Don Carlo by Verdi

For the first time since its premiere in Paris, 148 years ago, Don Carlo by Giuseppe Verdi will be performed in the place where, by historical logic, it belongs, that is, in the monastery in the Madrid town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The monastery, which would also become the resting place of the protagonists, is the setting for this opera based on the homonymous drama by Friedrich Stiller. The town will host a new production by the dramatist and stage director Albert Boadella, artistic director of the Teatros del Canal in the Community of Madrid, which will be performed in the Auditorium in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on 25, 27 and 29 July.

As a complement to the performances, it will be possible to make a prior visit to the monastery, so that spectators can experience it at first hand and immerse themselves in its atmosphere in order to see Verdi’s masterpiece with new eyes.

Although the libretto of Don Carlo uses real figures, it tells a tale that is not “historical reality”, as a result of the so-called black legend promoted in the 16th century by enemy countries in order to discredit Spain. Conscious of this radical distortion of the facts, Albert Boadella has created a version in which he aims to show “a certain approximation to the historical truth”. To do so, he has given the drama nuances unexplored in previous versions, such as the clarifying insanity of Don Carlos or the greater human complexity of Philip II. “The essential change lies in the performances”, says Boadella, who adds that the costumes, designed by Pedro Moreno, will also define very precisely the era in which the events occur.

The Spanish tenor José Bros will play Don Carlo, controversial first-born of King Philip II who will be played by the Canadian bass John Relyea. The Chilean musical director Max Valdés will conduct the Orchestra and Choir of the Community of Madrid. This new revision of Don Carlo is a co-production by the Teatros del Canal and the Summer Festival of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

Bros and Relyea will be joined on stage by the baritone Ángel Ódena, who will sing the role of Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa, friend and confidant of Philip II; the Princess of Éboli will be played by Ketevan Kemoklidze. The bass Simón Orfila will play the monk. The stage design is by Ricardo Sánchez Cuerda, who already worked with Boadella on the splendid staging of Amadeu. The production team is completed by the lighting director Bernat Jansa and the choreographer Amauri Lebrun.

The artistic director of the Teatros del Canal has already started staging the work with actors, giving shape to the main characters and situations in the opera, thus building the gestural and visual score which will then be adjusted to the singers during their rehearsals. As neither a single note in the score nor a word in the libretto has been touched, it will be in the performances that Boadella will transform the opera’s character and the relationships between the protagonists.

An operatic monument

Don Carlo, one of the undeniable high points of Verdi’s talent, is the twenty third of the twenty six composed by Giuseppe Verdi (Le Roncole, Buseto, 1813 - Milan, 1901). In it he shows a previously unknown harmonic inquisitiveness which he would apply to its ultimate consequences in his final works, culminating in Falstaff. Commissioned on the occasion of the Paris World’s Fair in 1867, it opened in French on 11th March of that year in the Paris Opera House. Subsequent revisions by the author, three in all, caused by an extreme obsession for perfection, were in Italian, and that is how it has become known in repertoire. The version presented in San Lorenzo de El Escorial will be the one premiered in Milan in 1883, in four acts and in Italian. This version recovers the duo between Philip II and Don Carlo which takes place after the death of Rodrigo and was written for the versions in Paris 1866/67 and Naples 1872.

A great auditorium for opera in a World Heritage setting

The Auditorium in San Lorenzo de El Escorial is one of the most sophisticated theatres in Spain from a technological and architectural viewpoint. Opened in 2006 by the King and Queen of Spain and with the Maestro Ricardo Mutti conducting the orchestra of the Maggio Musical Fiorentino, the building stands a few yards from the imposing Royal Monastery, so its architects took great care in harmonizing and integrating the building into its surroundings. It contains two large concert halls, the main hall which seats 1,200, and a chamber music hall for 300 spectators.

The Monastery and the Royal Seat were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO on 2nd November 1984, with the name of “The Royal Seat of San Lorenzo of El Escorial”. Almost all the monarchs of Spain are buried in El Escorial. A powerful tourism and catering industry has grown up around this building, one of the main Spanish renaissance monuments, turning San Lorenzo de El Escorial into one of the leading destinations in the Community of Madrid.

Boadella, the most satirical and controversial of Spanish theatre directors

Theatre director, dramatist, actor and writer, Albert Boadella (Barcelona, 1943) has remained faithful to an auteurist theatre recognizable at first sight, as comic as it is tragic, as poetic as it is controversial. He has written and directed some thirty shows which have been staged in numerous Spanish cities and in Europe and America.

In recent years he has tended toward lyric theatre. Since 2009, Boadella has been artistic director of the Teatros del Canal. Previously, his theatrical activity had been carried out almost totally with the company Els Joglars, which he founded in 1961. It is one of the longest lasting groups in Europe.