Sometimes we forget that in addition to the three public musical seasons in Barcelona (Gran Teatre del Liceu, L'Auditori and Palau de la Música Catalana), we also have small and less known musical initiatives. They are usually called alternative but I'd rather say complementary, because their programs are pretty different so we aren't forced to choose one option or another. One of this private initiatives took place some weeks ago, it was the small-format festival “Da Camera” (heir of “Ópera de Butxaca”, or “Pocket Opera”), and I went to see Leonard Bernstein's opera Trouble in Tahiti. Before the opera, we listened to some songs including two cycles by Bernstein that I had not heard from a long time: The bonne cuisine and I hate music. A friend of mine encouraged me to write a post about the recipes (yes, that’s right: recipes) and here it is.
In the last post, we began the 3rd book of the novel. As you would remember, the first book takes place at Wilhelm's birthplace and we learn about his relationship with Marianne; in the second one, Wilhelm arrives at a small town for work and meets Mignon, the harpist and the theatre people. At the 3rd, there is a new change of scene and new characters are added to those already known.
“It's said that a fierce, terrible monster devastated the outskirts of Montblanc; he was able to walk, fly and swimm, and his breath stank so much that it poisoned the air and everybody who breathed it, even from far away, died. It wreaked havoc upon herds and people and the whole land was absolutely terrified.”
As from tomorrow, Holy Thursday, many of us will be on holidays, I’m leaving you a short post with a pretty intense song. See you next Wednesday, when we'll celebrate together Saint George's Day!
Almost two years ago, I talked about the art song programme in Barcelona on a blog post. I said back then that it was a sort of desert: there were just three recitals programmed for the 2012-2013 season at the main auditoriums (Palau de la Música Catalana, Gran Teatre del Liceu and L'Auditori), none of them at the Liceu. The following season (which is the present one), song recitals went back to the opera house and four of them were programmed; for next season, 2014-2015, three more recitals are scheduled. I should be pleased but recently, coinciding with Nina Stemme and Jonas Kaufmann's recitals in the same week, I read on papers and social networks some comments suggesting that art song recitals should be removed from the Liceu seasons.