Enrique Granados
Finding the Artist again
Extracts of "Granados : finding the Artist again" 2019
"The cursed torpedo not only annihilated the marvellous artist, but also all of the works that he still could have given us; he had a long career in front of him.” This is how Camille Saint- Saëns lamented the disappearance of Enrique Granados in 1916, drowned at the age of 49 after a German submarine torpedoed the ferry on which he was travelling.
Granados’ first opera, Goyescas, had just premiered in New York, where it was received with great acclaim, and thus his disappearance provoked international indignation and distress.
That is where everything begins: a descendant of the composer, discovering newspaper entries and letters from that period, becomes increasingly immersed in his life and universe.
The past resurges and mingles with the present, with the images of Goya coming alive, and dreams and reality merging into one. In this musical, epistolary and poetic performance, the pianist, the singer and the actress cover an anthology of melodies, excerpts from poetic waltzes, Spanish dances, Goyescas and romantic scenes, resonating with the poems of Machado, Bécquer, Lorca, and the letters of Granados and his contemporaries.
You will travel from the lightness of laughter to melancholy, to dreams, and from mischievous humour to profound pain and romantic passion. The performance is in Spanish (subtitled) and French.
"L'audace du bilinguisme m'a semblé à la fois tout à fait pertinente et remarquablement menée.
L'habile utilisation des textes français projetés permettait de vibrer à l'unisson avec Valéria et Julie qui les disait ou les chantait en espagnol.
[...]
Et il y a des moments de joyeuse gaité, qui, comme une coupe de champagne, désaltèrent au détour d'une anecdote, celle du mari jaloux, incapable de reconnaître son épouse nue au visage caché, ou plus simplement de l'expression du bonheur.
...superbe spectacle qui, à n'en pas douter, va connaître un grand retentissement. Aussi parce qu'il sort des chemins battus en alliant avec audace les genres musicaux, l'évocation biographique, la déclamation et la peinture."
- F. de Laveleye
