The challenge was huge. Stage a contemporary opera. Spanish. And about a myth that today goes very much against the current: that of Don Juan, the amoral seducer seen today no longer as a libertine and sinner but as an insatiable sexual predator in the universe of
The Señor Serranos have skillfully chosen to convert Tomás Marco’s libretto for this chamber opera – inspired above all by Zorrilla’s Tenorio, but also by the donjuanes of Tirso de Molina, Molière and Lord Byron, and with a structure that shows its eternal return – and its repetitive music – with atonal touches, jazzy reminiscences and a clear elegiac aroma, in which the small choir and its systematically syncopated pronunciation of the words becomes another instrument – in a film shoot.
No phantasmagoria. The Real stage becomes a current film filming set with its different spaces, from dressing rooms to wardrobe, backstage, makeup and catering area, as well as a green chroma space for the actors to film their own Tenorio and the eternal scene with Doña Inés -an exceptional Adriana González- and the inexcusable “It’s not true, angel of love”, which now sounds different.
A set in which what happens inside and outside the filming ends up confusing, especially in the case of Tenorio, starring the more than applauded Joan Martín-Royo and which is about to provoke more than once a
A can recorded live by the cameramen who patiently focus on the multitude of objects on the dressing room, makeup or catering tables – frosted bottles, scattered fruit, photographs of Meryl Streep or dead birds – with which they compose in the giant screen of the stage still lifes and vanitas of exquisite beauty and evocative power. A screen on which the actors also appear live while filming Don Juan and Doña Inés in convents or palaces to life in front of the audience, thanks to the magic of green chroma and the technical skill of the company. A company that, like so many others, has interpreted the myth according to its time and has decided to end it – or perhaps restart it – with two young people recording themselves for social networks.