La crítica como accidente (ya nada volverá a ser como era) / The critique as an accident (Nothing will ever be the same again)

(Doce Notas/Preliminares magazine, Issue 6, January 2001)


Background

It is almost a cliché to claim that, at some point in everyone's life, an accident occurs -an unforeseen event that, depending on its magnitude, marks a before and after, a reference point beyond which nothing can ever be the same. Among the many meanings of the term, two stand out: one where "accident" always carries a painful or harmful connotation, often associated with physical trauma; and another, where it is synonymous with "adjective", possessing the power to modify or alter the essential. In this latter sense, the accident is far subtler, more spiritual, as it seeps into us through the intellect and can even affect our sensitivity -or worse, our principles- shaking beliefs and attitudes that once seemed firmly rooted. This would be, in a way, a kind of psychic trauma.
I have experienced both types, but I will not refer here to the first (a hip fracture I suffered many years ago, which, despite leaving me bedridden for months, has left little trace in my life beyond a certain difficulty in flexing my left leg). Instead, I will discuss an accident of a very different kind, as it has directly impacted my recent creative life. This event led to a complete destabilization of my ideas -not so much about art itself but about the profession of being an artist- which are now very different from what they were before it occurred.

Four years ago, I had the fortune of seeing my stage-musical production La raya en el agua performed at the "Fernando de Rojas" Theater of the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. This marked the conclusion of a slow yet progressive phase of approaching opera, though the production itself should not be considered an opera in any way (a discerning critic aptly described it as "variety"). This phase had begun fifteen years earlier with the composition and subsequent premiere of Ligazón, a short chamber opera based on the first tableau of Valle-Inclán's Retablo de la avaricia, la lujuria y la muerte. That remarkable experience led me to decide not to revisit operatic themes until I had thoroughly explored the intricate world of the music-text relationship. With diligence, curiosity, and enthusiasm, I devoted several years of my life to studying, as exhaustively as disorganizedly, the mechanics of all measurable musical aspects of spoken language (intonation, accents, dynamics, rhythm, meter...), areas that linguists have largely approached descriptively due to their lack of training to analyze them through a musician's ears.
Once I had unraveled -as much as possible- those aspects, the stage experience of La raya en el agua left me feeling prepared to embark on composing an opera. It was then, quite fortuitously, that I received the first hint -almost like a fortune-teller's warning- that a significant accident was about to happen. This came in the form of a phone call from Carles Padrissa and Alex Oller, two prominent members of La Fura dels Baus, who had heard of the premiere and its positive reception. The call evolved into an extensive conversation during which they invited me to compose the music for a newly conceived opera. This project, following their productions of La Atlántida in 1996 and with preparations underway for El martirio de San Sebastián and La damnation de Faust, was beginning to take shape in their minds.
Naturally, I did not need to think twice: the natural fear of the unknown did not prevent me from being swept up by the immense allure of the venture. I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to the project for three years, guided only by the minimal yet compelling starting point provided by La Fura dels Baus: nothing less than Don Quixote as the central axis of the performance.


Work Development

D.Q. (Don Quixote in Barcelona) represents the result of a creative experience unparalleled in my career and, as far as I can tell, unprecedented in the opera world: the synchronous, fully parallel development of the final product among the three main pillars of an operatic production -music, libretto, and stage direction- without any implied hierarchy of importance.
After establishing contact with me, it was not difficult to secure the involvement of the Granada-born author Justo Navarro (whose novel La casa del padre was then widely acclaimed and had captivated us all) for the creation of the libretto. In the initial months, before the actual composition began, frequent working sessions were necessary to define the various elements of the production -not only the plot synopsis but also the musical structure of each act, the type and character of the music, the determination of the instrumental ensemble, soloist voices, and choir, as well as the potential use of electroacoustic elements. For both Navarro and me, collaborating closely with La Fura dels Baus offered not only the allure of engaging with pure creativity (and thus the opportunity to do something different) but also a keen sense of responsibility. The company's history -marked by an obsession with technical perfection and the overwhelming integration of new technologies into its productions- demanded that we meet a similarly rigorous standard.
The key, however, lay in individually understanding the type of collective production we aimed to create: Should it be a conventional opera or a Fura show? The answer was as simple as it was complex: neither and both simultaneously, in such a way that the two fused, emerging enriched by the explosive cocktail created through the coexistence of a writer seeking profound reflective depth via a unique style of metaphor and repetition using simple language; a composer striving for a way out of the frustratingly long stylistic and aesthetic impasse of musical creation, obsessed with synthesizing tradition and modernity; and stage directors whose bold, provocative proposals were often associated with open confrontation with audiences and critics alike.


