The Gran Teatro del Liceo has ended up responding to the statements that the tenor Roberto Alagna and the soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, his wife, have been making on social networks and various media over the weekend, as a result of their resignation from starring in the production of ‘Tosca’ that can be seen in Barcelona in January 2023.
Among other details, the couple has assured that the coliseum was willing to withdraw the production of Rafael R. Villalobos, that they had not been informed that this was going to be the show that would be performed and that they usually sing having rehearsed between one and four days in the theaters that hire them. The management of the Barcelona Coliseum has avoided giving interviews about it, and has remained silent throughout the week, limiting itself to expressing “respect” for the decision of the singers.
Even so, he has agreed to respond by email to several questions raised by ABC.
Regarding the montage, they completely amend Alagna’s version: “The production was clear and the Lyceum detailed to all the artists what it would be through their agents, sending the video of the Villalobos production.” Regarding the number of rehearsals –Alagna came to boast of having participated in productions after doing only one or two–, the Liceo is even more blunt: «No. The Liceo does not tolerate that in an operatic production the artists come out on stage having performed a single rehearsal. Specifically, the Lyceum can grant permission to artists to be able to join later or be absent from a specific rehearsal, always taking into account multiple variables, and in an exceptional and unusual way, always preserving the result and the final quality of the opera.
And, finally, was the theater willing to withdraw the Villalobos production, of which it is a co-producer, as long as Alagna and Kurzak sang ‘Tosca’ in Barcelona? For the third time, they deny Alagna: «When the Liceo is confronted with this conflict, and as the institution’s usual way of proceeding, all scenarios and possibilities are analyzed, to end up deciding on the best alternative. The decision was clear, to bet on the new production of ‘Tosca’ by Rafael R. Villalobos, as planned.
The Barcelona Coliseum announced a week ago on its social networks that both had rejected their roles as they felt “unable to embody their respective roles” in the staging of the Sevillian director. In this show, of which the Liceo is a co-producer and which has already been seen at La Monnaie in Brussels and Montpeller, Villalobos establishes a parallelism between the male protagonist, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, and the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, to denounce censorship and limitations on freedom of expression.
After the announcement, Alagna gave an interview to an Italian media outlet in which he claimed not to know that the production would be that of Villalobos and justified his decision by stating that neither Kurzak nor he wanted “to be hostages of a project where it deals with violence, sadomasochism, pedophilia and nudity (although in the end nudity is the least serious)».
Last Friday, this newspaper published an article highlighting the incompatibility of the rehearsals and performances of ‘Tosca’ with the preparations for the performances of ‘Al Capone’ at the Parisian Folies Bergère, in which Alagna will make his debut as a musical actor. The tenor himself assured, always on social networks, that this detail had nothing to do with his decision.
The controversy has also generated the reaction of the artistic director of the La Monnaie theater in Brussels, where Villalobos’ production premiered almost a year ago. On his Facebook account, Peter de Caluwe has reproached Alagna for preferring to embody “the life of a mafia boss in a cabaret theater, instead of talking seriously about love, art and life in an intelligent operatic production.” and revealing.
