Queralt Albinyana: With an artistically kamikaze spirit

"I have felt hooked on applause, on public recognition. And it gives me a lot, and it sustains me in many moments. I have come to think that, without a stage, I am nothing and that I don't know how to do anything else but tell or sing stories. Over the years, I realize that I cannot sustain everything on a single leg and that being a person is something broader, more complex, and richer than the characters I play." The actress and singer Queralt Albinyana reflects at the bar, ready "for that little beer, once noon has passed," and accompanying the conversation with a silence dictated by the impossibility of "just listening to music, because when you work so much studying and learning songs, you compulsively analyze anything that sounds. And that takes you away from the simple and pure enjoyment that a fortunate-simple listener can have."

With more than twenty years of experience working on stages and in front of cameras in countless projects such as series, cinema, theater, musicals, or concerts, the artist defines herself as "restless and curious," without enough days to do everything that fascinates her and a "kamikaze" spirit for embarking "on artistic follies, plays, presentations, concerts, dramaturgies or direction."

At 43, she is daily grateful for the family that accompanies her and for being able to live from her passion. "It's really lucky to be able to combine rehearsals and plays with concerts, classes, and other projects. And that my husband puts up with me and my son loves me. It sounds like a joke, but it's true!" she laughs.

Queralt has worked on TV3 in Nit i Dia, La Riera or El cor de la ciutat, on IB3 in Treufoc and Llàgrima de sang. Her talent has shone in musicals such as Les Misérables, Hair, Grease or Amants by Paco Mir, "for which the director made me prepare three scenes and tested me on a show day... with an audience!! Luckily it went well and they gave me the role!" She has worked with Carles Santos, with Comediants, with the Gran Teatre del Liceu and countless projects. To these is added her journey as a singer and blues popularizer that has led her to record the album When I met the blues and to perform on many stages. Sometimes, together with living legends of the genre like Willie Buck himself. "When I manage to keep everything in balance is when I feel most proud," she concludes, displaying a wide and vital smile that radiates many watts of light.

Adding projects to overcome the void

"Projects mark my daily routines and, generally, they are short," explains the actress and singer who speaks of very intense and ephemeral work adventures, "that in a few months fill you with hope and end more or less abruptly and, with these, all those customs that accompanied them and the relationship with the company, which during those months of work has become your circle of friends. I learned that the first time I finished filming a movie and found myself with the immense void and the fear that it would never happen again."

---But it happened again, you haven't stopped embarking on a thousand and one projects!

---Yes, although that abyss keeps appearing every time everything ends. A key moment of desperation in which you have to let go of ballast and trust in the ant's work, of doing, of being and being present. When you start to relax, that's when you receive a call or a new idea emerges.

Perhaps, the need to exorcise those moments of emptiness explains the enormity of matters in which the parishioner is feverishly involved. "I am rehearsing a new play with the company Dei Furbi about Brossa, the poet. In April we premiere at the Fundació Brossa. In addition, I continue doing my series of talks-concerts El blues de ellas, which is my tribute to the ladies of the blues. I am doing a play about Aurora Bertrana. Gigs of a family play called HOP, historia de objetos perdidos. Separately, I am starting projects with my theater company, La Trup, I am going to record a series this year and, if all goes well, before Christmas I will premiere a play with Rhum & Cía".

---Almost nothing.

---And I'm leaving things out, don't think so--, she laughs, showing off her undeniable artistically "kamikaze" spirit.

A city where bohemia dies

"When I arrived here in '98 to study, I was a bright eighteen-year-old girl from Menorca, from an island that protected and suffocated me in equal parts. Barcelona offered all possibilities and in it I became a person. In the Institut del Teatre, on the Ramblas that I already cycled through, its parks and beaches, its theaters and, above all, its bars. Endless nights of live music, late-night dinners and dancing on any corner. And, the truth is, this no longer exists. And I miss it," explains the artist who, despite no longer living in the city --"I can no longer afford rent here"-- works in it and travels through it very often.

Her gaze turns nostalgic, reviewing thousands of corners with their associated stories and moments, "Arc del Teatre street reminds me of philosophical conversations and romantic disappointments in the Kentuky. I can't walk along Nou de la Rambla without passing by the London Bar and remembering the discovery of the Tota Blues Band amidst the smoke, or Sant Pere més baix and remembering when I entered the Institut del Teatre for the entrance exams. Afternoons in Parc de la Ciutadella, the carrer dels petons, the horchatería La Valenciana, where I worked; the Villarroel theater, where I did my first casting for a musical...". Perhaps it is these memories that accentuate her sadness over the demise of some urban corners. "I take it very badly that concert halls, theaters, and other historic establishments are closing. Bohemia is dying, and here the inhabitants are tourists."

But there are aspects that continue to fill the parishioner with a certain Barcelonian pride: "the cosmopolitanism of this city, its ecological will, its architecture. The truth is that, walking through Barcelona, I never cease to be surprised by new discoveries, and to feel at home."

---Where you are at home is in this Bar. And perhaps, after the beer, you might fancy something to eat. We have everything: menu, à la carte, combo plates, tapas… You choose!

Queralt Albinyana bursts into a deep laugh and, after thinking about it for a few seconds, makes it very clear:

---In any order, everything seems fine to me! I enjoy eating!

And she finishes her beer, without losing the vital joy that emanates from her every gesture.