Plensa pours his imaginary world onto the Liceu's facade

Jaume Plensa does not like doors, but with the Liceu he has made an exception. "The first time they proposed it to me, I said I didn't have time," he explains. But, of course, then came the coronavirus and he decided to embark on the project that the artistic director of the Gran Teatre, Víctor Garcia de Gomar, had suggested to him: to design a new entrance that would protect the porch. "I have reconnected with my city with the pandemic," he points out, although he feels that he still has to sign his great work in the Catalan capital. Plensa has also thought about his contribution to the Rambla, interpreting the doors as if they were faces, one of his great obsessions. For him, they are that gift that is given to others but that each one cannot see. "They are the face of the Liceu," he remarks.

The result is a celebration of diversity. "We are very good when we are together, maintaining our individuality," he defends. This human variety, even more present in the Rambla, the Barcelona sculptor has reflected by mixing and fusing letters from different alphabets (Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Latin, Indian, Tamil, Japanese and Chinese), one of his hallmarks. "A writing made sculpture, a grammar of emotions," adds Garcia de Gomar.

The characters will be distributed in three sheet metal panels, framed in the arches of the main entrance of the theater, which will protect the covered space between the interior and the sidewalk, where situations of insecurity occur that the cultural institution wants to avoid. The opening and closing hours are yet to be defined.

Beyond his aversion to doors, since they enclose, the artist faced the challenge of integrating with a building little valued for its aesthetics and dialoguing with Joan Miró's work in front of it, "a mark of the city," even of its most tragic moments, such as the 2017 attack. Due to the need to understand the surrealist painter, Plensa has paid homage to his Constellations by making the shadows of the multilingual letters reflect on the ground and be walkable. "It will be a magical moment," he says. To do this, the doors will not open like most, sideways, but will open backwards and rise from bottom to top. They will appear and disappear, another characteristic of the Barcelona artist.

All that play makes him have given the name of Constellations to his work, with which he has also wanted to make a nod to the sets that go up and down on stages and to Antoni Gaudí's grilles. Plensa gives it an organic touch by making them have a subtle concavity and uses very thin stainless steel, with a thickness of one centimeter. The material manages to give it a color that resembles moonlight, celebrates the artist. Just in case, he will protect it so that it admits restorations if it is damaged with graffiti.

With independent operation, the three doors will weigh between 500 and 600 kilos, and will measure approximately four meters high and wide. "When I made the model, everything was easy," he indicates. But, now, in the middle of the manufacturing process from his workshop in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, "the worst moment," they are finishing profiling them and resolving the technical difficulties they are encountering.

From the Liceu, they hope they will be ready for the start of next season, the second part of the celebration of its 175 years. "It will be a perennial reminder of the anniversary," says the president of the Gran Teatre del Liceu Foundation, Salvador Alemany. It will also mean putting an end to the restorations of the original elements that were not done in the 1999 reconstruction. Specifically, in recent years, the theater has acted on the lobby, the staircase and the Salón dels Miralls (2017); it has recovered the historic facade of Oriol Mestres and has restored the Wagnerian stained glass windows of Oleguer Junyent (2019) and the entrance canopy (2021).

Plensa's contribution will be integrated without affecting previous elements of the original facade and will form a new heritage element, "a gift for the city that ennobles La Rambla," Alemany remarks. The lamps at the entrance will also be preserved. With a cost of 175,000 euros, 50% will be contributed by the construction company ACS; 35%, by Feder funds, and the remaining 15%, by the theater. Plensa will not receive any remuneration.

He also dares with Macbeth

The intervention Plensa will make on the Liceu's facade will not be the only one. As artist-in-residence for the 2022-23 season, alongside Antonio López and Marina Abramović, the sculptor will define a new proposal for Verdi's Macbeth, a dream he had had for 25 years. But he abandoned the theatrical world because it took time away from his creations and, until enough time had passed, he had not considered facing a challenge of this magnitude again. Coincidences helped, such as Garcia de Gomar proposing it to him shortly after the pandemic began and William Shakespeare's play being written when another one was happening.

The sculptor will define a new proposal for Verdi's Macbeth, a dream he had had for 25 years

However, the production will feature his most iconic sculptures, with his faces and self-portraits invading the stage; the prophecy of Sleep no more ---one of the ideas he resorts to in his works--- moving and transforming; dresses decorated with letters, or the appearance of his eyes, all very physical, with little video projection. "It will be returning to real theater," he anticipates. The figures he has made of all the characters, painted in detail, hint at some details, although he resists revealing them all for fear that the audience will already know them when they see it. He will also pay tribute to the refugees from Ukraine, as he already did with the exhibition he recently inaugurated in Céret.