Stunned. This is how the public left the Gran Teatre yesterday, after having left their hands in the long minutes of final applause: eight in total, including an ovation for the orchestra. Stunned by the iconic postcards of great beauty that Jaume Plensa had displayed in this long-awaited new production of Verdi's Macbeth for which the Liceu has bet big. The entire room stood up when the Barcelona sculptor came out visibly moved to say hello.
He greeted as set designer, costume designer and, for the first time in his artistic career, as stage director, supported by the infallible maestro Josep Pons, who had soaked himself in Verdi and made it flow like running water, and by the remarkable choir , Antonio Ruz's dance troupe and a powerful vocal cast led by the brilliant Sondra Radvanovsky and Luca Salsi –how barbaric!– in the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Lots of excitement for a title that has never been one of Verdi's favourites.
"But... Giuseppe Verdi, does he match Jaume Plensa?" She wondered before beginning, and as if it were an outfit, a spectator who, already seated in the crowded room, began to imagine two aesthetic tunnels, the musical and the visual, that perhaps would follow parallel paths that would never cross. The question was not trivial: would Verdian psychological and dramatic look at Shakespeare's myth combine with the elusive spirituality of Plensian iconography?
The energy yesterday in the corridors of the flagship of Catalan culture was special. Even without a red carpet, the feeling of a big party reigned. And aware of the artistic quality of the event, they had responded to the Gran Teatre's invitation from international gallerists and collectors to writers, musicians and local artists: Eduardo Mendoza, Milena Busquets or Marta Riezu Jordi Savall, the sculptor Antoni Llena and plastic artists such as Eulàlia Valldosera, Albert Riera Galcerán and Yago Hortal, more illustrators –Paula Bonet, Jordi Labanda–, the choreographer Marcos Morau or the actor Pere Arquillué.
The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès was walking around with two of his advisers, the one for the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, and the one for Culture, Natàlia Garriga, although others will have to wait to attend other functions of this much-desired Macbeth. Three deputy mayors (Laia Bonet, Albert Batlle and Jordi Martí) plus the director of Inaem, Joan Francesc Marco, shared the presidential box with them. The artistic event aroused interest among international media. Euronews interviewed a Plensa turned idol of the small masses, a creative genius who had to be saluted.
The Liceu –whose ticket sales in this title have skyrocketed as it had not happened in the Coliseum on La Rambla for years– dressed completely in Plensa yesterday. From its recent porch doors, conveniently lowered, to the sculptural volumes that are scenic elements in that Macbeth, passing through the set of sculptures in the Saló dels Miralls, with cherries at the base that people cannot help but touch and pick up. And, beware, the design of his own merchandising: a red porcelain cup with his own letters from his visual universe. A limited edition of 500 that can be purchased at the ticket office!
But what things are: the set designer Plensa has decided, under his own orders, to hold back on this Macbeth. He plays with his large heads, whether they are solid or clouds of letters that do not allow us to see the interior, which enter and leave the scene in an allegorical way, but on very few occasions. He combines them, with great contrast, with empty scenes already from the soprano's first arias, “Vieni! T’affretta” and “La luce langue”. Radvanovsky shone in the immense darkness, drawing the first long applause of the night. And he would shine again in the last aria of madness, “Una macchia è que tuttora”, also in the immensity of an empty space... which in the end is abused.
In this aesthetic ceremony of forced perspectives that trick the eye into imagining volumes and corporealities, there are good discoveries, not in vain Plensa knows Shakespeare's Macbeth inside out. He himself becomes intoxicated with the hard journey that the Shakespearean couple undertakes. Once the witches prophesy their fate, they rush to fulfill it: the power is there, you just have to kill King Duncan and any eventual successor. But in the editing there are also gaps and a clear absence of dramaturgy: Are those silhouettes of current characters that seem to climb up vines from Canetti's verses justified in the toast scene, for example?
As a costume designer, Plensa cannot avoid returning to the furera aesthetic from which he emerged as a set designer. And as a good plastic artist, he tends to be contemplative, he is aesthetic and ecstatic. And that is where Antonio Ruz does an immense job with the choreography: chorus, dancers, witches... they form a whirlpool that provides action, with excellent moments such as the dance acrobatics. Urs Schönebaum's lights take care of the rest. One note: whitewashing Lady Macbeth by dressing her in pure immaculate does not work. Freeing her from the machismo that has turned her into the perverse manipulator of her husband has here been an exaggerated effort that Verdi and Radvanovsky's claw have returned to her place.
