After a fairly stolid performance of ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ in the Liceu I felt that I deserved a little something to spice up my jaded cultural appetite. Barcelona offers a multitude of experiences which are not readily available in Castelldefels including one omission from our little town which is inexcusable – Indian food!
I was the only customer in the Indian Restaurant near the opera house so my meal was delivered with dispatch so that I was in and out in about twenty minutes and back on The Ramblas.
Operas in the Liceu start at 8.00 pm so with the normal length of the opera means that you are rarely out of the theatre before midnight. The Ramblas after midnight is more like something directed by Tim Burton – but without his underlying sense of the positive. You get all the dark, sleazy, drunken horror without the promise of redemption that Burton usually provides.
I had dressed up to fit in with the rest of the patrons in the theatre – especially in the seats which I now use. I have trained myself not to look at the price I paid which is printed on the front of every ticket! So I was wearing a suit with a white shirt and repressed tie. I rarely do the tie up fully and the wearing of the jacket was sufficient to counteract the temperature.
My great mistake was not walking on the central part of The Ramblas but on one of the narrow pavements which run down either side of the narrow roads which flank this key tourist venue of the city. My lesser mistake was slightly missing my footing on the irregular curb after crossing one of the small roads off The Ramblas.
That slight stumble was in front of a group of girls wearing tightly fitting clothing and looking at male passers by with calculating eyes. My theatrical miss step provoked a laugh from one of them and some sort of muttered comment but I pressed gamely on only to find myself outflanked by the same girls.
Think for a moment about what they saw: a man in a suit; tie undone; not wearing a coat; out after midnight and stumbling. An easy mark!
I must admit that years of watching BBC Wildlife programmes came back to me in a rush: especially the ones which showed sharks circling their prey or hyenas marking out the weakest animal who cannot keep up with the pack! Also what happened to their prey came back in vivid detail!
The girl who laughed stood in front of me while one of her (substantial) friends stood on my right and a couple of others on my left. I was trapped! And before anyone even thinks about making any sort of sexist comment I might add that they looked like the sort of people you would not want to meet in the dark. And it was after midnight!
The ‘conversation’ we had sounded like something from a hastily written pornographic novel. Not my conversation, you understand, it was more of a double hander hard core expression of physical possibilities from the two girls. I was merely thinking of my wallet and my e-book reader which was poking out of one pocket – and hoping that both would still be mine after this encounter.
My way forward was blocked by prying hands and substantial bodies trying to do things that did not fit in with my idea of a good night out. So I went sideways with alacrity and a thumping heart and gained the relative safety of the middle part of The Ramblas.
The lusty girls did not follow. They didn’t follow because the middle part of The Ramblas was obviously the beat of another group of girls, so (fully paranoid) I fled. Reaching the narrow pavement on the other side of The Ramblas I was then accosted by yet another girl who emerged from the shadows muttering honeyed words in English. There are distinct disadvantages to looking so obviously not a part of the indigenous population!
By the time I reached the car park in the lower part of The Ramblas (after studiously looking at the pavement rather than at any human passer by) I was glad to get into the relative safety of my car!
What had drawn me to this den of iniquity in the first place was the performance of ‘La Nozze di Figaro’ in the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
They actually managed to make ‘Figaro’ boring! The preliminary talk (in Catalan) suggested that this was a fairly faithful production – it would have been fairer to say that it was a fairly unimaginative production.
The Orquestra Simfonica conducted by Antoni Ros-Marbà was excellent and the chorus did was it should.
The great crime in this production was the staging. The action of the piece was updated to the 1920s or later and virtually nothing was made of this artistic decision. The Count entering carrying a tennis racket can hardly be classed as interesting invention. The costumes fitted the staging but, so what? What was the point? Why not do it in ‘costume’ and simply have the singers adopt stage stances and have done with it?
By the end of the first half I was seriously cutting my losses and going home. At one point the Countess stood in her shimmering sheath of silk with one hand on the stage piano and sang as if she were in a recital! Why bother to go to the expense of a co-production with WNO with highly expensive mechanised sliding flats if all you are going to do is sing?
‘Figaro’ is hardly a bundle of laughs as an opera. This is a musical exploration of determined and serial infidelity; of callous scheming and a sparkling illustration of the sad and vicious frailties of the human condition. The opera begs for an inventive production to bring out the high almost tragic themes which underpin the action while ensuring that the humour is preserved intact. ‘Steptoe and Son’ is a perfect example of how ludicrous comedy can be a heartbeat away from tragedy. That is the sort of programme which could have been the inspiration for a production. Though I’m not sure about setting ‘Figaro’ in a junk yard!
The second half (I did go back and delayed my meal) was a little more inventive and the scene of Figaro in the garden with a flown ball which he addressed when berating women was an indication of what might have been. Although incongruous the ball was used by him as a pendulum and therefore a powerful image of the condition of marriage as he saw it and then later the ball was unhooked from its wire and used by Figaro to perform a series of juggling tricks which again fitted his mood perfectly.
The noisily moving screens used for the garden background were also interesting. I liked the idea of a sort of Rorschach ink blot design coupled with faces as the central idea for these screens and I liked their movement. But these ideas were pitifully scarce and little or nothing was made of the setting.
There may be an interesting production of ‘Figaro’ setting it in the 1920s but this one isn’t it.
All that and sexual harassment too!
Never a dull life!
And tomorrow GB!
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