D.Q. (Don Quixote in Barcelona)

The result was a three-act production that, under the guise of a deliberately conventional opera, could integrate the wealth of technological and audiovisual elements inherent in the proposal. The operatic stage is undoubtedly transitioning from the Age of Cardboard and Plaster to the Technological Era. Today, the two coexist, though the former is fading while the latter is progressively establishing itself. This transition was evident in the stage interpretations of two Don Quixote operas performed in Spain's two main opera houses in 2000. In Wernicke's production of Cristóbal Halffter's opera, the staging relied on impactful yet conventional materials, such as the spectacular mountain of books, and on mobile elements of great beauty -feathers, the winged horse, or high-heeled shoes- that were, however, overly concrete. In contrast, La Fura dels Baus' production of D.Q., designed by the late Enric Miralles, was fundamentally rooted in light (which even influenced the costumes, made from materials that absorbed and reflected it) and in imagery, through videographic media. The production also featured metallic elements with classical references, yet stylized to a degree that rendered them surprisingly innovative: the chairs from which auction attendees sang while suspended in the air during the first act; the metallic frame of the airship doubling as Don Quixote's cage in the second act; and the tree-lamps in the third act. This approach constitutes a synthesis of tradition and modernity, paralleling the aims of both the libretto and music. This aesthetic integration stands out as one of the production's most striking aspects and forms the basis of its provocative force -a force that, as we will see, was largely misunderstood by specialized critics but remained no less successful because of it.


What Happened to Don Quixote in the Cave of Montesinos, and the True Reason for His Journey to Barcelona

From the outset, both Justo Navarro and I were clear that our opera could neither limit itself to, nor should it be reduced to, a mere mise en musique of one or more scenes from the novel. Such an approach would have been a conventional take on the suggested theme, and no matter how innovative the musical proposal might have been, the result would inevitably have been traditional. Thus, from the beginning, we chose to take the opposite route -embracing traditional musical elements and procedures, even emphasizing their presence to enhance the musical dramaturgy-, confident that employing them in the service of a contemporary theatrical intention would imbue them with new vigor and energy.
While Don Quixote is astonishing in every respect, it is undeniable that for the modern reader, the book's radical modernity as a literary work is especially dazzling. For those anchored in classical or romantic traditions, the purely narrative aspects of the story or the human qualities of the protagonist might hold greater appeal. However, from a contemporary perspective, the overwhelming importance lies not so much in what is told, but in how it is told. It is less about Don Quixote himself and more about Cervantes' prodigious creative genius, revealed through a complex system of literary artifices that are as captivating as the novel itself. Nearly 400 years after its writing, Don Quixote has become inseparably intertwined with all that has been written, theorized, philosophized, composed, staged, and painted about it. Thanks to a literary critique enamored of the work, we can no longer -nor do we wish to- read Don Quixote without footnotes that, far from hindering our experience, enrich it, revealing through lines of delightful erudition insights that would otherwise remain hidden. How can one resist the literary revolution Cervantes initiated by inserting himself into the pages of his own novel -appearing and disappearing as its author, sparing himself from the book-burning scene he orchestrates, and even competing with his rival, Avellaneda, in the second part, where he includes a proto-bibliography of the first part? How can one not marvel at a work that is simultaneously a novel, parody, critique, and essay -where narratives nest within narratives, each part of yet another narrative- destabilizing the reader's sense of structural certainty in ways uncharacteristic of conventional literature?
All of this makes Don Quixote a work that remains profoundly relevant, thanks to the timelessness of its techniques. In contrast, what Cervantes himself considered paramount -the satirical parody of chivalric romances- has lost its primacy for contemporary readers. Fully grasping this parody requires knowledge of the chivalric books Cervantes sought to ridicule through his fierce satire. Yet, the fact that those books have fallen into oblivion while Don Quixote continues to captivate readers is proof that the novel stands on its own merits. Its plot enjoys independence from the parodic references that inspired it, while its literary quality is indisputable.
Our theatrical proposal sought, nonetheless, to reconnect with this fundamental original pretext of the novel through a triple parody that, broadly speaking, can be summarized as follows:

