The Liceu is warming up for one of the most anticipated productions of the 2022/2023 season, Verdi's Macbeth with stage direction by Jaume Plensa, who is making his debut in the role. Knowing that he doesn't have to worry about spoilers, the Barcelona artist has poured all his imagination into this globally known drama, making Shakespeare's words fill the space, preventing his hypnotic sculptures from detracting from the main voices and musicians: "It's not an exhibition of my pieces, don't be scared". All this, "without putting any obstacles in the way of Shakespeare and Verdi," who were whispering in his ear how to proceed with the creation process, making him feel accompanied.
"It's in my personality to try to leave empty space. The stage will be more empty than full. Emptiness is also an object. The most important thing in life is the invisible," he defended at the opera's presentation, a week before the world premiere, accompanied by the Liceu's artistic director, Victor García Pomar, maestro Josep Pons, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky (Lady Macbeth) and baritone Luca Salsi (Macbeth). Plensa's impressive figures will be present, whether faces or nomads, playing with the perceptions of the spectators to recover the deceptive origin of theater, García Pomar emphasizes, always pursuing the goal of seeking and creating beauty. He has even done it with the costumes, transformed into sculptures. And Shakespeare's Scotland will be seen, but with almost 2,300 interpretations every night, that of each spectator: "Not one, which is the vulgar one, but the one that will be in their heads."
All these elements are the result of the many drawings Plensa began to make during confinement, when it seemed the world was ending, but he decided to immerse himself in Shakespeare and Verdi: "The hardest part has been waiting three years," he confessed. Furthermore, the artist had wanted to tackle Macbeth for more than 20 years, after he abandoned the theatrical world because it took too much time away from his creations. Now that enough time has passed, he has been able to do it, even if it was with a pandemic in the background, without forgetting that the British playwright's tragedy was written when another one was happening.
"This work may be the most incomprehensible because we are very close to the angels," he continued, which is why he wanted his scenic proposal to be of "extraordinary lightness." "Shakespeare tried to describe the human being with all his complexity. We have all been Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo... Depending on how the light hits us, we are one thing or another," he maintained about a story that left him deeply impressed when he first read it as a young man and now he has been able to understand it more: "I thought I knew it."
The sculptor also wanted to delve into the change of perspective that times are giving to one of the great protagonists, Lady Macbeth. "She illuminates them all. She is like the sun and all the others are the planets that revolve around her. This is the vision I wanted to transmit to the viewer, it is a change of attitude. I believe that Shakespeare was not talking about blood, livers, mud, power and obsession, what happens is that for centuries a masculine gaze has been perpetuated on an element that was already very feminine but had not been understood." "Bring tissues," Plensa warned, "you won't cry out of foolishness, but out of depth." He, pending the premiere, has already done so twice.
Beyond the stages
Plensa's Macbeth, a Liceu production with a cost of two million euros, will premiere next Thursday, February 16, and will run until Friday, March 3. The work will be accompanied by an installation by the artist in the same theater, with three human figures almost two meters high, in addition to the brand new doors with which he has equipped the facade.
By May, the Caixaforum+ platform will present a documentary about the creative process that the Barcelona artist has followed in recent months. It will also do so with another of the season's great protagonists at the Liceu, Alexina B., by Raquel García Tomás.