Gregorio Marañón , well supported by the shrewd Ignacio García-Belenguer and the wisdom of Joan Matabosch , has returned to the Royal Theater the greatness that he should never have lost. Today it is again recognized among the six great European opera houses.

The stage director, David McVicar , has had the success of recreating the scenic drama Don Carlo with a rigorous period costume by Brigitte Reiffenstuel and a cutting-edge set design by Robert Jones , which condenses the oppression of the Church and the State in that era of as many shadows as lights. Verdi took advantage of Schiller's historical fake to attack the Habsburgs of the Austrian Empire that harassed 19th-century Italy. Around the son of Felipe II , he develops a story as far away from historical rigor as it is in the lie. "What a hoax," Vargas Llosa told me at the break. The public has always surrendered to the love of Don Carlos for Isabel de Valois , who married Felipe II, the collision at the bottom between the Church and the State, between the Inquisitor and the Monarch. The desolate shadow of the princess of Eboli , lover of the King, accentuates the drama in which the breath of Emperor Charles I also extends over the historical lie, the great fake of the time, dragging his grandson to the grave.

Excellent soprano María Agresta , who fights the vibration of tenor Marcelo Puente. And although the specialized critics have underlined the irregularities with which some voices fragilized the representation, it will be necessary to recognize the general solidity of this Don Carlo . Of the five versions of Verdi, Matabosch has chosen that of Modena. And it has been right, because the historical tragedy is approaching today.

Don Carlo in front of Felipe VI , successor, from parents to children, of Felipe II. Thanks to the splendid reign of his father Juan Carlos I and the opposition from exile against the dictatorship of Franco of his grandfather, the forgotten Juan III , Don Felipe reigns in Spain and his presence in the Royal Theater, accompanied by the admirable Queen Letizia , underlines in full political coven the normality of Spanish life and institutional stability. Verdi's music and the torrent of voice spilled on the stage illuminated the night with the lights of the deep culture that has always been and is the opera.

Luis María Anson , of the Royal Spanish Academy.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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