a) Parody of Opera as a Genre. The opera incorporates highly recognizable formal operatic procedures that, in a way, define its major characters. For instance, the Auctioneer's arias in Act I, or those of Don Quixote and the Trifaldi Sisters in Act II, highlight this approach. Moreover, the opera features musical "winks" in the form of brief references to traditional repertoire operas that will be easily identified by knowledgeable audiences while going unnoticed by others. This mirrors Cervantes' own technique in Don Quixote, where many parodied scenes from chivalric novels would have been familiar to his contemporary readers but are obscure to modern ones.
b) Parody of Cervantes' Novel. The opera is replete with references to specific episodes from Don Quixote, such as the adventure of the galley slaves, Maese Pedro's puppet show, the enchanted head, Don Quixote's penance in Sierra Morena, and the Cortes de la Muerte. One of the most striking sources of inspiration, however, is Cervantes' self-aware description of the episode in Chapter 23 of the second book as "apocryphal" in its very title. This chapter recounts Don Quixote's tale of what he experienced in the Cave of Montesinos, following his descent in the previous chapter. Cervantes wants the reader to believe that what happened to Don Quixote in the cave was so incredible that, fearing not to be believed, he did not hesitate to tell a story upon his return that in his madness seemed credible, but that to his friends (and even to Cervantes himself, disguised here as a skeptical observer) seemed as crazy or more so than the real one: the encounter with Montesinos, Durandarte, Belerma and his entourage, all there enchanted by the magician Merlin.
In the opera, with an ironic twist, it is revealed that D.Q. (Don Quijote en Barcelona) is nothing less than a musical rendition of what truly happened to Don Quixote in the Cave of Montesinos. Believing he is entering the cave, Don Quixote instead finds himself in a Geneva auction house in a distant future. There, he is caught by a temporal artifact-retrieving machine programmed to locate ancient marvels in the past. Don Quixote is sold to a Hong Kong billionaire as a gift for his daughters, the Trifaldi Sisters, who keep him in a cage of air and time within their Garden of Monsters. Moved by Don Quixote's deep nostalgia, the sisters decide to send him back to his era. However, due to a temporal error, Don Quixote arrives in Barcelona in 2005 during a congress commemorating the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote. This congress is focused on resolving the ambiguous authorship of the novel, a theme Cervantes himself deliberately left open-ended. Don Quixote's presence at the congress causes chaos, drawing the forces of nature to his side and unleashing a hurricane that sweeps through the city from the sea, devastating the Ramblas. This, and not the desire to rebut Avellaneda (which in the novel motivates his journey to Zaragoza), is revealed as the true reason Don Quixote seeks to return to Barcelona at the end of the second part: to undo the mess caused by his previous visit to the city.
c) Parody of Meta-Quixotism. The opera also parodies what might be termed "meta-Quixotism", or the vast body of analysis and interpretation surrounding Don Quixote, which has become an intrinsic part of the work itself. This is addressed explicitly in the final act of the opera, set during the Intercontinental Congress "Don Quixote de la Mancha".

