Tatiana, Tatiana, don’t do it, don’t send your love letter to the conceited Onegin, the irresistible bad boy, the irreverent snob who won’t agree to be with a country girl from the distant steppe. The Russian soprano Svetlana Aksenova sings her brilliant and rapturous singing – with a point of Russian contention – in the role of the young lover who writes the fatal letter for which she will be disdained by her heartthrob, a well-established Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen, with a Robust and noble line.
In that moment of romantic brilliance of Tchaikovsky’s score, defended with passion by the Simfònica del Liceu and the maestro Josep Pons, the opera based on the novel by Alexander Pushkin kept the guests at the official opening of the season very attentive yesterday: 2,294 spectators, who stepped, elegantly, on the red carpet spread on the porch of the Liceu.
With this novel, the Gran Teatre more than justified its motto this year, “irreversible cracks” in the soul, because Onegin’s damage was irreparable: by despising Tatiana or by falling in love with Olga, her sister and his friend’s wife. Lenski, –an extraordinary Alexey Neklyudov, the most applauded in the final seven minutes of applause–, with whom he ends up fighting a duel. When he understands the greatness of love it is too late for Onegin.
Also the stage direction of Christof Loy, with his commitment to minimums – “because less is more” – and his profound search for the most human – “no character must be judged beforehand” – and that feeling of suffocation that causes the Using only the front part of the stage, he marked the audience, who in his absence cheered his team at the end.
“No one is a saint here, we are all weak and do horrible things,” he assured La Vanguardia during his short two-day stay at the Liceu. “It’s much better to open my mind as a director and not let people confirm your judgments about the characters. Theater and opera make us better people.”
The night was already presumed unforgettable from the very beginning. Yesterday Jaume Collboni set foot in the Liceu for the first time as mayor, received by the president of the institution, Salvador Alemany. “Onegin is – the councilor commented – one of the operas that I like the most. And the level with which the opening of the season is celebrated makes evident the importance of poetry in our city and that of the Liceu for Barcelona and Catalonia,” he added, assuring that he plans to come more times, “as mayor and without the mayor’s uniform.” .
In the absence of Pere Aragonès, he was, together with the President of the Parliament, Anna Erra, and the Government delegate, Carlos Prieto, the highest authority in the room. They were joined in the box by Natàlia Garriga, the Minister of Culture, another militant of this house, or the director of Inaem, Joan Francesc Marco, this time without the minister Iceta. Presidents Mas and Montilla also returned to the key location.
From the business world, the president of Seat, Wayne Griffits, the vice president of Barça, Elena Fort, the Damm advisor, Ramon Ajenjo, and Carlos Godó, CEO of the Godó Group, and Ana Godó, editorial advisor of the Godó Group, attended among others. And it was in the social and cultural sphere that the VIPs made the red carpet vibrate.
In view of the sea of ??passersby on the Rambla, acclaimed filmmakers such as Albert Serra and J. A. Bayona – “I listen to a lot of instrumental music for films, and I often end up listening to opera,” he confessed – to actors and veteran and new actresses… from Nora Navas, Joan Pera, Pere Arquillué or Joan Gràcia (Tricicle) to Pep Ambrós, David Solans and the very fashionable model Clara Mas.
There was also a good musical representation, with Jordi Savall, who will direct A Midsummer Night’s Dream here on the 6th, and the director of the OBC, Ludovic Morlot, plus the modern Rigoberta Bandini and Bad Gyal’s sister, Mushka Farelo.
The poet Marta Pessarrodona, Pilarín Bayés, Eudardo Mendoza or Najat el Hachmi, the lucid herald of the Mercè festivals, raised the hearts of high school students, as did Jaume Plensa. Oh, and the Cuban Rachel Valdez, the artist who seems to have broken Alejandro Sanz’s heart.
In the intermission, people came across an installation by Lolo in the Saló dels Miralls
Do you feel strange at the Liceu? “Absolutely. We talk about the temporality of sound, about how it can unite different moments in time… in other words, this opera by Tchaikovsky cannot make more sense,” pointed out the Argentinean Lolo along with his Japanese companion.
After this generous pause in which the cava and cake flowed through the Liceu, the audience prepared for the third and final act of that tremendous story of Pushkin, the Russian Lord Byron who, by the way, died in 1837 while challenging him to a duel. to a French lieutenant who pestered his wife… something that he already foreshadowed with his character Lenski, when he dies at the hands of Onegin, a moment of enormous emotional intensity.
In that more psychological sense, the choreographic movements of the characters, by Andreas Heise, underlined the anguish of the characters that Loy’s direction embodies. The public could not thank him, because he did not come out to say hello. These days he had another commitment and has been alone passing through the Gran Teatre.
“Sometimes, the artistic directors of the theaters are not quick to block the rehearsal and premiere dates of my productions, and that is a problem,” said the German stage director, especially happy with the fact that the Liceu has respected largely the cast of this co-production that premiered at the Oslo Opera in 2020.