Fascinated from a very young age by William Shakespeare, Giuseppe Verdi made attempts to translate some of his works into opera, which he achieved with Macbeth in the very same year, 1847, that the Liceu opened its doors. Otello and Falstaff would be the other two titles by the English playwright that the Milanese composer would premiere decades later. The Gran Teatre is now experiencing this happy coincidence with its 175th anniversary and is concentrating its efforts on a long-awaited production of the dark, theatrical and demonic Macbeth with which Jaume Plensa, another lover of Shakespeare and opera, makes his debut as director of scene. There will be eleven functions that start on February 16, until March 3, and that have required half a million euros of investment plus another million and a half in operation.
The sculptor presented the title this Wednesday together with the rest of the artistic team, walking around the Liceu stage among various copies of his characteristic steel mesh heads that are part of the scenery, or the letters that make up one of the most fascinating phrases of the work - "Sleep no more" -, with which it is explained that Macbeth has not only killed someone, but also the possibility of falling asleep for the rest of his days. Plensa was accompanied in this journey through his own iconographic universe by a “sensational” cast headed by Luca Salsi and Sondra Radvanovsky as Macbeth and his Lady, as well as Erwin Schrott as Bank. Josep Pons signs musical engineering.
“I don't do things to be liked, I do them because they come out that way. Sometimes the team gets mad at me when I say 'how easy it is!'. And it is, because you have Shakespeare and Verdi who are whispering to you, 'Plensa, be careful, don't do this bullshit'. Nobody comes to tell me anything when I work alone in the studio doing a work. And it's not only exciting, it's that you share it with other people," Plensa explained to the press.
The sculptor has surrounded himself with a series of artists to carry out his stage project. He told Antonio Ruz that he wanted him to choreograph how the actors move in space, "and he has achieved it," says the sculptor. “Marc Salicrú has helped me transfer my language as a sculptor to the theatrical world, Nadia Balada has done the same with the costumes, we have Urs Schönebaum in the lights, which is an extraordinary job, Joan Samper has coordinated all of this, and has always Leo Castaldi has been by my side. Space is more empty than full. There is something that can fill more than my works and it is the voices and the orchestra. The void is also an object.
“But I have sought to take advantage of the energy that is in a theater -he continues-. Not only what happens on stage but with the 80 musicians in the pit and the 2,242 people on the other side. The exchange is brutal. It was William Blake who said that the idea of thought fills the immensity, fills the space with an invisible energy. I have tried to ensure that the Shakespeare-Verdi essence passes through the stage with great purity. If there has been that obsession with blood and mud with this title, I don't think it was because Shakespeare wanted to talk about it. But it is that an element that was very feminine and that had not been fully explained or understood has been interpreted with a masculine gaze.
Plensa considers that Lady Macbeth is the sun around which the rest of the characters revolve. And he believes that this production represents a change in attitude that will change many ways of looking at this opera and "above all it will renew it, because in a certain way it is outdated." “I mean, for example, all the poetry that accumulates in Lady Macbeth's relationship with Macbeth. I really like reading theater because it allows you to imagine what you would do otherwise. Shakespeare tried to describe the human being in its complexity, we have all been Macbeth or Lady Macbeth at some time, we have all been a King Duncan and have been murdered, or a Bank with his fidelity or a Macduff who perpetrates revenge. Depending on how light touches us, we are one thing or another, and modernity is changing the way the viewer can look at it”.
“I agree with Sondra -he continues- when she says that Lady Macbeth is an extraordinary woman who has always been seen as the being that led Macbeth to his downfall, but in reality she goes where Macbeth doesn't. What happens is that they have a bad day and everything gets complicated for them”.
Radvanovsky, who is singing the role for the second time, sees Lady Macbeth not as a bloodthirsty woman but as a woman in love. She wants her husband to change her structure, but changing it is impossible and that is what leads to her downfall. “The failure is not that she doesn't get power, but that she doesn't get to change her husband,” she warns. “This production has surprised me by its modernity -she concludes-. It is like the infusion that the world of opera needs. A combination of so many forms of art... dance, sculpture, words, music... in a way that had not been seen before. People will be surprised by this combination.”
“I have tried to make it extraordinarily light. And when they proposed the project to me [which Plensa has been cherishing for 25 years, since Gerard Mortier asked him which opera he would like to stage] I said that, since we were doing it, we would do it all”. The sculptor refers to the last aria from Macbeth that was in Verdi's original before it was changed. An ending that the baritone Luca Salsi appreciates that the theater has been willing to face. “It's a huge financial effort, but it's important for the role of Macbeth. It gives the character a lot more strength."
Indeed, the musical rights are in force as it is a critical edition, with which they have had to pay 25,000 euros to pay the musicologist and the Ricordi publishing house, as well as the audiovisual that accompanies this song of love, respect, honor... the Macbeth's moment of lucidity when he says goodbye to the world aware that he is dying and sees, perhaps, that he has been wrong.
“This is a round opera, but difficult for the singers -explains Pons-. There is a passage in which they have four pianissimi. Verdi is a master of dark-colored opera, but be careful, he also uses white, although he rarely uses it. I would highlight two aspects: there are very well drawn characters, like Banco's, but then others who are crossed with the possibility of reigning, and that develops a beastly psychology that we also find in the music. And, on the other hand, while Lady Macbeth starts out glorious, she ends up beside herself, an extraordinary evolution that in the case of Macbeth is the opposite: she begins with doubts and ends in the most noble way with Pietà. I am fascinated by this double evolution, and also that of witches, who are part of the mythology of the Anglo-Saxon world, who start out rude, eating with their hands, and end up ethereal”.
The Liceu Live platform will offer on March 25 the possibility of seeing the project from the perspective of the conductor, seeing the role of the councilor, watching the opera following the score or observing the changes in scenery with a digital camera. The audiovisual product, which will be available for two years, also has the collaboration of other players such as Caixaforum, which has produced a documentary to show the opera in a different and more complete way.
The CaixaForum platform, which is three months old and has 35,000 subscribers, has detected that its public is passionate about seeing the creative processes of the world of culture. For this reason, he has decided to carry it out with Macbeth and the next world premiere of Alexina B, by Raquel García-Tomás. In fact, Plensa has already been allowed to install a microphone and a camera follows him for the making of a documentary that will be available in May.
