The recent revival of La Gioconda at the Gran Teatre del Liceu has brought back to the Barcelona stage one of the great lyrical machines of 19th-century Italian opera. Premiered in 1876 at the Teatro alla Scala, with music by Amilcare Ponchielli and libretto by Arrigo Boito -based on a drama by Victor Hugo-, the work was for decades an undeniable success. Its mix of choral grandeur, extreme vocal demands, and overflowing passions perfectly suited the taste of its time. At the Liceu, the current production has opted for a realistic staging -signed by Romain Gilbert- that places the action in a recognizable space consistent with the carnival Venice of the libretto. Elegant and effective, the approach avoids forced updates and does not interfere with the internal logic of the work: masks, costumes, and a festive atmosphere coexist with a visual sobriety that does not distract from the main conflict. It is a clean, intelligible, and respectful proposal.
The Liceu's performance featured a high-level cast at its premiere -sopranos Saioa Hernández and Ksenia Dudnikova, with Michael Fabiano as principal tenor- and solid direction by Daniel Oren. The two sopranos who embody Gioconda and Laura competently met the demands of their roles, especially in the duets, where vocal tension reached some of the most successful moments of the night. The tenor professionally handled an incident during the inaugural performance, admirably redirecting the situation. There was deserved applause after particularly difficult arias, and the audience recognized the technical quality of the performers. However, beyond the vocal achievements and the adequate stage presentation, the overall experience left a sense of distance difficult to ignore. The issue did not seem to lie in the execution, but in the very nature of the work. La Gioconda is a dramatic artifact that responds to a very precise emotional logic: that of the 19th-century serial novel, where passions are absolute, loyalties extreme, betrayals irrevocable, and sacrifice inevitable. Everything is declared and the declaration is emphasized, overexposed with an intensity difficult not to perceive as affected.
"However, beyond the vocal achievements and the adequate stage presentation, the overall experience left a sense of distance difficult to ignore"Narratively, the story is saturated of extreme emotions: unrequited loves, betrayals, blackmail, and a tragic outcome. The central character, a street singer in 17th-century Venice, loves a young nobleman who in turn loves another woman—Laura—wife of a powerful politician. Barnaba, an agent of the Inquisition in love with Gioconda, devises schemes that push the plot into a spiral of violence, sacrifice, and deceit. Ponchielli's score incorporates Verdian influences in its melodies, popular choral passages, and intensely lyrical arias. It also includes symphonic passages of clear impact, such as the famous Dance of the Hours, a ballet that has transcended opera itself and entered popular culture. All of this sounds like a monumental work, worthy of passionate theater and music marathons. In dramatic terms, that monumentality often translates as rhetorical overabundance, with repetitions that -paradoxically- do not quite trigger an emotional urgency real.
In its historical context, that excess was a virtue. The audience of the last third of the 19th century precisely expected an accumulation of emotions and an expansion of dramatic time: reiteration reinforced intensity, duration amplified impact. We ask ourselves, in an undisguisedly rhetorical way, if -as a result of the recently lived experience- this device produces the same effect, transferred to the present, or if it does not rather collaborate with the opposite: insistence can be perceived as unnecessary or difficult to justify delay, the clarity of the plots experienced as predictability, not to mention the passions themselves, as quickly aroused as they are fatal for those who suffer them and -the worst- somewhat arbitrary for the spectator who witnesses them, inevitably distant. Despite the interventions of the harlequin mime, who would like to offer a mirror and lower the transcendence from the impossible comic vis, all this seems to awaken, more than emotional agitation, a paradoxical sensation of tedium and -as we said- not due to deficiencies in the musical interpretation or scenic inadequacy.
Even the aforementioned Dance of the Hours -the ballet of the third act, probably the most popular fragment of the work- illustrates the conflicting nature of that duality: a brilliant but instrumental piece, of immediate appeal due to its opening of an autonomous space-time, almost independent of the drama… A piece that confirms Ponchielli's skill, but also shows to what extent opera often functions as a sum of outstanding episodes -most of them alarmingly dramatic- rather than as a sustained flow. The question that arises is not whether La Gioconda is a great opera. It was, and its permanence in the repertoire proves it. Nor is it about questioning the quality of the Liceu's production, which offered a careful and musically solvent reading. The question is another: how to reactivate today an emotional system conceived for a very different audience and sensibility. Perhaps -we speculate- the problem is not slowness or extension, but the absence of ambiguity. The music and the libretto declare what should be felt at each moment: love, betrayal, sacrifice, despair.
"Eventually it awakens a paradoxical sensation of tedium, and -as we said- not due to deficiencies in the musical interpretation or scenic inadequacy"Contemporary dramaturgy coexists with spectators accustomed to more condensed narratives, to psychological irresolutions and less declarative tensions. Not to mention the incidence of other audiovisual languages in our current worldview, with new communication codes on social networks, which are unconsciously inserted and condition our interpretation of reality. When a work emphasizes every sentimental turn without irony or distance, the risk is not incomprehension, but disconnection. Leaving no gray areas or unresolved folds, the viewer is relegated to a passive position: as if they no longer needed to interpret, anticipate, or complete. If emotion is not built in dialogue with the listener, and is offered resolved, only those who expect an exact reflection of their emotional world can be moved. Programming titles from the great romantic repertoire implies taking on this challenge. Either its codes are accepted as they were conceived, trusting that the musical force is enough to sustain them, or strategies are sought updaters -scenic, rhythmic, even structural- thinking of restoring a vibration similar to the original, which does not depend solely on technical brilliance.
La Gioconda reminds us that repertoire is not an inert museum, nor an organism that breathes the same in all times. It seems clear that in order to achieve emotional experience, the 19th century opted for the explicit expression of pathos, for the unfiltered visualization of the inner world, as a place of personal truth. But neither what would be called verismo - nor "realism" in novel or painting - guarantees emotional shock. Rather, on the contrary, they can obstruct it. The performance at the Liceu showed that a work can be well sung and well staged and, even so, not achieve dramatic combustion. Between historical fidelity and the need for contemporary vibration, a space of tension to be cultivated opens up. And it is not always enough to do everything well for something significant, on an emotional level, to truly happen.