From the moment it was born as a musical form, opera was already associated with dance, and this is how William Christie, the father of the historicism of early music, remembered it yesterday, who these days rehearses with the collaborator and good friend Blanca Li her attractive assembly of Dido
“This is important to do with ballet, because we know that in the 17th century dance was an important part of operas, from the Florentine Festivals to Monteverdi or the Tragédie Lyrique Française. The presence of dance is necessary and logical”, points out the director born in the United States but based in France for many years, who will conduct the choir and orchestra of Les Arts Florissants.
Henry Purcell’s sublime opera based on Virgil’s Aeneid and premiered in 1689, which narrates the unfortunate love between the Queen of Carthage and the King of Troy, while adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, has been performed a only once at the Liceu. It was 1956 and, with choreography by Joan Magriñá for the Liceu company itself, it was offered in three unique functions. And just as an appetizer to the main course, Richard Strauss’s Elektra. The low presence of this title at the Liceu is a fact that surprises Christie, who does not explain it, “as this is one of the main European theaters and it is one of the most representative operas in the repertoire, which in plus it only lasts 50 minutes”.
Christie is happy collaborating with Blanca Li. They already did Rameau’s Indes Galantes together at the Opéra de Paris, among others. “And now we are both members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, we are immortal”, jokes the master. And he is also happy to work with Víctor García de Gomar, the artistic director of the Liceu, with whom he shares a great friendship, he explains.
“There are many opera theater directors who believe that the genre begins with Nabucco in 1840 and ignore the earlier repertoire,” praises Christie. Indeed, the Liceu is dedicated these weeks to Greco-Roman fables and myths: after Orpheus
“We will have had this holy trinity of early music at the Gran Teatre: René Jacobs, Jordi Savall and Christie. This concentration of early music has not happened very often in this house, with a flurry of harpsichords up and down”, says De Gomar.
The choreographic show by Blanca Li from Granada – current director of Teatros del Canal – has scenography by the German visual artist Evi Keller, who abstractly manages to make the bodies on stage the ones that emit light instead of being the focus that light up the stage.
Blanca Li assures that she has focused on promoting emotion and highlighting through dance everything that the libretto and music cannot explain. “We worked on a language that comes from the diaphragm, since all the emotion is always located here. And this creates a very particular body language for this work”, points out the choreographer. “I didn’t want the dancers to appear and disappear, but to be a constant presence. They are responsible for representing the emotions, while the singers are like deities who take care of the narration through the voice and enter and leave, but without leaving the stage. The demand and beauty of that work are a gift to me”, concludes Li. American soprano Kate Lindsey and Italian baritone Renato Dolcini are the pair that appear and disappear through the light work.
