Madame Bovary continues to be controversial wherever she appears. Now, the KVS in Brussels has premiered it in Flemish (the name of Dutch in Belgium), adapted by Michael De Cock and directed by Carme Portaceli. When Gustave Flaubert published the novel in 1857, he raised hell.

The story of this woman trapped in her father’s world, who goes from fire to embers when she marries the doctor Bovary, thinking that she will be happy, moved heaven and earth. “She believes that he will save her, but with the first kiss she realizes that she has fallen into a well from which she will not be able to get out for the rest of her life,” explains Portaceli.

“We wanted to talk from the 21st century about this woman who at that time was branded as a libertine. We thought that she was a victim of the love novels that she read”. In fact, Flaubert was accused of violating morality.

For the occasion, De Cock has distilled the work until leaving it in two characters: the Bovarys, Charles and Emma, ??hence the shortening of the title, Bovary, the couple played by Maaike Neuville and Koen De Sutter. “If he added other characters, the story was told better, but what he wanted was to give relevance to their loneliness,” the playwright details.

“And we have added a soprano”, clarifies the director, who does not want to give more details, but De Cock ends up revealing that the surprise comes when this soprano, Ana Naqe, appears hidden under the guise of a performance technician.

“Halfway through the production it occurred to me to add a soprano, which plays a very interesting game,” says Portaceli. Here, the administration would not have allowed us to add another performer in the middle of rehearsals. When they go to the opera, he rejects the romantic story of Lucia di Lammermoor and she, on the other hand, feels very identified.

“The appearance of opera in the work is like a leap into the void,” De Cock continues. Every time I reread the novel I see that it is he who pushes his wife into the arms of other men. I discovered the work at the age of 17 and I believe that there are works that should be read at different moments in life, like Anna Karenina, because they make us reflect”.

“We were a bit afraid to do the play in Flemish – confesses the playwright – since French-speakers regard Bovary as their own, but it was a success. The first word she mentions is desire. As in a Greek tragedy, we already announce how it will end: desire will destroy it. The dramatized version “is a very free adaptation, but very faithful to Flaubert, and it resonates with all of his poetry,” he observes.

For Portaceli, the current reference point for the love novels that Emma reads is pornography: “If the girls believe that they will find happiness in these relationships, the frustration will be immediate. Just like guys, who can’t get six-hour erections.”

The playwright and artistic director of the KVS, considers that “Portaceli has a very powerful command on a large stage with only two characters”, and announces that his Terra baixa, premiered at the TNC, will also be performed in Brussels. “Leaving aside any political connotation, it seems to me very good that there is an exchange between flamenco theater and Catalan theater”.

Bovary is a production of the KVS in Brussels and can be seen in only two performances in the Sala Gran of the TNC this weekend.