Two new cultural events are coming to CaixaForum this June. Opera lovers are in luck and an original documentary that reveals the creative process of Jaume Plensa’s Macbeth: Sleep No More is now available on the free digital platform. A feature film produced by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, with the collaboration of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, which forms part of their agreement on the online platform.
Last February, Jaume Plensa, one of the most outstanding artists on the international scene, premiered the first of the three adaptations of William Shakespeare on which Verdi worked at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Macbeth is Plensa’s first opera as stage director. Despite the fact that he had previously participated as a set designer in various productions of La Fura dels Baus, he made his debut as a complete director and in all non-musical aspects (stage direction, set design and costumes) with a work of these characteristics. Sleep No More is the exciting story of the unusual encounter between two different worlds, that of sculpture and that of opera, which come together guided by the artist.
How Macbeth imagines, how he gets excited, how he works and how he lives this entire creative process throughout nine months is what allows us to see Sleep No More. The documentary shows behind the scenes and the day-to-day of the preparation and rehearsals of a production of this magnitude, in which all the participants must take up the challenge of achieving something very special: transferring the dreams of a visual artist into operatic language. And in which more than 100 professionals participate including musicians, singers, choreographers, dancers, dressmakers or stage assistants. The result, and also the process to achieve it, promise to be exciting.
The 67-minute feature film assumes the structure of Verdi’s opera and is divided into four different acts or blocks: the preparations and the first meetings between Plensa and the different collaborators; the first rehearsals with the musicians, singers and dancers; the design and construction of the set design and all the physical elements of the opera, and its integration into the main stage of the Liceo; and the countdown, the last rehearsals and the big day of the premiere.
Under the direction of the experienced documentary filmmaker Pedro Ballesteros, who has already addressed the figure of Jaume Plensa in a previous film, Can you hear me? (2020) -which won the audience award at the DocsBarcelona festival and the award for best film at the Arte Non Stop Film Festival in Buenos Aires-, Sleep No More intersperses images of the opera premiere with scenes that show in detail all the preparations.
Throughout the film personalities appear such as the renowned maestro Josep Pons, musical director of the opera, who had previously collaborated with Plensa in the production of La Fura dels Baus de Atlàntida, by Manuel de Falla and Ernesto Halffter; the designer and costume designer Nadia Balada, who collaborates with the artist in the costume design; the prestigious choreographer Antonio Ruz; Leo Castaldi, a young stage director who already has an important career; and, of course, the singers who interpret Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, two of the most solid dramatic voices of the moment: the baritone Luca Salsi and the soprano Sonra Radvanovsky.
Another title, this one in the format of an original documentary series by CaixaForum , that has just landed on the platform is Otra ronda, where 15 innovative and influential contemporary creators (artists, designers, photographers and musicians) meet to talk about creative universes, concerns and interests with a complicit tone that also allows us to know the trajectories of each one of them.
Throughout the five episodes that make up the first season, the musicians Niño de Elche, Maria Arnal and Refree will go through Another Round; the artists Boa Mistura, Angélica Dass and the poet AJO; and the illustrators Ricardo Cavolo, Chamo San and Amaia Arrazola. The workshop, a bar, a park or his house are some of the spaces that the series goes through, where the protagonists meet three by three to talk. The tour always ends with the desire to continue sharing and do yet another round.
