During the next month, and especially throughout the summer and until the end of October, a good part of the cultural, artistic, sports, gastronomic, scientific and recreational programming of Barcelona will bear the seal of the 37th edition of the America’s Cup of sailing . What is one of the most followed sports competitions in the world, but an event still little known by the people of Barcelona, ??will permeate everything. In an effort to familiarize citizens with sailing, in general, and with this competition, in particular, reinforce the relationship of the Catalan capital with the sea and remove the America’s Cup from the elitist label that some attribute to it, Barcelona has prepared a Cultural Regatta with more than 200 activities for all audiences and with a common denominator, its popular and free nature.
“The Cultural Regatta expresses the values ??of the city and we do it with the city; “It is a way of doing things in Barcelona,” Mayor Jaume Collboni stated today, as a declaration of principles, in the presentation of the program of activities, which took place at the Joan Miró Foundation and in which various people participated. representatives of the sixty entities that promote and organize the activities linked to a cycle that vaguely recalls the Cultural Olympiad parallel to the 1992 Games. With the Copa América, the mayor added, Barcelona claims itself as a “city of the sea.”
“One hundred percent Barcelona.” This is how Collboni has defined this Cultural Regatta in which artists and local cultural institutions and the city’s facilities will have a relevant role. Even the concessions to the big show will enjoy that popular component that dresses the entire programming. This is the case of the concerts that two of the main directors of the musical scene of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel and Ludovic Morlot, will offer on the beach of Sant Sebastià, in Barceloneta, with the help of Barcelona Obertura, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Palau de la Música and L’Auditori. The Fundació la Caixa collaborates in the concert directed by Dudamel on July 12, in which the Cor i l’Orquestra Simfònica del Liceu will perform a very popular repertoire with some of the soundtracks of great film hits such as Superman, Jurassic Park, E. T., Star Wars or Harry Potter.
Earlier, on July 11, under the baton of Ludovic Morlot, the Barcelona and National Symphony Orchestra of Catalonia and the Orfeó Català will review themes that have acquired the category of hymns. A special moment of the evening will be the interpretation of Barcelona, ??the pre-Olympic song immortalized by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, this time in the voices of soprano Serena Sáenz and tenor Freddie de Tommaso.
What will be the most massive event of the Cultural Regatta, in the same way as the sports competition, can be followed from the city’s beaches. This is the ceremony that will be held on October 10, on the eve of the Match Race Final (the definitive dispute for the coveted Hundred Guineas Jug), a spectacle that is announced as “shocking and visual, open and free”, offered to the city with the help of the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation. “We Barcelonans will remember it for years and it will dazzle everyone,” said Mayor Collboni proudly. Today the details of this ceremony have not been revealed, although as La Vanguardia reported on January 7, in addition to the impressive drone choreographies over the sky of Barcelona, ??there will also be musical numbers starring, among others, the Catalan singers. Bad Gyal and Sílvia Pérez Cruz.
This openness to the general public is one of the hallmarks that the city of Barcelona wants to give to the 37th America’s Cup, a seal that previous editions did not have. This differential feature will also be noted in the activities scheduled at the Moll de la Fusta, where the most democratic village seen to date in the history of this great sporting event will be installed. It will open on August 22 and will be in service until the end of the races, at the end of October.
In the same way that it has accelerated a series of projects that the Port of Barcelona had in its portfolio for a long time, the Copa del América is being the pretext to activate the profound transformation of the Port Olímpic, where the teams participating in the competitions will have their bases. for women’s and youth teams.
In the coming months, taking advantage of the preparations for the nautical test, the renovated Port Olímpic will be presented to society as a new citizen space. In September, its facilities will become a new stage for the decentralized Mercè festivities. It will host part of the shows from the consolidated Mercè Arts festival. Likewise, and also during Barcelona’s main festival, other points along the city’s coastline will be incorporated into this exhibition of performing arts.
In a city that is a gastronomic benchmark, and that has tablecloths, knives and forks as one of its new niches for attracting tourists, restaurants and markets will also follow the path of the America’s Cup for sailing. A festival that attracts thousands of Barcelonans and visitors every year, the Tast a la Rambla, moved to Plaza Catalunya due to the works on the central promenade, will wear the colors of the twelve countries represented in the cup (in its senior versions, feminine and youth) to offer a select sample of each of them from June 6 to 9. On the other hand, the Tasta’M gastronomic cycle, organized by the Institut Municipal de Mercat and the Federació de Mercats Municipals, will visit different neighborhoods of Barcelona to present seafood cuisine products in the respective municipal markets.
One of the representations most genuinely linked to the practice of sports and recreational sailing and with a more identity-based character will also have a place in that great mixed bag of activities that will be the Cultural Regatta. During the America’s Cup, the largest Catalan skate regatta ever seen to date will be seen in the waters of Barcelona. In the same racing field as the fast AC75, 300 of these modest dinghy sailing boats will evolve at the same time, a type of catamaran without centerboard, rudder, boom or battens in the sail that have fascinated the crew of the boats with their simplicity. teams participating in the America’s Cup and the organizer of the event and director of the New Zealand squad, Grant Dalton.
For the municipal government chaired by Jaume Collboni, the America’s Cup and the Cultural Regatta associated with it represent a renewal of the public-private alliance of which local authorities have been so proud for more than 30 years. “Only in Barcelona could we mobilize all public and private entities and all the strength of the City Council and the city to build a cultural agenda around a world-class event,” the mayor stated.
