institute of Stage Arts and Music, Joan Francesc Marco,and the vice-rector for Heritage and Cultural Activities of the UB, Agustí Alcoberro.
On Wednesday, November 1, All Saints' Day, at 7.00 p.m., will take place in the Paranymph Hall of the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona, the concert commemorating the centenary of the soprano Victoria de los Ángeles, which kicks off the activities of the Victoria de los Ángeles Year. Among the attendees in the event, which can be followed live through this link, will be the president of the Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation, Helena Mora, the Minister of Culture of the Catalan Government, Natàlia Garriga, the managing director of the national institute of Stage Arts and Music, Joan Francesc Marco,and the vice-rector for Heritage and Cultural Activities of the UB, Agustí Alcoberro.
The one-hour concert will be given by soprano Elena Copons and the Victoria de los Ángeles Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Pardo, who will perform a repertoire of classical and popular pieces by Mozart, Schubert, Grieg, Puccini and Montsalvatge, among others. Tickets will be available from October 25 on this link, which you can also see the full programme of the event.
Victoria de los Ángeles is an essential figure in the history of the University of Barcelona. Her childhood was spent in the Historic Building, where her father was a concierge and her family lived, and it is also the place where she began her passion for music. In 1944, at the age of twenty-one, she made her debut at the Palau de la Música Catalana and the following year at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. She began a great international career, full of success and recognition.
She was also the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the UB. She received this recognition, which she always treasured as one of the most important of her life, in 1987, from the rector Josep M. Bricall. On that occasion, she explained that she was very moved because she had learned to sing in the Paranymph Hall when she was a little girl, with a rickety piano, while her mother mopped the floor of that huge room.
This year, as announced at the opening ceremony of the academic year —under the slogan "The University is art"—, an event has also been dedicated, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pau Casals, to commemorate the appointment of the master as doctor honoris causa on January 18, 1939, in the last University Senate of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, before the fall of the city into the hands of Franco's troops.
It should be noted that the Victoria de los Ángeles Foundation has established its head office in the Historic Building of the University of Barcelona, since an agreement signed in 2017 that establishes a general collaboration between the two institutions to promote and carry out acts and events jointly.