When there is great expectation before a premiere, the illusion that the result will be liked is one of the energies that move the proposal. In this case, where the acclaimed sculptor Jaume Plensa returned to the lyrical field now nothing less than to make his debut as a stage director after 16 years of absence from the stage -he had collaborated with La Fura dels Baus as a set designer and costume designer-, expectations were fulfilled among the ranks of his many admirers, while somewhat disappointing in the strictly operatic realmsince his proposal, beautician and symbolist, moved away from the conventions and from Verdi’s romantic look at Shakespeare to enter the world of beauty, in the unequivocal universe of the Catalan artist.
Those who were not happy with the result used as an argument the inexperience of Plensa in these fights, but the truth is that the brand new ‘regista’ battled for years, side by side, with directors with extensive experience in avant-garde theater who, in turn, were trained in the field of poetry such as Àlex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa.
A good laboratory to which Plensa has now added his deep knowledge of ‘Macbeth’, because he is a declared fan of the work of the bard of Avon, and specifically of this political, psychological and surreal drama. Both protagonists, the insecure assassin who becomes King of Scotland and his intriguing wife, Lady Macbethhave been part of the artist’s iconography for decades.
That is why Plensa –who also designs the set and costumes– came to the Verdi’s work with homework done. And since directing theater is far from plastic creation, he surrounded himself with a solvent team made up of Leo Castaldi in stage direction, Nadia Balada in the costumes, Marc Salicrú in the sets and Antonio Ruiz in the choreography.
The collaborations resulted in a sufficiently clear reading of the work with the visual explosion of a couple of scenes of undeniable mastery.
There were his marvelous sculptural poetry, his graphics, his distorted faces, his monumental heads, his thinking men… There was no medieval or gothic atmosphere, none of that, because this show plunges into the world of Plensa, who proposes his own Space, with its borders and atmospheres, dragging Duncan’s ghost with himto the apparitions, to the predictions of witches and to the dream world that is born from Shakespeare’s text.
All this was printed in some characterizations as from another planet in which they commanded colors As the red, black or white.
The production –with a cost close to two million euros– is slowly revealing its wonders and, despite being expected to be visually spectacular at all times, it is so by chapters. A good part of the first, second and third acts featured a nearly nude setting in sequences which, above all, focused on the action in characters devoid of stage elements to support them –a hackneyed resource that continues to seduce–, but with a infallible weapon to defend your dramas: the spectacular costumes. The protagonists dress in tunics, leggings or dresses with the artist’s stamp, with his unmistakable spellings. When will your first catwalk?
The world famous Plensa heads they appear at key moments and certainly manage to impress for its spectacular and magical volumetry, here accentuated by the marvelous lighting of that magician of color that is Urs Schönebaum. Plensa seeks a balance and uses the resource of his sculptures in his fair measure, leaving the dreaded void a large part of the limelight, and in this he is right, since it forces us to focus attention on the power of Verdian music, on the action and on the performance of the soloists. The entire atmosphere created by the ‘regista’ rises hypnotically and oozes a powerful and pure energy – fleetingly reminiscent of his collaborations with La Fura – taking Shakespeare’s drama to a poetic space far from this world.
The phrase ‘Sleep no more’, which is born from the work of the English playwright as a reflection of the guilt that the character of Macbeth carries after killing the King of Scotland and that prevents him from falling asleep until he drives him crazy, has its moment of glory in the introduction, a phrase that Plensa already used in his sculptures at the end of the 1980s. The proposal is also full of dance by some dancers who constantly interact with the choir and the charactersin addition to giving life to the ballets of the French version.
The great sin of stagingin any case, is that it does not help the projection of the voices as it does not have an adequate sounding board: if two set designers, Plensa and Salicrú, were not able to solve it, they did he achieved an efficient performance taking the soloists to the mouth From Stage.
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joseph ponsfrom the podium, contributed a effective musical recreation with sufficient theatrical tensionbringing out a contrasting and balanced sound from the Liceu Symphony (except in the blurry final battle), giving freedom to the vocal soloists and taking full advantage of the possibilities of the female choir in the appearances of the witches and the male choir in battles and ambushes, reaching the climax in an excellent version of the famous “Patria oppress & rdquor ;.
For this long-awaited premiere, the Liceu had a truly opulent Lady in the figure of Sondra Radvanovsky, whose big voice adapted to the perfidious character like a glove, solving all her scenes with good line, mastery of coloratura, pianissimos and adequate desperate bass. He Luca Salsi’s Macbeth fitted in with total comfortfull of means and expressive, while Erwin Schrott’s Banquo was always sure. Gemma Coma-Alabert prevailed at the necessary moments as Francesco Pio Galasso’s Dama de Lady and Macduff, on the other hand, she only excelled in her aria, and focused as if it were a ‘verista’ piece.