«A NEW WORLD IS BEING CREATED THAT IS MOVING MUCH FASTER THAN WE ARE»

The veteran actress Nuria Espert will perform tomorrow at the Teatro Leal in La Laguna and two days later in La Palma, where she will present the work 'Vivaldi Natura: Las cuatro estaciones', together with La Tempestad.

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ELDIA.ES | 27/09/2019 | Raúl Gorroño The music of Vivaldi and everything conveyed by his universal work Las cuatro estaciones captivated the veteran Catalan actress Nuria Espert (Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1935) long ago, and she did not hesitate to accept the proposal made to her by the prestigious classical music orchestra La Tempestad to take part in the show Vivaldi Natura: Las cuatro estaciones, which tours four of the Canary Islands as part of the Festival Canarias Artes Escénicas (CAE).

The role of this grande dame of the Spanish stage in the production, which will be performed tomorrow at the Teatro Leal in La Laguna and on Monday 30 September at the Teatro Circo de Marte in Santa Cruz de La Palma, is to declaim the sonnets that Vivaldi wrote and then set to music to bring Las cuatro estaciones to life: four violin concertos representing the four seasons of the year, which are growing more blurred with each passing day.

"Vivaldi wrote four sonnets, one for each season: spring, summer, autumn and winter. It seems that this is what inspired the melody, not the other way round. He didn't write the sonnets after composing the magical music, but the opposite," the performer explained, before praising the quality of the orchestra that accompanies her, La Tempestad.

"It's a magnificent orchestra. They play the melodies and I recite the sonnets that give rise to Las cuatro estaciones. That is the format, and it is very beautiful. The orchestra is first-rate and the music world-famous. These are the kind of scores over which history passes without leaving a speck of dust on them. The sonnets speak of the changes in nature and of how they affect human beings, how our joys and our sleepless nights depend on it. The sonnets are fresh, wonderful."

For this admirer of the Venetian Baroque composer, the music is very beautiful and close to the heart, "and he explains it with those ingenuous, lovely sonnets. He speaks of the young man who endures the gales at his beloved's side, of the birds who welcome spring with marvellous concerts, showing their joy. It is very beautiful and very pure," she insisted.

For many decades now, Espert has added to her work as an actress in various stage genres, in theatre, film and television, as well as in direction, poetry recitals devoted to different authors who are true masters of world literature.

That union of music and poetry through her voice was very fruitful with the musician Jordi Savall, an experience devoted to the Spanish Golden Age and to authors such as Jorge Manrique, San Juan de la Cruz, Cervantes and Quevedo.

"I have given many recitals with Jordi Savall, respecting the period and its songs, which his wonderful wife, sadly deceased, used to sing. I also sang and recited the poems, and Savall accompanied us with the instruments on all those unforgettable evenings. They were a precious memory that I keep very dear," she confessed with the candour that experience brings.

She also tried this stage format with Rafael Alberti in 1981, with the poetry recital entitled Aire y canto de la poesía de España at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris.

"There were a great many recitals, more than three hundred, over fifteen years, in between my theatre performances all over the world. We went to New York, to Moscow... right down to the smallest Spanish village. The recitals with Rafael were a very happy period of my life."

In this regard, she said that poetry gives her a great deal, both as a person and as an actress. "They are all branches of the same tree, the tree of culture and literature. Being beside Rafael, reading his poetry, Lorca's, Jorge Manrique's, all the great poets in the history of humanity: just imagine what that brings, a richness for which there are no words."

After her participation in the CAE, the Catalan artist will continue with another project that she is currently sharing with Luis Pasqual and the Romancero gitano by Federico García Lorca, a work very present in the careers of both. "We are touring Europe this year. It is more than a poetry recital, a small, great show."

Asked whether she finds this type of production more comfortable, she said that "I don't choose to do something because it's easy; you choose it because a very big project has come to an end, which was Incendios with Mario Gas, and now I fancy poetry that is purer and closer to us, and then something else will come along and we will carry on with another play, another director, another company. That is our life."

As for the current state of the theatre, she said that "everything will depend on where we take our country, on how much attention we pay to culture, on what new kind of man and woman we want to have in Spain, on what image we want to leave in this twenty-first century. Whether they are going to be interested in culture or more in video games. We don't know. A new world is being created that is moving much faster than we are."

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