Orgy, by Héctor Parra (2023) ★★★✩✩
Performers: A. Stundyté, C. Miedl, J. Martínez. Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Musical direction: Pierre Bleuse. Stage direction, libretto and costumes: Calixto Bieito. Place and date: Liceu (11/IV/2024). Coprod. Peralada, Teatro Arriaga and Liceu
Highly finished orchestral virtuosity and an elusive vocality combined in the premiere of Héctor Parra's impressive Orgia before an expectant Liceu.
A stomach sore that forced Pier Paolo Pasolini to rest for more than a month led to the birth of his only six plays. Orgia (1966) was the first and the only one he brought to the stage.
Bieito has known how to reduce the play by a third and condense it into a script that, as a result of a sore, becomes a direct punch to the spectator's stomach. In that sense, Parra picks up the gauntlet of Pasolinian/Bietian theatrical dramaturgy and pours it with the art of an orchestral conjurer in an instrumental writing that is pure musical funanbulism.
The orchestra of twenty-five musicians – a brilliant result of the members of the Liceu Orchestra and the musical director Pierre Bleuse – is transformed into a fourth character that serves as a mirror and conceptual abyss for the three protagonist singers of the opera.
A material musical work in which the tears, the glissandi, the blows of the whip or specific oases of evocative lyricism give the viewer no respite in its scarce eighty minutes.
It's a shame that the vocal result doesn't achieve the same effect. The mixture of sung recitation, parlato and a fusion of constant sprechgesang, make the song writing an arid, elusive and dry work, which cools the result in its search for the cathartic.
However, the soprano Aušrine Stundyte was victorious in her role as Woman, due to her dedication and vocality (the operatic role was written expressly for her). The Lithuanian singer stars here in the longest aria in Parra's lyrical catalogue, over a Bachian sarabande mirror, in a final monologue of almost twelve minutes that was a tour de force.
The Man, starring the baritone Christian Miedl, plunged with accentuated expressiveness and tortuous acting, brand Bieito, into a mournful role that sacrifices himself in front of the viewer in an existential cry with stigmatized sexuality in the background.
The short but intense presentation of the young light soprano Jone Martínez as a prostitute is magnificent, with great control of the upper register of clean and precise treble projection.
Bieto's production was discreet for the dimensions of the Liceu. With a theatrical proposal that he erred on the side of being too literal for a text where the criticism of bourgeois society deserved a greater scenic metaphor. The vintage scenery and costumes were outdated for an ambitious proposal with a chimerical result.
