“Cleopatra today would be Beyoncé, in politics there are no women at its height,” says Soprano Julie Fuchs
What woman today could be equated with a personality like Cleopatra? The question, addressed to the new protagonist of the opera Giulio Cesare, From Händel, in the production of Calixto Bieto that premieres the Liceu, it has a surprising response. French soprano Julie Fuchs meditates for a few seconds. He has already warned that Cleopatra, “although known for her beauty, like so many women, was very intelligent and a great strategist with political and diplomatic abilities … spoke nine languages, because having control of her future and being close to the town” … Who would this woman be today? “There is something of Beyoncé,” he replies, “that idea of building an image to make use of her power. Because I don’t see women in politics at that point. In our days, very intelligent people do not enter politics, they have other things to defend.”
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The Liceu brings together that Baroque diva with the Catalan contractor Xavier Sabata, who already starred L’Archazione di Poppea from Monteverdi under the orders of Calixto Bieito and the baton of Jordi Savall. Now they are ready to become another Power Couple (powerful couple) playing Julio César and Cleopatra in the famous Giulio Cesare from Händel, also called Giulio Cesare In Egitto. A title released in the King’s Theater in London in 1724 and that in the Barcelona Coliseum had only been seen twice: in 1964, with the incomparable Montserrat Caballé of the protagonist, and for the last time in 2004. This Sunday this other production is released from May 25 to June 7. Six unique functions of which 80% of the capacity has already been sold.
The only six functions of the Baroque title ‘Giulio Cesare’, from May 25 to June 7, have already sold 80% of the capacity
For such an occasion, the great theater has sought excellent wicker and, apart from having the scenic direction of Calixto Bieito, which draws a cartoon about the conquest of power, has caused something as unusual as, for the first time in its more than centenary story, the orchestra of the Liceu uses baroque instruments, taking advantage of the fact that it has a podium in the podium in the podium. Christie It is true that formation has followed historicist criteria in titles of the 18th century, but to date it had always used modern instruments, with the metal strings and the heaviest arches, and with the winds capable of sounding with the power of a Shostakóvich opera. Nothing to do with what was used to listening to Händel himself.
William Christie jokes with Xabier Sabata in the presence of the artistic director of the Liceu, Víctor Garcia de Gomar, and the soprano Julie Fuchs in the set of ‘Giulio Cesare’
“I always enjoy returning to Barcelona, a place of extraordinary, vivifier and very beautiful culture, but there are issues that make it very exciting and very exceptional to be here this time, and a new orchestra” “is being created. A set that incorporates about twenty modern musicians from the Liceu orchestra plus Christie’s assistant in Les Arts Florisants and three specialists in Baroque of its orchestra.
After five or six days of trials, this orchestra plays equally well or better than many of the baroques in the United States or Europe ”
“” When I planted the set of strings and winds from the Liceu orchestra I will not deny that I was somewhat worried, of course, and they also seemed, but the miracle occurred immediately, “Christie says. This orchestra, after five or six days of trials, touches equally good or better than many of the baroque orchestras that can be found in the United States or Europe. You have to be aware of that: the baroque orchestra of the Great Teatre del Liceu, an impressive milestone ”has been born.
Calixto Bieito’s assembly comes from the Opera of Holland
The incorporation of a new generation of musicians in the ranks of the Liceu, young people prepared to play in both records -antigua and modern- has paid off. Most of them have both types of instruments. You just had to dare to use them as Liceist artists. And Christie has put it on a tray. Apart from these two dozen instruments, there will be no presence of choir because, as explained by the musical director of production, “that there is or not choir for the beginning and the end of the work is a decision that in Händel we are free to take, because that was a world of great virtuous divos, and it still is, only that in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries you could find Plácidos. Liceu, the eight soloists will also act as a choir in the intervention of the beginning and the end. ”
That was a world of virtuous divos, and it is still, only that in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries you could find Sunday placids to Mansalva ”
For the rest, the assembly of Bieito places the action in a luxury sidereal world and opulence in full desert, which is inspired by the Saudi Arabia pavilion in the universal exhibition of 2020 in Dubai. “A space invented with digital dreams in a desert paradise,” in the words of the director himself. The new rich world have given Bieito the guideline to devise this fantastic world that could be placed anywhere on the planet, with the protagonists entering and leaving, fashionable and luxurious surrounded in a virtual world that makes the difference between reality and fantasy, and which, as the resident of the assembly in the Liceu, Astrid Van den Akker, “acts on principles of violence, corruption … love. ”
Four extras celebrate an animal dance representing the outside world and trying to please the protagonists embedded in power
“What is at stake is the distribution of power and how far they are willing to get to get it,” he says. Four extras represent the outer world, beautiful. “They are like animals moving and revolving around the protagonists to please them.”
This production that comes from Amsterdam and which retains part of the cast is, in any case, much more than a scenic disposition and a dramaturgy: the Catalan theatrical director (although born in Miranda de Ebro) always works with the artists so that they autonomously get to deepen their characters, giving them humanity. That is, the favorite challenge of Xabier Sabata that, since it coincided with Bieito in Barcelona doing theater and then in Germany, in a Le Grand MacabreHe has experienced a mutual professional in love.
It was good who made me apply to the opera the discipline that I already had of the theater, an acting work without prejudice and with relevance in emotional involvement ”
“It was bieito who made me apply to the opera the discipline that I already had of the theater, an acting work without prejudice and with relevance in emotional involvement,” recalls the contractor. “This has marked me to be the scenic beast that I like or I would like to be. I have always fled the great characters, the standard generate me insecurity. I wanted to make a cease in my way, without conditions of previous interpretations, and the conditions to do so have been given, also with the generosity and openness of Julie’s views.”
Xavier Sabata in one of the moments of assembly violence
But what hides so much opulence in this Giulio Cesare? Calixto uses the world of opulence and the new rich with a lot of irony, says Sabata. “In the end the characters do not believe it, it is a game. And the most spectacular thing is that it is linked to the baroque principle of the rare piece, this rare pearl that after the gold hides a humanity. That is what the show goes: to present the heroes as human and fragile beings. My cease I will build it looking for humanity and contextualizing its cracks. Because it is also written in Händel.
While Cleopatra has apparently more intimate and emotional Arias, with which Fuchs is happy to collect a wide range of colors, the three great arias of Giulio Cesare are brave, pure fireproof fire. “Händel did not know the word psychology, it did not exist in the 18th century, but I knew how to write with the will to draw a human character,” adds Sabata.
“In the 18th century, everything was based not on psychology but on a perception of humanity. And that is the keyword: humanism. That is Händel. Cleopatra is difficult and complex thanks to the fact that he placed it in the center of the universe and endowed it with all emotions, in a world governed by men,” concludes the teacher Christie.
