Never seen in an opera house: Jordi Savall, musical director of L’incoronazione di Poppea , the title by Monteverdi that the Liceu will stage from July 10 to 21, has publicly expressed his disagreement with the stage production by Calixto Bieito for this plot premiered in 1642. The first opera in history that was based on real characters – the Roman emperor Nero and the accession to the throne of his second wife, Sabina Poppea – and not on myths.
In the presence of the theater director himself, Savall argued this Thursday before the media that he does not share “the use of gratuitous violence that is often staged.” “We will always value all the beauty of art and music, which is what helps the human being to rise”, he added.
The Gran Teatre has enabled two international opera titans, both artistically born in Barcelona, ??to collaborate for the first time in their lives. A miracle of which its artistic director, Víctor García de Gomar, feels fully proud. As much as that they have been able to express discrepancies openly.
“When the Zurich Opera offered me to do this Monteverdi, I already knew the music, because it has many hits, as well as those of the Beatles”, Bieito had begun by saying. He perceived it as an opera without time, a great fresco of different personalities where everything is possible, “as in life itself: the worst and the best”.
In his particular vision, Bieito transforms the tragedy and Poppea’s ascension to the throne of Rome into a kind of reality television show, with extravagant characters thirsty for sex and power that move in an immersive stage design by Rebecca Ringst that situates the orchestra in a central pit, surrounding everything with led screens.
“It is an opera that I find especially sensual, because sensuality is part of power. And that is an opera like a good Shakespeare, with doses of violence, love, sex, poetry… and with music that makes you dream. My son brought a group of friends to the 2018 premiere [he was 17 at the time] and they had a pirate time. Being modern is not a quality, it’s just moving within today’s parameters.”
In this sense, the director of the most watched Carmen on the planet assures that in this Monteverdi opera he saw a world in which power and everything that gives power is found: sex, luxury and vanity, envy, jealousy. “I’m not into videos, but the idea to express all that was ‘life is a selfie’, because I see that everyone makes them on the street. Life is a selfie, and one does not begin to be an artist until who does not forget his vanity”, has added the theater director residing in Basel.
Savall, for his part, has expanded the context by saying that to understand what Calixto wants to do with this opera, one must place oneself in the society of Monteverdi’s time. The librettist, Giovanni Francesco Busenello, was a great connoisseur of this society. He was an excellent jurist in Venice, solving many cases of corruption and injustice, and his script can be understood in two different ways: as a harsh and parodic critique of the Venetian aristocracy that was dominated by corruption, sexual debauchery and moral decrepitude , but also as an allegorical justification and praise for those who possess absolute power, Savall has pointed out.
“Whether one vision or the other, Calixto places the action in the middle of the 22nd century and gives an intense and shocking atmosphere that is much more current, if we think about how violence is still present in our society. But despite the debauchery and emotions, we will continue to be convinced that beauty will save the world”, Savall continued, before Bieito’s undaunted gaze. “And I say this with great respect and admiration for the creative work, because Calixto touches the exact wound.”
Bieito has stressed that the baroque is the maximum expression of musical theater, in which music and theater go hand in hand, and has assured that he is very happy to work with Savall: “I have been following him for years and I have a lot of admiration”. His dance partner in this production has continued throwing capes at him, explaining that Monteverdi precisely gave priority to theatrical action over vocals.
“Between a singer and a good actress who knows how to sing, choose the latter. And that is what Calixto does. I don’t agree with certain scenes, but he brings all the emotion of the score before us. I would eliminate a couple of punches and a couple of murders but the rest is very good, “said Savall.
To which Bieito has responded with a rebuke: “It is that I did not count them. I have a machine that counts them and tells me how many I have to do to make it work, but I forgot it ”, he joked. “It’s a cliché, people think that I do that, murders, rapes… but I’m polyhedral, I do different things. And I’m not trying to justify myself, I’m just saying that I do very different things, it depends on the music and the story, but basically on the music”, he has settled.
