Kind, sincere, positive, always smiling... Manuel Bertrand (Barcelona 1944-2023) was the living example of the calm, serenity and desire for harmony necessary for, as president of the Old Society of Liceu Owners, reach unusual agreements, such as the transfer of the theater after the fire of 1994.
This member of a lineage of music enthusiasts - his grandfather, Eusebio Bertrand y Serra, chaired the Board of the Rambla theater - was key to reaching that great pact between the public Administration and the Gran Teatre Society that made its reconstruction possible. It would be a public theater and would maintain the real right of personal servitude over the boxes and seats for the members.
In love with music and opera in particular, according to his son Hugo, there was no one sadder than Manuel Bertrand on that fateful January 31 when the Barcelona lyrical coliseum began to smoke, and no one was happier when it reopened renovated. in 1999. His sudden death due to cardiac arrest on August 5 left those who had the pleasure of knowing him in a state of helplessness. The Cercle del Liceu, of whose board he was a member, wanted to pay tribute to him this Wednesday at a lunch in which the speeches and interventions invariably referred to his bonhomie. Among the attendees stood out, discreetly, his grandson Hugo, a young man whom everyone saw as a future member of the club.
"Manolo was fundamental in the reconstruction of the Gran Teatre," Josep Caminal, at the time general director of the institution, began by saying, "without him I would not have achieved it. He had a serene look and complicity that generated empathy. And he was key when that night of which are about to turn thirty years old, this city and this house entered into an emotional state of deep pain.
But Manolo Bertrand Vergés, from a family of industrialists who were fond of opera and served as patron of Montserrat Caballé, made a total dedication of his life to the Liceu. And he provided his extraordinary capacity for dialogue in historic moments. In 1980 he was fundamental - and this is how Caminal remembered it - in the creation of the consortium. "He dared to put on the table a proposal that was not easy at all, because the owners, who had the merit of having endured the house, were proposed to enter the new times in which the Liceu wanted to be reflected in the theaters of state ownership. It was necessary to involve the administrations in its management. And he put us all in agreement... the owners, the Generalitat of Jordi Pujol and the City Council of Narcís Serra".
Three decades later, after the fire, he would support the great pact between the public administration of the Consorci del Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Sociedad del Gran Teatre for its reconstruction, maintaining the real right of personal servitude over the boxes and seats for the members. And he continued, at the foot of the canyon, the entire architectural process.
"Manolo had it difficult, but if we can enjoy the Liceu today it is because of him. Because we could not continue as before, the figure of the businessman was no longer possible, the organization was different," added Miquel Lerín, president of the Private Foundation Francesc Viñas. "He was very brave, they criticized him a lot, but he was a fundamental piece. His brother Juan, now deceased, was his lieutenant, his great support. And he said of my mother [Maria Vilardell] that she had given him a lot of strength and support. Manolo never "He didn't want any prominence, he wasn't interested in appearing. And he was a good man."
For the lawyer Josep Maria Coronas, he was undoubtedly a man with greatness of spirit who loved music with the desire to offer it to others. And he demonstrated coherence with what the founders of the Gran Teatre intended, since it was founded as a society of friends, in 1837, to obtain resources for the cultural development of Barcelona in all its parts. And they wanted to finance musical chairs. That seed of the Conservatori del Liceu gave rise ten years later to a construction society, which today is known as an owners' society.
"When the Liceu burned, they did not intend to keep the theater, nor sell it or do business with it. It was called a Society, but it was not for profit. And the right to use the boxes and seats when there were performances was a form of recovery of the put capital," he added. "When the room burned... was there any thought of collecting the insurance premium? Was there any thought of selling the land? Not at all. They wanted it to be able to be rebuilt and continue to be enjoyed. And an exemplary pact was achieved between public powers and society civil".
His family was also present at the lunch that the Circle dedicated to his memory, starting with his widow, businesswoman Sol Bacharach. Also present were his son Hugo, the result of his marriage to Dolly Fontana, and his brothers Teresa and José. "Manuel was representative of those four qualities, kindness, loyalty, gentleness and honesty, and he practiced them all his life," the latter noted. "A Knight of Barcelona, he loved his family, his city and the theater. He exercised the "art of harmony in all its purposes. Much of the current good management of the theater is due to him." For his part, his sister also delved into her empathy and power of conciliation at all levels, "not only in the theater, but also in the family. Surely the angels will have composed a beautiful symphony."
Because, indeed, and as his son Hugo explained, visibly moved, if Manuel Bertrand had any frustration it was not being able to act as musical director. "He was always with his baton at home: he put us in the living room and each cousin was an instrument, and he took us out... we laughed because he entered his world and it was impossible to get him out."
The Liceu was, the son noted, his second home, "if not his first." But the family understood his devotion. "Music made him very happy, it was his greatest happiness. He tried to hide it but he was abducted by music and theater. He always found a parallel to get a verse from a tenor, from a soprano... And he was an industrialist, but He always smiled. With his brother Juan he looked for that play in which he constantly lived. Talking to him you never knew if it was in La bohème, or in La traviata..."
Manolo enjoyed and cried a lot in life. Adela Rocha, who was part of the Liceu team as head of the protocol and international press department, addressed her speech to little Hugo, the grandson of the honoree... to whom she explained that her grandfather and her were linked by a bond called Montserrat Caballé : Both of their families had been patrons of the legendary soprano in her early days.
"Your grandfather was a funny person, he knew all the characters by heart. The one from Dulcamara [the doctor from L'elisir d'amore] was his favorite, and we ran through the hallways singing. At the Circle's first costume ball after "When the consortium was established, we dressed up as Wagnerian characters: he from Hunding, Ramon Negra from Wotan and I from Brunhilda, and we went down the Liceu steps to the sound of the Ride of the Valkyries. But people didn't find out, they didn't recognize us," Rocha added. "Your grandfather made everything difficult easy."
There was also no shortage of interventions from the current president of the Liceu, Salvador Alemany, who highlighted that Bertrand was among "the men who knew how to react" after the fire, or from the now president of the Societat del Gran Teatre, Manuel Busquets, who confirmed that the honoree laid the foundations for the public-private collaboration of this theater "which is still in force and which is a guarantee of continuity, a win-win."
The notary Carlos Cuatrecasas also recalled that in the reconstruction Bertand represented civil society by appointment of Pujol. "And like him, José Vilarasau and José Caminal were also key figures, a manager without whom the theater would not have been rebuilt in five years," he added. Oh, and he remembered that the theater's velvet curtain was a donation from the Circle.
In fact, Bertrand is credited with the idea of projecting the L onto it. Well, as Caminal remembers, four days before reopening the Liceu on October 7, 1999, they were given the new curtain designed by Toni Miró. "But he hadn't put the L!", recalls the then general director of the house. "And the L was not just an aesthetic issue, it was something fundamental. Miró refused to embroider it... and I think it was Manolo who said: 'we will project it'. And that's how we continue to have it, projected."
Francisco Gaudier, president of the Círculo, concluded the event by recalling how much he agreed with Bertrand when commenting on the Liceu's operas. Of course, "he was a great lover of contemporary music and I not so much, but we always agreed."
