Roger Alier was in many ways an astronaut. Kindness and generosity did not belong to this world. Nor the great intellectual capacity associated from a young age with the illusion of opera. These traits stood out yesterday in the speeches dedicated to the opera critic from La Vanguardia who disappeared Thursday. Some 250 people attended the secular ceremony, in Sancho de Ávila, with a full room.
The world of opera converged: from the social base to directors of institutions. Singers such as Carmen Bustamante, Eduard Giménez David Alegret, Lluís Sintes, Tina Gorina, Carlos Cosías, Víctor Jiménez, Carolina Fajardo… or Carlos Daza, who wanted to close the act in an emotional way, singing L’emigrant a cappella, met with institutional representatives: Valentí Oviedo, director general of the Liceu, and his former predecessor Josep Caminal; Joaquim Uriach, president of the Palau de la Música; Oriol Aguilà, artistic director of Peralada; a saddened Mirna Lacambra, with the team of Ópera de Sabadell and Ópera a Catalunya…, or even Xavier Cester, director of the music area of ??the ICEC, as well as the deputy director of La Vanguardia Miquel Molina.
Jaume Aragall or Sara Blanch had passed through the wake room the day before, and that same morning, the president of the Liceu, Salvador Alemany. The family of Montserrat Caballé or the director of Ópera Sarrià, Assunto Nese, everyone wanted to attend the private farewell led by Jordi Maddaleno, disciple and successor in operatic criticism for La Vanguardia.
“Roger was my emotional father. He helped me from the beginning in that crazy world of opera, ”Maddaleno said in a heartfelt portrait of him. “He left sweetly, listening to his favorite opera, Il matrimonio secreto, by Mozart’s contemporary Domenico Cimarosa”. The overture also sounded in the hall.
The diverse anecdotes helped to understand a wise intellectual who, in order not to contradict his father, studied Medicine and, secretly, went to the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. The art historian Francesc Fontbona aroused the first laughs when he explained that he had first met his brother and that, when introducing him to Roger, he denied that they had ever seen each other in class so as not to be discovered by the family.
As a teacher he was also curious: Fernando Sans, with whom he founded the Ópera Actual magazine, explained that the only honors he never got at the University he got, so that he would not have to pay UB tuition in the following course. He “approved of everyone and, to hide it, he made up names on the student list to be able to fail them”. Laughter and laughter.
There are still things to learn from Roger: he leaves an unpublished book about the Teatre Principal, where he staged so many operas, translated into Catalan… “because it’s important that people understand,” he said. He is looking for a publisher. And also who keeps his collection of 18th century opera librettos. Any museum available?
