When Carme Riera published her magnificent novel L'arxiduc more than five years ago, the impact that her invention had on not a few Mallorcans on the life of the iconic Luís Salvador of Austria-Tuscany – whom she turned into a spy at the service of Emperor Francisco José , his cousin, in addition to being bisexual in love with ancestry over his subjects – was perfectly mitigated by the lyricism with which the academic of letters allowed the nobleman to express himself in supposed memoirs prone to post-truth.
In the novel, the man known as the hippy archduke reviews his life, regrets and passions, evoking his love for Mallorca, whose nature and people he has studied in depth... Ah, Miramar! The idea that Riera had a posteriori of turning the fable into an opera hopelessly seduced the composer Antonio Parera Fons, and also the Government of the Balearic Islands, which produces it with a budget of 400,000 euros and the involvement of the Balearic Symphony and the Choir of the Principal Theatre. This Friday its world premiere took place at the Palma theater, where the island's active forces had gathered, starting with the president of the Balearic Government, Francina Armengol.
But despite its three hours of contemporary music with a descriptive-cinematic invoice and sublime writing for choirs, the libretto signed by Riera herself is flatly sinful. Centered on guilt and sexual desire, the entire opera is a Freudian angst that reduces the character—a benefactor to the islanders—to more depraved than sensitive.
Paco Azorín's staging keeps the attention in the first part, when the archduke –the tenor David Alegret plays him as a young man and the baritone Jose Antonio López as an adult– regrets not having saved his nephew Rodolfo, heir to the empire, from being murdered by the court's own interests for his opening ideas. And the same with the next successor, Francisco Ferdinand, in Sarajevo, an event that triggered the Great War.
But the second part, a prolonged and tacky libertine spree with a grouchesque Freud in the middle and a hip-shaking Alegret, ultimately requires the viewer's goodwill and indulgence. Because both the music and the plot fall into repetition.
Hence the mixed reactions to the release. "I have not come here to have value judgments imposed on me by spoonfuls," said an opera connoisseur, who had not wanted to put up with it until the end. Next to her, a woman who is not used to stepping on the theaters of the genre described the show as wonderful, although she missed "more melody and an aria to enjoy."
Paco Mielgo led the orchestra with some fifty musicians and a cast with happy moments, such as those of the peasant woman for whom the archduke drinks the winds, Catalina Homar, performed by the Madrid mezzo-soprano María José Montiel, whose love affairs lead to a waltz . The appearance of the archduke's mother, played by María José Moreno, singing in Italian, was another moment of theatrical firmness.
Pau Camero, the baritone who has been seen performing in Barcelona as a student at the Liceu Conservatory and in the theater itself with productions of contemporary operas, makes a remarkable Wlasidlaw Vyborny, the lover/secretary for whom the archduke shakes his hips. And Joan Laínez perishes in the role of Franz Ferdinand (Francisco Fernando), assassinated in Sarajevo.
The moments of greatest beauty and connection with the musicality that the island traditionally evokes were carried out by a choir in a state of grace, directed by Francesc Bonnín.
