The universe of what the corny call "polarization" has landed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on the occasion of the Verdian Macbeth sculpted by Jaume Plensa. What on opening night led to a resounding orgasm of bravos has contrasted with some slight protest (even very loud, from what I experienced at last Wednesday's performance, with many more subscribers present, when Plensa came out to greet the stage, thus breaking the custom of most directors on the planet who show off only at the premiere). I would say that the diversity of opinions does not lie in the dramaturgical approach of our national sculptor – it would be difficult, as he simply has none – nor in the Barcelona rumor mill according to which diuen diuen diuen that the Liceu's whim has cost the taxpayer a couple of million cucumbers (of which, diuen diuen diuen, the sculptor has guzzled three hundred thousand). In reality, everything is simpler.
The Liceu has signed the Plensa S. L. brand to stage Macbeth, just as it could have bought the visual imagery of Netflix, Louis Vuitton, or Coca-Cola. The sculptor has fulfilled the assigned task by placing his well-known thinking effigies and word searches on stage, devising a topical stage direction that he could have applied in copy-paste to any other opera in the repertoire. The privileged brains of our first public institution wanted to capture the Plensa audience in this way and thus fill the theater with those spectators who find metaphysical peace in the hazel eyes that the artist has exported worldwide. And Jaume has given them the methadone. Whoever wants theatrical complexity, filleta meva, should buy a DVD or go away for a weekend to another theater. In terms of pure marketing, things are good if they work and, apparently, this Macbeth will be one of the popular hits of the season. Caixacobri.
As my dear gallerist Antoni Valero told me yesterday at the Ateneu, a phenomenon quite similar to Subirachs is happening with Plensa. After filling most of La Caixa's offices with his unbearable engravings and establishing himself as a continuator of Gaudí's work on the even more dreadful portal of the Sagrada Familia, the sculptor Subirachs became the scapegoat for all of Barcelona's cultured progressives. In a similar phenomenon of expiation (also initiated with a controversial entrance door, that of the Liceu, which the artistic director of the house praised with delicious Freudian rhetoric as a containment wall for homeless people and prostitutes), Plensa is now the ideal receptacle for all the amendments of progres and refined individuals. In Catalonia, you know it well, we really like to have world-famous artists, but if they succeed too much, we end up repudiating them without any mercy.
If we move a little away from tribal pathologies, it must be said that at the Liceu (and in many theaters in Europe) we have seen quite a few things similar to this Macbeth to say that Plensa's invention is neither a masterpiece nor an absolute artistic flop. It does have the merit, however, of stripping flesh and emotional weight from a work that should make the viewer vibrate from the first minute and that, finally, only causes tedium (the only space that surprises, and positively, is Antonio Ruz's splendid choreography). Fortunately, the opera has what it absolutely must have: Luca Salsi has given me the joy of hearing the mad king again in the vein of my adored Cappuccilli and Radvanovsky fires missiles that are a marvel (the instrument is somewhat tired from so much mambo and would do well to reduce some activity). Schrott is not my cup of tea, but fine; and that boy who plays Macduff, please put him to sing Taminos.
In Catalonia, you know it well, we really like to have world-famous artists, but if they succeed too much, we end up repudiating them without any mercyI write again that the best news of recent months at the Liceu is the splendid form of its orchestra thanks to the work of Josep Pons.Our director is not a Verdian specialist (nor of the genre), but he is an excellent musician and he demonstrated it in a very transparent reading, with brilliant moments such as the pianissimo in Due vaticiniand an accompaniment from the choirOppressed homelandthat seemed to me afuckingmasterpiece of the baton. Just one request, Josep: lighten up thetempiof the first part or, between the orchestral slowness and the emptiness on stage, we will end up asleep. And a couple of pleas to those responsible for the theater: the choir (especially the female section) needs renovation and much more muscle. And if in the future you intend new collaborations with a renowned artist, under your own roof you have enough clues.
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