Musicals, Egypt, fashion and 'movida': Madrid's cultural offer lights up Christmas

After two pandemic Christmases in which culture and society have operated at half throttle, this year's end of the year's cultural offer finally turns on all its lights.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
06 December 2022 Tuesday 23:39
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Musicals, Egypt, fashion and 'movida': Madrid's cultural offer lights up Christmas

After two pandemic Christmases in which culture and society have operated at half throttle, this year's end of the year's cultural offer finally turns on all its lights. And it is stunning. And of course in Madrid, this Christmas is, like never before, that of musicals. They are simply innumerable, seriously showing that the city is the third stage in the world after Broadway and London's West End. But there will also be a lot of Picasso, a lot of Egypt and a lot of fashion in Madrid. And even an exceptional exhibition by a great photographer from La Movida. And the concert with which the tour of 40 years! de Hombres G on December 30 at the WiZink Center.

The Lion King has been going on for 11 years and has received five million viewers and is already a totem on Madrid's Gran Vía, although this year there is no shortage of competitors. Nina and Gerónimo Rauch are a few meters across the street from Los puentes de Madison in EDP Gran Vía. Antonio Banderas gives life to Company de Sondheim in Albéniz. Edu Soto is Willie Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Espacio IberCaja Delicias, The Choir Boys are at La Latina, Matilda at Nuevo Teatro Alcalá, Mamma Mia! at the Rialto, Singing in the Rain, by Àngel Llàcer and Manu Guix, at the Apolo, the adaptation of The Neverending Story at the Calderón, We Will Rock You at the CaixaBank Príncipe Pío, the musical by Tina Turner at the Coliseum and Nacho Cano is with his Malinche in Ifema.

For those who want theater with less music, there will be great stars of the scene such as José Sacristán, with Lady in Red on a Gray Background, at the Teatro Bellas Artes, and Josep Maria Flotats, with Paris, 1940, at the Teatro Español. Undoubtedly, another outstanding proposal is Easy Reading, the adaptation that Alberto San Juan has made at the National Drama Center of the novel by Cristina Morales, the suffocating control that society exercises over girls with disabilities in a supervised apartment. A risky proposal from which he comes out with a lot of life.

One of the great European directors, the British Declan Donnellan, will direct La vida es sueño, by Calderón, with actors from the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, and the actress Nathalie Seseña will give life in Sobre la vida de animals to an exciting character from the Nobel Coetzee, its Elizabeth Costello, a mature writer who worries about the lives of animals and the nearness of her own death. She will be at the Spanish Theater. For magic lovers, Jorge Blass will be at the Reina Victoria Theater with his new show, Flipar.

The great opera will arrive at the Teatro Real with La sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini, which addresses female infidelity with an almost dreamlike delicacy. Bárbara Lluch will face the stage direction and Nadine Sierra and Jessica Pratt will give life to Amina. In dance, the Canal Theaters will host The Nutcracker in a version by the choreographer Blanca Li in a hip hop key with the music of Tchaikovsky recreated by Tao Gutiérrez. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo directed by Jean-Christophe Maillot will arrive at the same space from January 5 to 8 with their version of Cóppel-IA in which the love of two fiancés is challenged by the appearance of artificial intelligence.

In the world of art, you can choose between fashion, Picasso, Egypt and movida. And sometimes all together. And it is almost essential to visit the Las Sinsombrero exhibition at the Fernán Gómez Center, a journey through the forgotten and surprising creators of the generation of '27 with special attention to painting and with names like Delhy Tejero.

In fashion, you can see the Sybilla samples. The invisible thread in the Sala Canal, Antonio Alvarado. Baja couture at the Museo del Traje and, much more classical, Picasso / Chanel, at the Thyssen Museum, an exhibition that shows that Chanel looked at Picasso and his cubist art... and that Picasso ended up looking at Chanel and even painting her swimsuits In a frame. You can also see an exceptional exhibition of Picasso at the Fundación Mapfre, Julio González, Pablo Picasso and the dematerialization of sculpture, which shows his fruitful relationship with the Catalan sculptor.

In the most Egyptian part, Madrid will bring together this Christmas the Daughters of the Nile exhibition at the Casa de las Hajajas, which covers the role of women in the society of the pyramids through hundreds of works, the immersive Tutankhamun exhibition at the Madrid Artes Digitales de Matadero and the exhibition The Duke of Alba

In the great museums, the Reina Sofía exhibits the curative, playful, spiritual and empowering art of the Guatemalan Margarita Azurdia, the Prado exposes the influence of the Neapolitan Renaissance on Spanish art and also the fabulous dialogue of the abstract Fernando Zóbel with the paintings of the gallery. And the Thyssen shows 69 exceptional works of Ukrainian art that have gone through bombing to arrive.

An exquisite display of fifty paintings in the Banco de España exhibition hall traces the history of the still life through exceptional pieces, including sublime paintings by Juan van der Hamen. CaixaForum looks at the futuristic science of Nikola Tesla and the great experimental photography comes from the Pompidou. And if the Madrid Movida will be seen through the fabulous and colorful photographs of Pablo Pérez-Mínguez in the Sala El Águila of the Community of Madrid, the Catalan counterculture will be seen in CentroCentro in a large exhibition curated by Pepe Ribas.

Tim Burton. The labyrinth offers an immersive tour in the Espacio Ibercaja Delicias through the dream world of the creator of Eduardo Scissorhands, while the Teatro Circo Price will celebrate Christmas with a new production for the whole family, Los Mundos del Price, circus, dance and five friends with the mission of saving nature on a journey through different universes.

The Teatro de la Abadía will host Full House on the 27th and 28th. A fable about coexistence, by Eléctrico 28, physical theater and live music with the story of four animals to whom an unexpected event reveals the similarities that unite them. And the Fernán Gómez Cultural Center includes four shows at its Christmas in the Villa, among them The adventures of the shameful lion of El Pot Petit, or the theatre, music, humor and technology of Control freak with pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Nina Simone or The Beatles