That Cesc Casadesús is enthusiastic about music –also classical music– is a plus for the Grec, the festival he directs. And if he also has complicity with those responsible for the main Barcelona musical institutions, the party is served. Projects like this Beethoven 7 that Sasha Waltz created in a pandemic and that had only been seen live streaming from Berlin benefit from this. The German choreographer was eager to make her debut at the Teatre Grec. Casadesús told the Liceu, which in turn was in talks with the creator... et voilà! The live world premiere –and with orchestra– of this piece on the Symphony of friend Ludwig takes place today (and tomorrow, 10 pm) on Montjuïc.
It is the must of the summer, an unmissable part of the dance programming but also of the musical one, since the excellence of Waltz (Dido
“The Teatre Grec is a special place. It will be for the stars, but in the open air a different way of being together is created, ”says Waltz before telling how he approached Beethoven. For her, each of the four movements of this symphony are unique pieces in which she not only speaks of hope.
“He composed it at a time when he had to abandon utopias about a new world, just after Napoleon. The second movement is almost a funeral march, he feels sorry that this new world has not been possible. Choreographing that has been magnificent. I seek to perpetrate that freedom that he craves, so from the outset there is an improvisational structure, but it is freer and more fragile, which is a challenge for dancers and the public, but you know me: I contrast clarity and choreography with free forms. to choreograph."
Waltz proposed to his interpreters to discuss among themselves the notion of freedom and how to bring it to dance. The conclusion was that freedom does not exist as something individual, but in a group and social context. “We are a structured society,” he adds.
The idea of choreographing the Seventh was proposed to Waltz by the conductor Teodor Currentzis, who during the pandemic and on the occasion of Beethoven's 250th anniversary participated in a marathon of his symphonies broadcast in one day from different parts of the world; in his case, the ancient temple of Delphi. “It was a special occasion, but on streaming. Now the orchestra will be right there and the director, the wonderful Lucas Macías, will see the dancers”.
He is the artistic director of the City of Granada Orchestra, but also an oboist, with whom Claudio Abbado counted on when founding the Mozart Orchester, points out the artistic director of the Liceu, Víctor García de Gomar. “This is the most danceable Beethoven,” he agrees. He himself danced at Liszt's house while he played it on the piano. The Liceu Symphony Orchestra –founded only 20 years after Beethoven died and 35 after its 7th premiered–, had not performed at the Grec since 2018. But it will not be the only one to play music in this Grec show.
Waltz wanted to provide a contemporary reaction to Beethoven. And since the four movements of this Symphony are “so unique and diverse in the emotions they arouse, I thought of adding a fifth movement as an overture”. Thus, the work begins with the electronic music of the Chilean Diego Noguera, who is on stage and provides a cathartic experience, says the choreographer. “Today Beethoven would be a dj or an electronic musician, something totally contemporary”, adds her partner and co-founder of the company, Jochen Sandig. "People hallucinated with him, something had to be done with the spirit of Beethoven, with his freedom, his passion and the ecstasy he provided in his time."
Those of his music are values of freedom, which are also a political option, "and that is what is pertinent in Sasha's work: an aesthetic and a political conscience", observes De Gomar. "That the first part of the work talks about repression and the second, when the orchestra enters, of liberation is very much in keeping with the spirit of the times: of politics and dictatorships and loss of freedoms", concludes Casadesús. "And as a public, you end up with an always optimistic feeling. They are those things that art has and that Sasha knows how to do very well”.
