October 23 | 21:30 – Pombal Cine-theatre
Entry €5
Part of Mostra Spain 2021, this pocket opera portrays the surrealist world of Spanish painter Salvador Dalí through the eyes of his companion and muse Gala. Having as its only protagonist the figure of Gala, played by the Spanish soprano Conchi Moyano, it reveals the woman as a multiple and central inspiration in the development of Dalí’s unique surrealism and serves as a starting point for a transposition of the universe of Gala. Gala, the woman who didn’t know the #MeToo movement, but… what if she had participated, would Dalí be? Would the giraffes continue with their exotic long-legged walk?
Nuno Corte-Real
For the music to sound, silence must be made beforehand. Just as no sea can open without the certainty, however remote, that a piece of dry land awaits, hidden in the fold of some map.
There is no spring without winter either. Rootless forest. Paradise without purgatory. Light without darkness. Gold without mud. Lucidity without madness. Light laughter without (us) having weighed the blood in the veins. Ying without yang. Indeed, it is necessary to know the south to be able, perhaps, one day to reach an almost complete understanding of the heart of the north. And vice versa.
The same happens when it comes to getting to know, or at least trying to get to know the secret life of Salvador Dalí. How to talk about the idol without listening to the man? How to talk about the genius without summoning the fairy?
That’s why Gala and the universe meet in this proposal. Well, who better than the artist’s polar star to guide us by ear on the odyssey towards all its centers?
Elena Ivávnova Diakonova thus undergoes a singular psychoanalysis session, bordering on prayer. During it, the audience will also have to close their eyes to start seeing.
Jumping from canvas to canvas, from verse to verse and from memory to memory, like the sailboat that plows faith from island to island, Gradiva will simultaneously place in the spectator’s hands a sharp knife and an endangered flower: the keys- mistresses of the doors without return towards the depths of the unrepeatable Dalinian conscience.
Martha Asunción Alonso
Artistic Sheet
Nuno Côrte-Real, music and musical direction
Martha Asunción Alonso, libretto
Carlos Antunes, staging
Conchi Moyano, soprano
Jesus Ramos, voice over
Darcos ensemble
Emanuel Salvador, violin
Reyes Gallardo, viola
Filipe Quaresma, cello
Rodrigo Lima, Saxophone
Helder Marques, piano