Galla Placídia, by Jaume Pahissa
Performers: Maribel Ortega, Antoni Lliteres, Simón Orfila, Carol García, Marc Sala, Carles Pachon. Orchestra of the Community of Madrid. Choir of the Zarzuela Theater. Place and date: Teatro de la Zarzuela (8/III/2024)
The Zarzuela theater recently put on Marianela de Pahissa and La Celestina de Pedrell, and is now rescuing this opera that the Liceu premiered in 1913 and reiterated in 1933, with good critical results, although it was later forgotten. Almost a century! What cultural management...
Pahissa went into exile with his family in 1937 and died in Argentina in 1969. There he wrote an important book about Manuel de Falla, but his compositional vein remained anchored in Catalonia and he could not overcome the distance. This work seems to be a product of noucentisme thinking, “Latinist” according to the author, which on the contrary flaunts Wagnerian and Straussian Germanism in the orchestral density, with very good work in general and especially in the 2nd act, with excellent soundscape, intensity and lyricism at times luminous.
Several contradictions reign in the work, Germanism at the gates of the Great War, and love and death coincide in passages, martial turns, but also very attractive phrases and instrumental counterpoints, in a context that does not avoid dissonances and aridity. that mark dramatic moments. The structure and texts (by Pahissa) show a certain darkness due to the intricate plot established by Àngel Guimerà in his play a few years earlier.
But for those of us who only knew the original score that the family keeps in Buenos Aires, it was a discovery, because stylistically it has personality and reveals a good orchestrator. As a good Wagnerist, he identifies characters with his leitmotif and does not work on them based on arias and melody but trying to express the dramatic plot of the general speech.
The version was careful, with a good direction that revealed the orchestral richness, the good conjunction of the Catalan language in the musical context, with soloists who embroider their roles, although the fact that it was in concert and with a score in sight took away from them. spontaneity and freedom of theatrical action.