And this, in broad strokes, is our pre-text. Regarding the text itself, it must be said that the overarching parodic intent of D.Q. (Don Quijote in Barcelona) demands a considerable amount of humor and stage agility for its realization. However, as in Cervantes' novel, this does not prevent the character and his story from becoming endearing, such is the profound humanity they exude. At heart, Don Quijote is nothing more than a humble, mediocre being who resists a life confined to eating lentils on Fridays, hash most nights, and pigeon on Sundays. The visitors to the Monster Garden of the Trifaldi Sisters are horrified by his presence when they discover that he is infected with Time, a radioactive and lethal substance that their society successfully eradicated long ago. In their world, time is now merely excavated in layers to retrieve the most valuable artifacts of the past.
This revelation unfolds not only through what Don Quijote says -"... and not to feel time, a Merlin / who injects time into me..." or "... I want to be cured of time, / not to be who I am, but to be Don Quijote."-, but also through how he says it. He employs a tonal language and formal rhetoric (arias) that betray his origin in another world -the past- where time was one of humanity's greatest scourges. This confrontation between contemporary and traditional language and methods thus becomes intrinsic to the dramatic situation itself. It should be understood not merely as a formal device but as an expressive one, perfectly suited to evoke the protagonist's nostalgia: a sickness of the soul that, as everyone knows, is caused and cured solely by time.


The encounter with reality

Upon his arrival in Barcelona, Don Quixote confronts reality for the first time. Alongside a joyous reality -one of a society that honors and celebrates his literary feats- Don Quixote also encounters a tragic reality: he witnesses death for the first time and tastes the bitterness of defeat firsthand. This plural reality, overflowing beyond all his expectations, ultimately leads to his downfall and the recovery of his sanity, which precedes his death.
Similarly, D.Q. has faced reality on this new visit to Barcelona and, like the character who serves as his reference, has experienced the bittersweet taste of happiness and drama, of the sublime and the pathetic. In any case, it is an encounter with an unknown and unexpected reality, unprecedented in my experience as a composer and, as I know from his own testimony, in that of Justo Navarro as a writer. The case of La Fura dels Baus is, logically, different, as they are more accustomed to constant confrontation with their surroundings, an inevitable result of their trajectory, as controversial as it is provocative.
The positive aspect of this plural reality is the encounter with a genuine audience, not the usual concert hall crowd that applauds with indifference and, at most, accompanies a handshake with a "very interesting", plunging the author into the deepest sadness. In over twenty years of my career, nothing has impressed me more than the warmth and spontaneity with which the audience at the Liceu received us during the curtain calls at the end of each performance. At the theater on the Ramblas, I could feel the passionate reaction of a lively and enthusiastic audience, who applauded and cheered as much as they booed and jeered at the performance they had just seen. Everything was palpable -except for the indifference that some commentators noted in their reviews.
For without a doubt, that has been the other reality, both pathetic and grotesque, that I have had the chance to grasp in all its rawness: the specialized critics and musical commentators from various media outlets, whose visceral and, therefore, profoundly unfair reactions I will attempt to refute below, taking advantage of this excellent opportunity that "Doce Notas – Preliminares" offers me to combat them with the same means: the written word, to which composers rarely have access. And I hasten to say that it is not my intention to defend myself: such an endeavor would neither seem appropriate to me (an author is, in some way, like a politician: their work is public, and they must learn to take all opinions about it as sportingly as possible, even if they are nonsensical) nor necessary (as the person responsible for the musical portion of the show, I have not fared so poorly as to warrant it). The first demand of an opera is that the music works, and most opinions agree on that point.
That said, as I mentioned earlier, the three years of working in parallel with the librettist and stage directors have fostered in me such a strong sense of teamwork that I find myself unable to distance myself from the criticisms directed at the other contributors. These are the critiques I am most interested in refuting here, fundamentally.


