Written in five acts by the leader of the Obeses gang, Arnau Tordera, ‘The lost cat’ It is his third foray into the field of musical theater. The musician from Tona leaves behind that light and friendly pop with notes of a singer-songwriter that distinguishes the music of his group to introduce himself with ‘La gata’ in a score that requires a symphonic template and ensembles typical of other genres such as rumba, heavy music or hip hop in great mixing job that works flawlessly as a soundtrack to the playwright’s crazy script Victoria Szpünberg and that in the second act reaches the highest levels. Tordera’s music, with references to tradition, comic accents and highly compartmentalized stylistically according to the profile of each character, is a ticking time bomb.
But this ‘The cat loses’beyond its function as a musical theater play, forms a more than laudable project from other points of view, since finally has encouraged dialogue between an entity like the Liceu, loaded with prejudices of elitism, and the neighborhood in which it is inserted and to which it turns its back, the Raval, poor, with coexistence problems, but supportive, multiethnic and welcoming. The Gran Teatre has managed, after years of work, to involve more than 70 neighborhood associations and a thousand neighbors in the conception and production of what he calls a “community opera”, and that already has an incalculable value. The night of the premiere, the room was full of people from the neighborhood, curious and excited, who mixed with the authorities headed by President Aragonés. What part of the wardrobe has been made in Top Blanket or Dona Kolors or that the opera includes the exciting choir “Som del Raval” –a true anthem– is already a triumph.
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Going back to Szpunberg’s libretto, the idea was that, moving between spheres of reality and fantasy, the residents of the Raval –which town of Fuenteovejuna– they will entrench themselves before a great speculator, achieving their objective. Everything becomes more digestible thanks to the splendid and mammoth stage direction by Ricard Soler Mallol –although there are plenty of choreographies by Anna Macau– and, above all, for the effort and professionalism of soloists such as Pau Armengol (Tycoon), Rocío Martínez (Architect), Marta Infante (Curator), Albert Casals (Detective), Dianne Ico (Gata ), Joan Sáez (Secretary) and Óscar Peñarroya (Camel). The large choral mass made up of entities from the neighborhood and coordinated by Cristina Colomer transformed their appearances into a party, while a concentrated Alfons Reverté, from the podium, gave musical meaning to this uplifting proposal.
But, is this ‘Gata perduda’ an opera? For decades, the borders of what defines a musical-theatrical show as an opera have been in question. In certain theaters in Germany, where many current creations are included, the lyrical season is now even advertised as a ‘musical theatre’. ‘La gata perduda’ also raises the question of whether it constitutes an operatic show, since its performers used amplification. The microphone –or a mobile phone, as in the introduction to the work– is what distances ‘La gata’ the most from the genre, since the opera lives thanks to those prodigious voices that reach the last corner of the room without needing of technical resources. that’s her magic.