Joan Anton Rechi would be an apprentice alongside Fitzcarraldo, the Irishman obsessed with opera who, as Werner Herzog reflected in his famous film, proposed to drag an entire set through the Amazon at the end of the 19th century. However, the determination with which the Andorran stage director intends to bring the genre to his country, in the heart of the Pyrenees, is still an adventure. Well, oddly enough, the small country located between France and Spain has a deficit in terms of lyrical genre. And that banks to finance the productions are not lacking.
Rechi is closer to achieving it since he has been appointed director of the brand new ClàssicAnd, the festival whose first edition takes place these days (from June 2 to 11) as a result of uniting the Andorra la Vella and Ordino Music and Dance Season Clàssic that had taken over from the Yepes festival.
Thus, led by the Ministries of Tourism and Culture, the initiative adds the contribution of two banks: MoraBanc and Crèdit Andorrà in Ordino. The two entities and both town councils have agreed to do something more ambitious –with a budget of 900,000 euros– that attracts tourism and is attractive to the people of the country.
“We had to bring interesting, particular and unique proposals, like this Live/die that we have put together with Ariadna Gil, an exclusive of ours based on the essay Living with our dead, by Delphine Horvilleur. Ariadne recited accompanied by the harpist Xavier de Maistre and the pianist Lise de la Salle. Because talking about death is a way of moving forward after the pandemic...".
The director himself explains it, who this weekend brings the Georgian mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili (9th, Auditorium) with arias from French opera, by Bizet, Saint-Saens or Gounod, and the day before, in the gardens of Ràdio Andorra , the Ukrainian tenor Valentyn Dytiuk (of the National Opera of Ukraine) will perform, with an Italian repertoire. A way of introducing the genre in recital format.
This first edition of the festival will have had 4,000 spectators, adding the venues with a maximum of 500. Is this a sufficient capacity to propose an operatic production in future editions?
"I'm thinking of finding an outdoor space where I can set up a grandstand, but not in a fixed auditorium plan like Peralada has, because one of the graces of the Andorra festival is the plurality of spaces close to nature: we have up to five in the open air", indicates. “Yes, my goal is to direct an opera in Andorra, but it is still early, you have to find the mechanics for these things. Yes, Cirque du Soleil visits us with an exclusive production for Andorra, but we still need the logistics. Perhaps in the next edition we could already mount a small format operatic title, going in that direction. If in Israel they are capable of bringing opera to Masada, how can we not be able to do it in Andorra!”
Rechi had not yet opted for cultural management, but the Andorran government proposed it to him and he is "happy" because "I am from here and I was sorry that they couldn't see my work at home. Because even though there is no opera house here, I have never lost the link“. The dates chosen, the first half of June, allow them to avoid the rains of July and August in the Pyrenees, and not coincide with Peralada, a friendly square where Rechi has directed many titles. “I have spoken a lot with Oriol Aguilà and he has helped me a lot”, he assures of the artistic director of the Empordà festival.
Inaugurated in the Plaza del Consell de Andorra la Vella with Pergolesi's Stabat Mater performed by the Orquestra Nacional Clàssica d'Andorra with Dani Espasa conducting, the festival closes this Sunday with trumpeter Benny Benack III, an emerging North American jazz with his Ulysses Quartet he will do, "exclusively for Andorra" the famous cycle The Juliet letters by Elvis Costello, "a cycle that I am in love with", says Rechi. And there will be no shortage of dancing: on Saturday the street will see Opening by the Yoann Bourgeois Art Company, and the Israeli Vertigo shows Makom, a story about roots and land.