The aesthetic and ethical proposal

In his libretto for D. Q., Justo Navarro depicts a Don Quixote trapped by time and transported to a future where he is an even greater stranger than he was to himself and his contemporaries. Remarkably, and without any deliberate intention on the part of the creators, the performances of D. Q. have transcended the imaginary reality confined to the stage, and in a way reminiscent of a new "Master Peter's Puppet Show", they have breached the threshold of real reality.
Thus, the hostile environment of the 31st century, which rejects the knight as an unacceptable presence, mirrors the critical reception of D. Q., with a few honorable and perceptive exceptions (1): identical rejection, and for identical reasons. Don Quixote has no place among the beings of the future, because, accustomed to living without taking time into account, they cannot bear anything that reminds them of it. They are beings who live to enjoy the present, to have no memory of the past and to not think about the future: Justo Navarro paints the society to which we are heading, a product of the unstoppable development of the entertainment industry. Similarly, critics and commentators, frivolously obsessed with uncompromising amusement, have treated D. Q. harshly. Can Tristan und Isolde be considered "fun"? Is it appropriate to judge an opera by vaudeville standards? Should critics do so? As the Auctioneer says in the first act: "Ladies and gentlemen, let us respect the genres". These critics, akin to insatiable psychopaths consuming increasingly extreme content online, seem to require, at the very least, a full chorus simulating epileptic seizures to consider the stage action sufficient. Judging by their opinions, their aesthetic reference might be akin to those American television comedies where pre-recorded laughter signals the audience that something amusing has occurred… Or perhaps it is necessary to see a flag burning so that a certain feeling of collective panic at the possibility of a new fire (2) at the Liceu counteracts the undoubtedly monotonous music that, while for some it is abstruse and hyper-intellectualized, for others it is ultra-conservative. How else can we explain this hallucinatory obsession of critics to almost universally disqualify the show for considering it boring? (3) It's as if arguing that Bergman doesn't know how to make films because his work isn't as entertaining as that of Cecil B. DeMille or the Marx Brothers. Cinematic art encompasses a spectrum: from pure entertainment -where the audience passively participates, responding in ways the director has already predicted- to auteur works that use imagery and dialogue as mere starting points, inviting the viewer to actively engage through deep reflection on what the screen only hints at.
And to make matters worse, there have even been critics who have not hesitated to kick a dead horse when it is down, trying to flatter the most recalcitrant nationalist sector by basing their destructive theses on the discredit that the Liceo has suffered, with there being more than enough Catalans to deal with the music and libretto (4), by commissioning both things to authors who are not its own (5). Come on, come on.
Nevertheless, the harshest blows have been aimed at Justo Navarro, accused of writing an unworkable libretto -a genuine "anti-libretto" (5)- devoid of any dramatic functionality. He has even been diagnosed with a considerable "mental muddle" (4) for penning what critics have labeled strings of "nonsense" (6). This so-called nonsense is, in fact, a subtle play on the reiteration of words ("...for sadness is sad, / and poverty is poor..."), an effective means of reinforcing certain images through extreme rhetorical simplicity, a hallmark of the author's distinctive style.

Personally, I find it impossible to understand the lack of sensitivity to such literary artifices shown by those critics who find it laughable (7) or even completely disqualify a libretto in which it is not difficult to find absolutely brilliant moments (such as "... a book is a mysterious object: / you set your eyes on a book / and a voice that is not yours, / and comes from another time and another place, / speaks inside you".), just because the protagonist sings at a certain moment of his horror at a routine that leads him to dine "salpicón most nights" (6), clear proof that whoever speaks like this, has not only not read Don Quixote, but has not even managed to go beyond "... whose name I do not want to remember...". Is it so difficult to understand the relationship between Cervantes' text and that of the great chorus of the first act ("... But I do not want to remember / this time and this place. / It is a place I no longer remember, / it is a place that is losing its name...")? (8).
What a great scene Cide Hamete Benengeli would have recreated with all this, showing off Sancho Panza's popular erudition in relation to donkeys, honey, pigs and daisies!How difficult can it be to grasp the connection between Cervantes' text and the grand chorus of the first act: "... But I do not want to remember / this time and this place. / It is a place I no longer recall, / a place that is losing its name..."? (8). What a marvelous scene Cide Hamete Benengeli might have created from this, showcasing Sancho Panza's popular wisdom regarding donkeys, honey, pigs, and pearls!

