Every time elections to the Parliament approach, the socialists ---who are a bunch of jokers--- simulate a minimum interest in the tribe by associating a universal Catalan with one of the infrastructures that they themselves dedicate themselves to not financing properly. It already happened with El Prat Airport (which no one calls Josep Tarradellas), now it has happened with Sants Station and Montserrat Caballé and, if Salvador Illa obtains the presidency of the Generalitat, it could also happen that the Hard Rock project ends up adopting the addition Joan Manuel Serrat. The case of Montserrat Caballé has outraged many fellow citizens but, as always happens, for the most erroneous reasons; namely, the tax problems of our soprano and her Andorran exile. Trifles of resentful people, because here the important thing is to get angry because Caballé's name ends up associated with such a repulsive place as said station.
I have heard Mrs. Caballé's voice almost every day of my adult life. I don't care two hoots if she paid all the taxes she owed (because I consider it a moral obligation to evade as much as possible the systematic robbery to which the State subjects us) and the issue of Andorra only deeply hurts me because the residential change must have forced her to live, poor thing, in one of the most boring and overrated places on the planet. What I know for sure, regarding this minor issue, is that Montse not only gave the administration much more money than all of us put together, but also that she has exported the name of Catalunya, our culture and our language a hundred thousand times more than the boors who want to amend her a whole life. Because here the important thing is to remind all these people, perversely ignorant, that Caballé's artistic dimension surpasses any tribute, parade and monument.
For the undocumented (and the deaf) of our country, a simple reminder: Montserrat Caballé is, without a doubt, the most important soprano of the 20th century and one of the essential interpreters in the history of music. When the reader finishes assimilating these words, they will expel from their mouth references such as Callas, Sutherland, Flagstad or de los Ángeles: I assure you that all of them, if they could be resurrected, would exchange their respective (and sublime!) musical careers for Montserrat's. It is for this reason that it is an insult to link the name of our artist to a disgusting nook like Sants, which is not only one of the ugliest and most absurd stations in all of Europe, but also fatally stuck to one of the hardest, most unaesthetic and vomit-inducing squares in our city, which to top it all off also has the sants collons to mock such an important concept of our imaginary as is the sacred concept of the Països Catalans.
I would ask permission from the spirit of my dear Ildefons Cerdà to change the merely technical denomination of Avinguda Diagonal to, henceforth, call it Avinguda Montserrat CaballéThe perfidious Sants station cannot be linked to the most important voice in the country's history. We cannot allow Montse's name to be associated, even if it is post mortem, to a ridiculous commuter train that slowly advances towards Sant Vicenç de Calders. Not one of the congressmen who has insulted the country in this way will have ever heard the high-pitched sound of theprayerof Maria Stuarda in 1978 at the Liceu, a note that Montse holds for twenty-one fucking seconds, taking it from an excellentpianissimountil a lyrical opening instrongof cathedral-like proportions; nor will they know what I'm talking about when I remember theDeh! Do not want them victimsof the end of the Orange Standard of '74,where the interpreter directly touches the sky with a superhuman vocal thread for which Callas would have sold her mother and all her jewels.What would they know, my poor dears, if not even the current minister of culture must understand any sentence of this paragraph I just wrote!
Given to copying the (wise) Yankee custom of linking names to monumental places, I would ask permission from the spirit of my dear Ildefons Cerdà to change the merely technical name of Avinguda Diagonal to, henceforth, call it Avinguda Montserrat Caballé. For all the natives of the Eixample neighborhood, it would be wonderful to get used to meeting for a drink at Aribau with Montserrat Caballé or to eat at the frightfully pretentious restaurants of Passatge de Marimon with Montserrat Caballé. On the holy day when we achieve national liberation, and close this distributor called Diputació de Barcelona, we will be able to say that we have celebrated it as God intended on Rambla de Catalunya with Avinguda Montserrat Caballé. It would be so beautiful, in the same fabulous context, to mount the first parade of the Catalan army with tanks bursting into our Montse's street!
Montserrat Caballé is, without a doubt, the most important soprano of the 20th century and one of the essential interpreters in the history of musicBut all this is far away... because the foolishness of politicswill make Caballé appear in our imagination when we despair losing minutes trying to get to Santsthrough the worst-conceived car entrance of all Western stations or when we, weary of life, wait for a train heading to Portbou that,as usual, arrives late and ruins our Friday night. What a bunch of bunglers, I affirm.
Add The New Barcelona Post as your preferred Google source for free
Stay informed with the latest news.