Mérida Symphony Rings in Holy Week With Pergolesi, Wagner, and a Standout Soprano

The Orquesta Sinfónica de Yucatán closed out the sixth program of its 45th season this weekend with a concert built around two of classical music’s most searching themes — grief and transcendent love — timed precisely to the opening of Holy Week.

Under conductor Alfonso Scarano, the orchestra performed Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater alongside excerpts from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde, with soprano Valeria Vázquez and mezzosoprano Gabriela Flores as soloists. The audience at the Palacio de la Música in Mérida left visibly moved, said Jesús Mejía of Diario de Yucatán.

The first half belonged to Pergolesi. For the Stabat Mater — a sacred text traditionally attributed to Pope Innocent III, set to music by the Italian composer in 1736 — Scarano stripped the orchestra down to a chamber ensemble: strings only, with Irina Decheva on bajo continuo. The transformation surprised the crowd, not accustomed to seeing the full symphony reduced to a baroque configuration. Over 40 minutes, Vázquez and Flores alternated with the ensemble in recitative passages depicting Mary’s anguish at the foot of the cross, a program note perfectly calibrated to the start of Semana Santa.

The piece holds a particular resonance in this season. The OSY performed Dvořák’s version of the Stabat Mater last year; this time, Scarano reached for Pergolesi’s original — widely considered the most performed of the hundreds of settings the text has inspired, alongside those of Dvořák and Rossini.

The second half expanded dramatically. With all 64 musicians on stage, the orchestra moved into Wagner, first with the Prelude from Parsifal and then the opera’s Good Friday Spell — two dense, meditative passages that Wagner wrote as invitations to reflect on compassion and redemption. The choice of Parsifal excerpts on the eve of Good Friday was anything but incidental.

The concert’s emotional peak came last: the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, with Vázquez taking Isolde’s final aria. The soprano, a native of Monterrey, brought a clear, full-throated delivery to some of the most demanding music Wagner wrote for the voice — the aria in which Isolde transfigures her grief into a vision of eternal union with the dying Tristan.

Vázquez told the audience afterward that performing Wagner’s repertoire alongside Yucatán’s public had been a significant experience in her career. She noted she has not yet sung the full role of Isolde in a staged production, but plans to study it with a pianist in Mexico City following her next engagement — a production of Verdi’s Falstaff in Monterrey in June. She has previously performed the title role in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen.

The OSY, founded in 2004 through a partnership between the Yucatán state government and a private patronato, has performed at the Palacio de la Música since a 2022 fire damaged its longtime home at the Teatro José Peón Contreras.

Holy Week’s musical calendar continues. On Monday, March 31, the Cathedral of Mérida hosts a Misa de Réquiem composed by Francisco Palazón — a Spanish-born composer and priest recognized for his contributions to post-conciliar liturgical music — at 8 p.m. The performance brings together several choirs, including the Ensamble Vocal Mínimo, the Coro Amigos de Jesús, the Coro Laudato, a children’s choir, soloists, and an organist, under the direction of Isaac Márquez.

If You Go: Holy Week Music in Mérida

• OSY Season 45 performances continue at the Palacio de la Música, Mérida Centro
• Misa de Réquiem by Francisco Palazón: Monday, March 31, 8 p.m., Cathedral of Mérida
• Multiple choirs perform under the direction of Isaac Márquez
• Admission to cathedral events is typically free and open to the public
• For OSY ticketing and upcoming programs, visit sinfonicadeyucatan.com.mx