At this point, I must confess my unwavering faith in Justo Navarro's work. Not only was this faith reinforced with each successive delivery of the opera's acts, but it has now been solidified following the trial by fire of the premiere. I am confident in its future as a viable libretto for an opera like D. Q. This text, filled with subtleties, metaphors, references, and phonetic and conceptual alliterations, aligns perfectly with the contemporary aesthetic of operatic performance, where action, narrative, and plot -once dominating- must yield to what is suggestive, poetic, and reflective. This is, of course, provided the result remains within boundaries that keep it identifiable as theater and ensure its coexistence with the music, neither undermining nor negatively affecting the latter.
It is disheartening that, amid the disappointment reflected in the various reviews -stemming from unjustified expectations (9), which critics have not hesitated to adopt as their subjective yardstick (1)-, one perceives an uncontainable visceral reaction, an unspoken hostility toward the Liceu for opening its season with a production conceived, commissioned, and directed by La Fura dels Baus. Apparently, the company is yet to be forgiven for declaring fifteen years ago that, for the good of culture, the Liceu should be bricked up. Now, the criticism is not so much about having staged a production whose provocations lie in its unexpected aesthetic beauty, surprising both supporters and detractors who anticipated aggression, terror, or destruction -physical panic- from La Fura dels Baus. Instead, these critics have failed to recognize that the company's current threat is far more terrifying, because now its members have learned to move equally in aesthetic and ethical provocation, generating, through more refined and subtle procedures, another type of panic -this time, psychic- which, in any case, has the same objective (to shake the passivity of the spectator, by shaking the deepest part of his conscience), but have become integrated into the system to the point of having given up their old ideas (10)… for money, naturally (9). "A thief judges others by his own condition," as the saying goes.
In solidarity with La Fura dels Baus, I declare that fifteen years ago, I myself would turn off the radio or switch stations whenever the former Radio 2 (now Radio Clásica) announced a live broadcast from the Liceu. The orchestra back then was simply unbearable. Should I, therefore, have renounced this premiere, considering that the same orchestra is now a splendid ensemble with which my music sounded magnificent? But It doesn't matter to me: for years, I have chosen to ignore professional obstructionists -whether they are mere agitators, illustrious despots of aesthetics (whether composers or critics), or rude ignoramuses like those who, during the performance on Sunday, October 8, hissed (!) when the theater's voiceover announced that the Liceu and the authors wished to dedicate the show to the memory of the late architect Enric Miralles. No further comment.
And despite all this, I insist: D. Q. (Don Quijote in Barcelona) has been the best, most positive, fruitful, and enriching experience of my professional life. Which is no small thing, especially considering that it has served as the grand opening of the season for one of our foremost opera houses. Regardless of detractors, when a theater like the Liceu takes such a bold risk before the society that sustains it, it is an unequivocal signal that, for the theater itself, the authors, and that very society, the need for change is so great that, once set in motion, nothing will ever be the same again. Chapeau!

(1) PLA I ARXÉ, Ramón.– Apostilla para el "D. Q.". La Vanguardia, October 13, 2000.
(2) MONZÓ, Quim.– En un zepelín de La Mancha. La Vanguardia, October 1, 2000.
(3) MORGADES, Lourdes.– Espectacularidad y aburrimiento en el estreno de "Don Quijote" de La Fura. El País, October 1, 2000.
(4) BRU DE SALA, Xavier.– Fura atrapada. La Vanguardia, October 6, 2000.
(5) COMELLAS, Jaume.– "D. Q.", o una qüestió de sociologia. Cataluña Música, November 2000.
(6) ALIER, Roger – Esto no es una ópera. La Vanguardia, October 2, 2000.
(7) CESTER, Xavier.– La imatge devoradora. Avui, October 2, 2000.
(8) SUBIRÁ, Josep.– Desde el Liceo. CD Compact, November 2000.
(9) FANCELLI, Agustí.– Apocalípticos integrados. El País, October 2, 2000.
(10) TRALLERO, Manuel.– Soy un Jaimito. La Vanguardia, October 9, 2000.

Madrid, November 2000