From the moment it was born as a musical form, opera was already associated with dance, and this was remembered yesterday by William Christie, the father of the historicism of early music, who these days is rehearsing with his already collaborator and good friend Blanca Li her sexy montage of Dido
“An opera that is important to do with ballet, because we know that in the 17th century dance was an important part of operas, from the Florentine festivals to Monteverdi or the Tragédie Lyrique Française. The presence of dance is necessary and logical”, points out the French-American director, who will lead the choir and orchestra of Les Arts Florissants.
Henry Purcell’s sublime opera based on Virgil’s Aeneid and premiered in 1689, narrates the unhappy love between the queen of Carthage and the king of Troy. Adapting Dido, Queen of Carthage, by Christopher Marlowe, it has been performed only once at the Liceu. It was 1956. Choreographed by Joan Magriñá by the Liceu’s own company, it was offered in only three performances and only as an appetizer for the main course, Richard Strauss’s Elektra.
Such a scarce presence of this title in the Liceu is a fact that catches Christie himself by surprise, who does not explain it to him, “being this one of the main European theaters and being one of the most representative operas in the repertoire, which also lasts only 50 minutes”.
But Christie is happy collaborating with Blanca Li – they already did Rameau’s Indes Galantes together at the Paris Opera – and “besides, now we are both members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, we are immortal”, jokes the director. He is also happy to work with Víctor García de Gomar, the artistic director of the Liceu, with whom he becomes a great friend.
“There are many opera house directors who believe that the genre begins with Nabucco in 1840 and ignores the previous repertoire,” defends the maestro. Indeed, these weeks the Liceu is dedicated to Greco-Roman fables and myths: after the Orpheus
“We will have had this holy trinity of ancient music at the Gran Teatre: René Jacobs, Jordi Savall and William Christie. This concentration of ancient music has not happened very often in this house, with a bustle of harpsichords going up and down”, indicates De Gomar.
The choreographic show by Blanca Li from Granada –current director of the Teatros del Canal– has a set design by the German visual artist Evi Keller, who in an abstract way achieves that the bodies on stage are the ones that emanate light instead of the spotlights. that light up the scene.
Li assures that he has focused on favoring emotion and highlighting through dance everything that the script and music fail to explain. “We have worked on a language that comes from the diaphragm, since all the emotion is always located there. And this creates a very particular body language of this work”, points out the choreographer.
“I didn’t want the dancers to appear and disappear, but to be a constant presence. They are in charge of representing the emotions, while the singers are like divinities that deal with the narration through the voice, and they enter and leave, but without leaving the stage. The demand and beauty of this work are a gift to me”.
The American soprano Kate Lindsey and the Italian baritone Renato Dolcini will be the ones who appear and disappear due to the effect of light…
