In a narrow street in Tetouan, behind the large metal door of an old warehouse,
Garaje Lola
hides
. Finding it is not easy. The sign that invites you to
enter
this
alternative and almost clandestine space
is so tiny that, before opening the door, you have the feeling that you are entering a forbidden place. As you cross the threshold, shyness fades into contrasts:
chipped walls, exposed bricks
and metal ceilings dance alongside
passion red velvet curtains, gigantic contemporary paintings
and large banana trees. Decadent, but
chic
. It is the headquarters of
Emiliano Suárez
, aka artist, creative, stage director, producer and heir to the most renowned jewelry in our country.
Garaje Lola is everything he is (and vice versa).
This is how it is perceived in each phrase that the businessman draws during our meeting in this unique space in the capital where he has brought together everything that moves him:
music, art and gastronomy
.
After the so-called "miracle year" in which he opened, he has just opened the season with a program to envy and that he himself has designed.
An
underground
project
inspired by Opera Garage, the format that he created a few years ago to offer contemporary versions in old car parks and that toured half of Spain in the pre-pandemic.
There the unconventional becomes conventional, because
Suárez's maxim is to give "a twist" to everything
that falls into his hand. Starting with choosing one of the most humble areas of Madrid to set up this "place of worship". "In other cities in Europe and the world, [the chosen place] would not have been surprising because it has been around for a long time," he says before recalling that
"mystical" experience he had in Brooklyn
a few years ago, where he had dinner in an old brewery. before the
performance
of a jazz band. "Part of that is here today," he adds.
"As I come from the world of luxury [he has worked for Suárez and Aristocrazy for 20 years directing the Communication and Marketing departments] where there is a lot of money for an event, the turn of the screw to seek that exclusivity is a space like this,
industrial and decadent
" . A place that does not leave you indifferent and where, under its artistic direction and production,
top-level artists will
perform classical operas with contemporary overtones or rescue some of the lesser-known arias from oblivion. Because opera ... opera is everything (or almost) for Suárez.
As a child he was "lost in thought", he says, when he saw a performance on television and was perplexed the day his parents took him for the first time to the Teatro de la Zarzuela, where he never again let them go alone. He came to study singing with the tenor Suso Mariategui, he became friends with dozens of artists, including
Alfredo Kraus
, when he was barely reaching adolescence, he worked at the Chicago opera after leaving university and today he
directs a weekly radio program
(
Much more than opera
) on EsRadio.
From that passion that he carries in his DNA and with that extra creativity that characterizes him and that he has been in training (he studied Advertising and Journalism), last year he signed
Ainhoa Arteta
to give an experimental concert at Garaje Lola. And also to
José Mercé
, because in his space there is room for other genres such as flamenco and jazz. "I told him that I wanted him to sing pure jondo, not his most popular songs, and he replied: 'People are going to sleep'. But
I wanted it to be something liturgical, like going to mass. I wanted to shake people
" recalls the employer.
In this groundbreaking line, this course the opera singer Stefano Palatchi will create a jazz band in his garage (October 22) and
the tenor Fabio Armiliato will interpret arias in a shower
in memory of the cameo that the artist made in Woody Allen's film
From Rome with Love
(November 22). "I am looking for magic a little, not so much the technical display but
the formula of doing things with soul
, looking for that differential and mystical point," says Suárez in reference to the program. "It is about
making the artist experiment
", which is also "a challenge" for him, he adds.
At the same time, Garaje Lola will exhibit
samples of emerging contemporary art
and, once a month, it will become a restaurant under the kitchen of chef
Pablo Díez
, who will bring his nomadic and Ibizan cuisine to the center of Madrid.
The "craziest" culinary concept you ever found.
Fleeing from that future that he already had assured, from that jeweler that his father and uncle tried to make him go and did not, this restless businessman has carved out his own path in which he intends to continue advancing.
"I am a fighter," he
says, underlining the effort that some have left because of his surname.
As a creative artist, he has worked with some of the great photographers, such as
Mario Testino
, he has produced shows such as
Tango and Tears
-created by the tenor José Manuel Zapata and interpreted by Marta Sánchez and José Mercé-, he has mounted his own
exhibitions with photographs
of his travels. around the world, he has written two books on gastronomy, he has set up a restaurant (Punk Bach) ...
From Garaje Lola, his private office, today he also manages a range of projects: his work as an
advertising creative for large companies, as a stage director, as a creator and producer of shows
and ... also everything important that surrounds the business family member, to which he is still in some way linked through a position on the board of directors.
And that only seems the beginning.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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