In the exultant Olympic Barcelona everything seemed possible. It was even considered that Rafael Moneo's auditorium and Ricard Bofill's Teatre Nacional would work the miracle of regenerating the back room of Barcelona's urban planning: Plaça Glòries. It mattered little that the City Council itself had sacrificed the place by erecting there the monstrosity of the traffic distributor, the scalextric, for the boomers. It was believed that culture could with everything. And no: it can help, but you shouldn't ask it to become a focal point in the middle of a landscape of urban desolation.
Twenty-five years later, the TNC and the Auditori still have to look – what a remedy – towards the center of the city. But, at least, the moment is approaching when, on the other side, Glòries will stop being a deterrent wall. With the completion of the urbanization work on the square, both facilities will better connect with the offer of services and culture that has been enriching the 22@ technology district in recent years.
This greater connection with the city, in the case of the TNC, coincides, in the hands of the new director, Carme Portaceli, with an opening to broader theatrical fields, such as exchanges with international companies. The 25th anniversary of the theater, in fact, is celebrated on the 29th with the performance of Assaig on José Saramago's blindness, in a co-production with the São João National Theater in Porto directed by Nuno Cardoso.
Outside doors, Portaceli's intention is to expand activities beyond the rooms it manages. To this end, it plans to use more of the TNC gardens and the Plaza de las Arts – which it shares with the Auditori – for recreational activities and also relaunch the bar service. The theater is already preparing some joint activity with the neighboring Razzmatazz, in the line of expanding its sphere of influence to become a true cultural center.
The importance of accompanying cultural events with cocktail parties at this start of the season should not be underestimated. Not only because in the post-pandemic we have verified that there is an accumulated party impulse, but because more than ever it is necessary to open the watertight compartments of culture, explore all the ways to facilitate the arrival of new audiences. Other theaters, like some of those managed by the Focus company, are preparing similar proposals.
The Barcelona and Catalan theater system, on paper, has prepared itself to live a splendid return to normality. Francesc Casadesús's Grec and Natàlia Lloreta's Fira de Tàrrega have set the tone and the programs are generally ambitious, both in the large private theaters – from Focus to Victòria, where Mago Pop is going to give a good boost to the global sales of the season– as well as in local venues –less decimated than could be expected after heroically resisting covid– and in public facilities. For its part, the High Season of Salvador Sunyer has presented a program in its line, that is to say, excellent.
But the administrations do not always accompany. The Generalitat, in its slow and uncertain path towards the goal of normalizing cultural budgets, has its emblematic theater underfinanced: barely 12 million euros, compared to the almost 19 it had before the 2008 crisis. And the City Council could do more to promote the old and new theatrical axes: Paral lel-Montjuïc, which is already intuited around a future pacified Plaça de Glòries: TNC, l'Auditori, Versus, Sala Beckett, the future Barcelona Artist Factory of Focus, the Casino L'Aliança del Poblenou...
Now all that remains is for the public to respond. For now, sources from public and private theaters speak of reasonable pre-sale figures, but it will be necessary to see if the theater becomes a refuge against the depression of war or if, hand in hand with the rest of the cultural sectors, it is carried away by the looming recession. Spectators and viewers have a lot to say.
