Sílvia Pérez Cruz opening, La Veronal with Sonoma in XXL version, La Brutal with Pol López performing El misantrop, the great night of Dagoll Dagom or Baró d'Evel closing with the same show that will be seen in Avignon... Local talent, which has grown in and with the Grec is the main center of attention of this 2024 edition, which will have the stage of the Montjuïc amphitheater reserved for the entire festival.
After eight years at the helm of the Grec, Cesc Casadesús directs its latest edition with the aim of paying tribute to those artists from here who today carry the name of Barcelona around the world. "I recognize that it is a very personal Grec, but we have been able to do what seemed like a utopia," Casadesús declares.
The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, wanted to thank Cesc Casadesús for his eight years at the helm of the festival, whom he welcomed when he was Deputy Mayor for Culture. Collboni also had words of remembrance for the journalists Joan-Anton Benach, "a cultural agitator of Barcelona who freed himself from Francoism", and for Anna Pérez Pagès, "who united passion, rigor and dissemination of our culture."
Grec 2024 will take place from June 26 to August 4 with an extensive program of 81 shows and more than 50 activities. Along with local talent with international projection, the Grec does not forget the world masters of the performing arts.
El Grec also brings big names from the international theater scene to Barcelona. This is the case of Angélica Liddell, who will present Bergman's Burial, a Grec co-production with the Avignon Festival, which is inspired by the burial ceremony of John Paul II and that of Ingmar Bergman himself. Because this is another of the headlines of this edition: the close collaboration of the Catalan festival with the Provençal festival.
Among the international artists, it is also worth counting on Lola Arias, Christiane Jatahy, Nat Randall, Anna Brackon, Jan Lauwers and Krzysztof Warlikowski, "in an extraordinary and first-class programme, with a clear feminine accent and in complicity with the Avignon Festival ", declares the organization.
As is usual in recent editions, the festival expands throughout the city, reaching theaters and halls in all neighborhoods, thanks to co-productions. The Romea theater will host a version of Tirant lo Blanc directed by Joan Arqué, with dramaturgy by Màrius Serra. Alberto San Juan's reading of the history of Spain and the myth of Don Juan in Macho Screams comes to the Condal Theater.
In Goya, Lolita will play Poncia, written and directed by Luis Luque, who recovers the character from Bernarda Alba's La casa. And in the La Biblioteca theater you can see Tots ocells, by Wadji Mouawad, directed by Oriol Broggi.
Women have an important presence in the theater program, with numbers like those of Sílvia Munt, who will present La Villarroel Les mans, by Llàtzer Garcia; Daniela Feixas, will premiere her production Malamort in the Beckett room; and Aina Tur, author of Six hectares of olive trees, (Quim Masó prize), will premiere in the Heartbreak Hotel room.
Among the musical proposals, there are names such as Kae Tempest and Clara Aguilar, who present a joint proposal at Paral·lel 62, and also Marcia Griffith with the local talent of Les Testarudes. The Jamboree will be the stage for new Catalan jazz talent with proposals such as that of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band. And the Gran Teatre del Liceu will premiere the newly created micro-operas produced within the framework of the Òh!pera program in collaboration with the city's design schools.
Altogether, 36 co-productions are presented that include all genres and multiple programs to support creation.
