A concert is a unique sound and bodily event that transcends not only by what happens on a stage, but above all when what has been experienced becomes memory, turning into philosophy. From this perspective, and against the temptation to approach art as something solely enjoyable, a musical evening as God intended should also make one suffer and feel uncomfortable; the only important thing, ultimately, is that it excites our thought. This can be applied to what was perhaps one of the most important concerts of the last five years in Barcelona, the Händel performance by conductor Teodor Currentzis at the Palau de la Música Catalana leading his ensemble musicAeterna and a competent group of soloists from the Anton Rubinstein Academy, and the possessive adjective must be emphasized here more than ever, because the Greco-Russian conductor has built a machine that lives at his service, as if in addition to making music it were governed solely by the objective of pleasing him.
Just when the invention began ---with the aria "Augelletti, ruscelleti" from La Resurrezione, HWV 47 and the subsequent and well-known chorus "Zadok, the priest"--- I had a small attack of vicarious embarrassment seeing how Currentzis, whose certain gestural histrionics we already knew when he ascended to the podium of his ego, conducted the singers practically gripping their throats, surrounding them like a playful dancer, directing his gaze almost as much to the audience as to the orchestra, all while the mass of his choristers complemented the musical fabric with an operatic gesturality prototypical of the seventies. The important question of this concert is how the skeptical listener, surprised by the narcissism of this individual with an ample awareness of his own talent (it should be noted that at home, for obvious reasons, we have always liked cocky people very much), can end the evening wanting to jump out of their seat dancing "Sing ye to the Lord" as if they were in front of Judas Priest themselves.
The appeal to popular-rock music is not trivial, starting with the fact that our bad boy's proposal (suitably dressed as a metal star) is nothing more than a Spotify list of the highlights of the Halle composer, served in a woven dialectical continuity between the intimacy of the sweetest arias and the barrage of pieces like Alla hornpipe from the second Water music, unleashed with a morbidly pornographic musculature of accents and ritardandi. In this sense, it can be thought that Currentzis invents nothing that Gardiner, Pinnock and company have not already tried; he simply radicalizes it to a point of theatricality that very wisely borders on kitsch and exhibitionism. But, on the other hand, when the particular conservative we have inside begins to doubt the value of this proposal, the conductor has already prepared a new sound effect with a group of musicians who, for now, have no rival in sound quality.
I quickly correct myself (you see that today I also breathe certain contrasts), because the musical proposal of this continuous Händelian work is not only based on the art of the trick. I would say that Currentzis shows his musical genius, above much more passable flourishes, when he proves capable of adapting the timbre of his orchestra to the voice of the soloist in front of him, with an adequacy that is out of this world. In turn, as he already demonstrated in his famous recordings of the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy, the maestro is capable of incomparably stopping time by slowing down the course of fragments like "He saw the lovely youth" from Theodora as if the emission occurred within the slow motion of a Mahlerian coda. The problem, purists will say, is that this whole range of resources is only realized based on its own aura, not in honor of the great Händel.
As a server, not a fan of third ways, I would respond that everyone has a point. Currentzis has adopted the figure of a star, this is undeniable, but this has been his postmodern way of creating a perfect machine of soloists that has as persuasive an effect on the audience as the orgasms that the splendid concertmaster (in every sense) Marina Katarzhova seemed to experience. Does this imply that he ends up completely ignoring the works in question? I would say no, because this tasting so close to a playlist can also be an opportunity for the less intellectual music lover to approach the entirety of the works of the musician being performed, oratorios and operas that ---if given in their full extent, no matter how well they are performed--- would provoke ostensible yawns in the audience. In any case, I would say that the transcendence of this concert is based on raising so many interesting questions.
So, did I attend a great concert? The answer would be something like "I have no fucking idea," but I know that ---as the philosopher Kylie Minogue would say--- I can't get it out of my head.