Nature Behind the Curtains

Silver, whitish, and red curtains that make it rain, snow, or bleed. What will remain in our retina is that, in our ear the consonantal tendency of Czech and a brief, concise music, with no time for flourishes, and in our brain a story that confronts natural instinct, dangerous and at the same time innocent, with always culpable human evil. The story, the fable, the novel in comic book form (from a local Brno newspaper) on which the opera's libretto is based does not end well. Agreed. But if the work speaks of human transience and the inexhaustible force of nature, sometimes society (gathered at the Liceu in commendable representativeness) resembles a natural phenomenon more than a human convention. In the same way that El cant dels ocells, performed before the work to convey a message of peace, resembles a music of nature more than a seemingly impossible human ideal.

Many politicians, on Monday. Except for the notable absence of President Illa and Mayor Collboni, compensated by the presence of the second authority of the country, MHP Josep Rull. But there were also many businessmen and many artists and creators, in a photograph of social vitality that gave hope and invited smiles despite the general rain (not meteorological, but atmospheric).

Rain, snow, blood, curtains. Forest. Janácek loved animals, and listened to their sounds, although in this case the characterizations of the main protagonists were austere and in street clothes (in contrast to those of the chicks, exaggerated and almost Easter-cute). The voice of baritone Peter Mattei shines in the darkness of the forest ranger's soul, and the vixen, Elena Tsallagova, was somewhat overshadowed by the strong personality of the fox she falls in love with (Paula Murrihy). Meanwhile, the silver curtains rise and fall in various layers and you would say they are making it rain, but perhaps they are only acting as a dreamlike forest (and beautiful, it must be said), while the characters constantly appear and disappear from beneath the earth. In this forest, green has been banished. One might say that the intense yellow of the chicks tries to bring some joy to the eyes, but the scenographic intention is austere and elegant. Dark and bright at the same time. A play of reflections.

Despite everything, it is still in animals where some color rests and in humans where it disappears: we are the tortured, evil, gray shadows. Animals eat each other, yes, but they are worthy of attention and content themselves with being creatures. And birds chirp, and among chirps they understand each other, or get angry, but opera clings much more to them than to humans, the truly predictable ones in history. As predictable as the footwork in copulation that at one point appears behind the curtain, in a humorous touch that in my opinion is unnecessary and crude (not because it's offensive, but because it's childish). Janácek's music has some undisguisedly romantic, tender, human passages, even though in general the piece is dressed in twenties style and abstract impressionism.

As I said, on the red carpet at the entrance (finally a wide entrance free of construction!), in the corridors and in the hall of mirrors, Barcelona was there. The pulse of the most restless or most influential Barcelona society. I must say that this time the reunion sounded like resistance, like a paradoxical green shoot, like that part of cultural, political, business society that refuses to dilute itself in a laconic swan song. As if we were facing a hopeful (and post-October) "Va, pensiero", all the presences conferred a special warmth. Nobody seems to control anything, the political-social atmosphere caused rather sadness or concern in some conversations, but it was the presences themselves that transmitted confidence. We are, inevitably, like a stroke of luck or like a curse, like a vixen that transmits its spirit from grandparents to children and from children to grandchildren. The gamekeeper kills the vixen, but its spirit always sprouts again. You just have to look between the curtains.