Three Ladies and Wagner

The main drawback of experiencing a supposedly historic night (in Wagnerian terms) at the Gran Teatre del Liceu is that one must face the immense sacrifice of enduring the insufferable harangues of Barcelona's Wagnerian bores for weeks. The reader, and even more so if they belong to the aforementioned species, will think this is a perfectly tolerable sacrifice; but there's a catch, because there is no more horrifyingly annoying being than a Wagnerian motivated by their new Valkyrie. Just as we Mozartians are discreet people, who live the greatness of our composer as he himself did (namely, sublimating beauty and trying to apply it as best as possible to the universe of the everyday), the capital's Wagnerian is someone who wants to infect you with their enthusiasm in a pathological way, a kind of fly that proclaims ecstasy by touching you and pretending to know German.

However, the city's musicologists are in luck, and I would say that soon we will be able to chant the "I was there" refrain, because last Monday ---and as expected--- Lise Davidsen was crowned as the future Isolde of global reference. To the vocal power required by the role (really, this towering singer was born with a fucking loudspeaker in her throat and, unlike some illustrious figures of the genre, the timbre has a fleshiness that provokes gluttony), the Norwegian soprano adds astonishing wisdom, considering that she is not yet forty. The social class of the llepafils will say that Davidsen still has ground to cover, because in some phrases of the text phonemes are sacrificed and sometimes one would wish she would err a little more even at the price of greater emotional fire; but it should be remembered that Wagnerian verse is not Goethe and that learning a role in a controlled way is the best option to mature it later.

There is no Wagnerism without controversy, and Davidsen's triumph was joined by the ovation for maestro Susanna Mälkki ---as Jacobo Zabalo also reports in an article---. After her wonderful Trittico in 2022, I already wrote here that it was urgent to sign the Finnish conductor as the future principal of the Liceu as fast as possible. The theater has opted for other paths, apparently because the orchestra is not enthusiastic about the lady in question (no kidding; because she makes them work!), but after this Tristan, I reaffirm and proclaim that a great opportunity has been missed. Again, the sect of the perepunyetes have amended Mälkki's Wagnerian approach; it is true, she did not immerse herself in the fabric of the work seeking homogeneity or perfect narration, as the Furtwänglerian canon dictates, because her struggle was to relate Richard to later music and the paranoias of postmodernity. The result is not perfect... but I am always on the team of those who take risks. Again; we are facing a hell of a musician!

One of the flaws of Wagnerism is its addiction to radicalism. This has been the case with this Tristan, which many have vociferated as the best of this century, while other Hanslick apprentices wrinkled their noses remembering other mythical performances of this opera. I am not a great lover of the third way, but in this case, I place myself in the middle of so much general motivation; indeed, this Tristan can still improve much more, but ---to put it in football terms--- if we compare any Barça match with videos of Messi's best highlights, it is normal to end up thinking that Lamine Yamal is somewhat overrated. The recording tradition has done a lot of damage in all this, which, far from being exalted as a historical reference, has ended up being reified as the minimum barometer of evaluation. Nostalgia is always a mistake; the important thing in this case is to highlight that the Liceu, this month, will be a first-world place.

I allow myself only one amendment to the matter, because I also occasionally treat myself to the privilege of being an unpleasant mestretites. Friends of the theater, now that it seems we will be stuck with the "nietísima" castizaprogre for several lustrums, I beg you, someone teach her how to direct an opera. We will pay what is necessary, because we Catalans are very grateful: of course.