Boris Izaguire throws himself into zarzuela. He has written the script for one, entitled Trato de favour, set in the fictitious prison of Las Albricias and in which he himself will go on stage at the Teatro de la Zarzuela for each function – he plays a presenter – together with Ainhoa Arteta and Nancy Fabiola Herrera . An opera inspired by the moment in which the diva Sofía Loren had to go to jail for the tax fraud of her husband, Carlo Ponti, and in which even Preysler appears in some of her arias. The composer Lucas Vidal (Madrid, 1984), winner of two Goyas and an Emmy, is the author of the music for a show that he directs on stage from this Saturday until May 21 by the maestro Emilio Sagi. A zarzuela that Arteta assures has “saved her life” and that it is “the beginning of her new stage”. And that he even hesitated to do it because it seemed to him that it was inspired by his life.
Izaguirre jokes that in the staging of an opera the librettist is "the mascot". He remarks that they called him by his name, "and the others, teachers." “And although I am a media star, it is true that television makes you a pet, because there came a time when I heard people saying my name on the street and they were actually calling their dog, which they had named because they loved me. a lot," he smiles. And he explains how the story of the favored treatment dams arose.
“At some point in 1981, Sofía Loren had to go to jail serving her husband's sentence for tax evasion and property. She was 17 days. I remember a feverish month in my life in Caracas because I identified a lot with her, she seemed to me an extraordinary person, and I thought: 'What glasses is she going to wear?' Years later, I interviewed her and asked her if it was true that when she left jail she told reporters that the best people she had met in her entire life were left behind. A brutal silence was created. I thought she had screwed up radically. After the dramatic pause, she told me that she had been doing that for a long time and that no one reminded her of that moment. "I can't assure you that I said exactly those words, but I can assure you that it was true with some of them," says Izaguirre.
And, he continues, “I thought that here I had a story to hold on to, and that is what I have tried to do in Favorable Treatment. It is true that in a prison you do not wait for a star to arrive and the first thing that can happen is that they are required to be treated like another prisoner, but it is not. In this case, it is Ana Mía, an extraordinary actress and singer with an incredible career of which we discover that the director of the prison and the only man in her, who has been in charge of celebrating a zarzuelas festival for five years, are part of it. I was passionate about being able to build a tragicomedy that hides a love”.
A love whose music in this case sounds like a great tribute to the genre, with chotis, pasodobles and ballads, but also with current rhythms in the score, as composers such as Alonso or Sorozábal already did in their zarzuelas. A score that Ainhoa Arteta has managed to bring to life after a tough process, she confesses: in addition to the serious health problems she has suffered in recent years, she initially thought that what happened in her work spoke of her. “Many things about Ana Mía are similar to those that have happened to me, including jail, that no one knows because I was released. I saw in her everything that had happened to me in a very negative way and that is why now I have finally been able to laugh at it, see it as if it were Boris, her script has saved my life. It is the beginning of my new stage. It has come like a miracle for me, at first I didn't even want to do it, but I have had everyone's help, things have happened to all of us in life that have not been pleasant, and one of the ways to heal is to take it with meaning of humour, this is what this zarzuela has achieved with me”, she concludes excitedly.
