When one thinks of Barcelona’s intangible heritage (I know this is a somewhat nebulous category, as it subsumes ideas as disparate as grandmother’s tales or the art of sculpting a trencadís), one must inevitably turn to its voices. As for opera and lied, our city has given birth to —or seen grow— vocal glories of the West such as Conchita Supervía, Maria Barrientos, Mercedes Capsir, Conxita Badia, Francesc Viñas, Josep Palet, Emili Vendrell, Enriqueta Tarrés, Vicenç Sardinero, Manuel Ausensi, Montserrat Caballé, Victoria de los Ángeles, Jaume Aragall, Josep Carreras, Joan Pons... world-class singers of such extraordinary mastery that they might seem almost impossible to follow for today’s generations.
So, one would have to ask: are we still nurturing outstanding vocal careers? And, if so, why don’t we hear about them and, above all, why aren’t we more aware of them?
The answer to the first question is yes, absolutely yes: excellent voices with international reach are still emerging in the cap i casal, such as the magnificent Serena Sáenz or our well-established darmosana Sara Blanch. The second question is harder to answer, because I would have to fire off an essay that included globalizing factors such as the practical death of the record industry, the (justified) loss of singers’ aura, the savage competition that emerging economies have brought into the mix and also, why not say it, the poor judgment of programmers (I’ll add it to the list of books I’ll never write). But all this trivial metaphysics comes to mind because, this very week, our city has hosted three concerts in which the voice played an important role, with some very juicy alternative formats that have shown that, at least as far as this subject is concerned, we have reason to be hopeful.
I start with the most traditional, the lied recital offered by Helena Ressurreição and Mar Compte at the Palau de la Música Catalana (this Monday, October 5), a stroll through French mélodie in the shadow of the Life Victoria festival. I was immediately pleased by the voice of this Portuguese mezzo-soprano trained in our country (a detail I had to look up online, given our venues' habit of dispensing with program notes or replacing biographical notes with notoriously sub-par question games), an instrument I suspect is even more suitable for the stage than for lied and which has to contend much more with the very tricky idiomatic-vocal peculiarities of the chanson, a fact that contrasted with a splendid version of our Rossinyol or the wonderful Tenho tantes saudades by Francisco de Lacerda.
Mar Compte accompanied quite well but, again, this repertoire needs a flow that was neither there nor expected. Faced with a recital of these characteristics, the LIFE organizers should guide their artists more (a program is not a salad of songs with a far-fetched thematic axis; this genre has plenty of more suitable cycles for the singer!) and strive so that the grace of performing a concert in the small hall of the Palau does not end up diminished by a meager attendance.
The next day (Tuesday, October 6) we repeated our visit to the Petit Palau Cambra with splendid voices from the tribe and in a formation, the mixed vocal quartet, that we are not used to hearing even in the most specialized cycles. Performing a recital that travels from canonical pieces by Schubert to the beautiful Indianas by Che Guastavino could have ended in a mess, but the experience of Marta Mathéu, Mireia Pintó, Josep-Ramon Olivé and, above all, of the singer most accustomed to liederistic culture, the tenor Roger Padullés, gave us a remarkable concert that would be good to tour the country.
Here everyone has their quirks, and yours truly might have exchanged Rossini's more anecdotal pastries for a stew with more substance, such as Schumann's Spanisches Liederspiel Op. 74 or, warum nicht? and since we're doing Brahms, the second round of the Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer, hard stuff. Here we return to the crux of the matter, and that is that, no matter how learned a vocal group may be, this is an extremely complex type of formation that requires many more rehearsals than (I intuit) the artists had at their disposal. On this occasion, the audience was larger than the day before, but it is still hard to get people off the couch. I will try with a (true) provocation; Padullés sings as well as or better than Padmore or Bostridge, but don't go to hear him because he lacks a serious industry behind him and because you are very snobbish.
We conclude this trio with a gem that, hallelujah, is beginning to certify how Víctor Medem's direction at L'Auditori can give us some real change. Given that the OBC's ceiling is what it is (and as long as the orchestra's statutes are not transformed to distance it from civil service, little will change), I celebrate that Medem is beginning to revalue the Sala Oriol Martorell, which surely has the best acoustics in the city, to accommodate much more lied, chamber music, and unusual repertoire or combinations of heritage that make our spirit vibrate.
This was the opening of the Chamber cycle (this Thursday, October 8), focused on a dialogue between Bach and Kurtág, and with resident artist Elionor Martínez taking on the role of singing the extremely stripped-down Fragments de József Attila embedded between partitas and sonatas for violin (the presence of four soloists with different approaches to Bach may displease the most purists, but I found it appropriate... and I can't help but say that these works please me as Patricia Cordero played them; with head, heart, a pair of balls... and it's okay for the distraction before the scale prior to the variation of the arpeggios, because there we all shit our pants). That said, Elionor was fantastic and showed a skill which, if we put ambition into it, could conquer the world...
The quality of the voices is there (in fact, despite what nostalgics may think, singers have many more training possibilities than their musical great-grandparents), but it requires audacity, desire, and a lot of promotion
I return to the initial questions. Firstly, in order to give prestige to our voices, new ideas and ambitious formats are needed. To program a mixed vocal quartet in a chamber hall or to bring Bach and Kurtág together, one does not need to be a musical genius (in fact, the composer himself recorded some Játékok with pieces by the Thomaskantor, accompanied by his beloved wife), but rather to put in a little effort and a little risk. If programmers shake off their laziness, which they are doing and I celebrate it, voices will end up having more experience, projection and will even enjoy the privilege of trying things and, if necessary!, falling into something as human as making mistakes.
These three concerts I'm talking about have missteps, adjustable aspects, and sublime moments; well, we should focus on the latter and take them as a frequent guide for conduct. The quality of the voices is there (in fact, despite what nostalgics may think, singers have many more training possibilities than their musical great-grandparents), but it requires audacity, desire, and a lot of promotion. Let's rewrite, then, the initial question: Does Barcelona still see important voices born and grow? If I pay attention to this week's proposals, yes! But that's not enough; to the talent of our own, we must add imagination and a strong patrimonial commitment.
In all this we are improving, perhaps with an elephant's slowness, but we must applaud our musical agents for having racked their brains to, at least, try to embrace novelty. If we continue like this, and timid gestures become the norm, illustrious or even legendary voices will emerge again. I'm sure of it, believe me.