He has spent these months of confinement with "a certain privilege" in his farmhouse in Ampurdán, writing with the "tranquility" provided by the rural world. A few hours after returning to the Teatros del Canal , Albert Boadella attends EL MUNDO by phone in his private paradise, from where, in addition to describing the details of his work, what if we fell in love with Scarpia? , tells us about machismo and feminism, about the importance of music at this point in his life and how it is difficult for human beings to learn life's lessons, including those provided by the pandemic we are experiencing these days.

This Wednesday, and until August 29, the playwright, actor and director leaves his refuge to return to the "endearing" theater of the Community of Madrid, which he inaugurated and directed until 2017, with a piece written with his usual assistant to direction, Martina Cabanas , and who already went through this same stage at the end of last year.

What if we fall in love with Scarpia? , a lyrical brawl produced by Escenario Clece that takes the gender struggle as a backdrop, is revived on the Channel with a clear intention: "Encourage people to go to the theater." "It is a work that works very well, which had a large audience, and now it is convenient to do things that attract , with a high level of communication and popularity, because it is a delicate moment for our union ... And for everyone," says Boadella about This show that, through the interpretation and singing of the best opera arias , treats the extremes of machismo and feminism with the sense of humor and satire that characterize the playwright.

Under the symbol of Scarpia, the stalker of Tosca -the Puccini classic that this year turns 120-, the script includes the game between a conductor, played by tenor Antoni Comas, and two sopranos, Belén López and María Rey -Joly, during the rehearsal of an operatic recital in which a three-way conflict arises about how female characters are treated in some of the most emblematic pieces in the history of opera, such as La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Gianni Schicchi, Aida, Otello, Rusalka, Don Giovanni, The Bunch of Roses or La Traviata .

On the one hand, there is a woman "very turned on against the female characters of the opera" , another classic who "only wants to sing and does not worry about male chauvinist arguments" and, in the middle, the conductor, "a cultured man and intelligent "to whom at certain moments " the ancestor that every man has to repress comes out, " with" macho and extreme outbursts, "explains the director.

Equality, natural of the guild

"There is nothing funny about violence, but there are attitudes that must be looked at with distance and a sense of humor, " says Boadella in relation to the theme of the show, in which the excesses of machismo and feminism give rise to "situations funny, crazy and ridiculous . " "Men and women are condemned to understand each other. You cannot be in the current situation. There is very little romanticism," adds the director about the confrontations that take place today between both genders.

Precisely because she is a woman, she wrote this story with her assistant director. "She did not want a purely masculine vision," says the playwright, who although he admits that he discussed many things with her during the process, no confrontation arose because, in addition to having spent most of his life working with women in his company, "equality is natural of the guild . " "Ours has been very open, not for now but for centuries, because men and women have lived together, traveling in the wagon, with representations from one place to another. Women have had great freedom and prominence and have been so much or more valued than men ", highlights the Catalan.

After the success of Amadeu , El Pimiento Verdi or Don Carlo , which he took to the Teatros del Canal after his departure from Els Joglars, with What if we fell in love with Scarpia? Boadella returns to delve into the lyrics , essential today in his work. "When I left my company after 54 years it was especially for that. I had the countdown of artistic possibilities and my frustration had always been music . I thought that my stage and theater life had to end there," he says.

A perfect work

Except for a joke about the mask, the playwright admits that he has not changed a comma from his last show. And the reason is indisputable: "When I finished writing, I thought that I had made the work with the best settings. I was very satisfied. Furthermore, it is one of the most perfect works that I have produced from the point of view of the viewer's penetration from the minute one. When something works well it is prudent not to touch it ", he assures.

Although what if we fell in love with Scarpia? began to be written when the Me too traveled the world, the pandemic that invades us is not a subject that interests Boadella artistically. "My colleagues do it better than I do," says the playwright, who claims to have left political and social issues behind to be interested only in the beauty and art that music gives off. "Things take importance because of the beauty of the situation, it is what most reaches the human being. That is why music is the art that I like the most . It transforms feelings in an emotional way. Through sound we enter a special state "

On the Covid-19, which until now has been raffled, the playwright assures that society has not reflected: "There would not be so many outbreaks," he says, although he understands that "it is difficult for human beings to learn." "It takes many joint layers of experience for that. From the Romans so far, we have learned little except for scientific advances," says Boadella, who predicts that "when they find the vaccine, people will forget about this."

Discarded a work on the subject of the moment, Boadella focuses on his next project on Maria Callas , which can be seen from next January in the Teatros del Canal. A show that will tell the final part of the artist's life, when she went into decline and criticism began to be very hard on her, and that will narrate the end of her relationship with Onassis through singing.

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