Arnau Tordera premieres a musical for those who hate and those who love the sardana.

BarcelonaThe artistic universe ofArnau Tordera (Tona, 1986) has no limits. The musician and composer was the first to create a musical theater show centered, from beginning to end, around the sardana. "Until now, there have been some experiments incorporating the copla and the tenora, but this is the first dramatic work that uses these elements to convey the entire show," Tordera emphasizes. With this in mind, he conceived Sardana Superstar, which premiered in October at the Fira Mediterrània and is coming to Barcelona's Teatro Condal from July 2 to 6 as part of the Grec Festival.

"It's a show I wholeheartedly recommend to devotees of the sardana, but also to those who hate it. They will discover that this hatred is only the fruit of ignorance," says Tordera. On stage, the musician imagines a futuristic context where a global cataclysm threatens the planet and the only way to save oneself is to cling to popular culture. "It's based on our ancestors and, at the same time, is permanently present. Popular culture is always modern and current; it never runs out," the artist emphasizes. In this apocalyptic world, Tordera parades a diverse cast of characters, including politicians, scientists, philosophers, and anonymous citizens. All of them are performed by Maria Cirici, Mireia Lorente-Picó, Miquel Malirach, and Pol Blancafort.

Historical sardanas and a multitude of styles

The Cobla Cani-Gó! from Torelló—in a reduced ensemble of six musicians—provides the soundtrack for the show, which contains fragments of historical sardanas and pieces from other styles. One of Tordera's challenges was, in fact, creating the score based on the idea that it would be performed as a copla. Each character, and even each scene, has its own musical envelope. "There's a character from a cult with a mysterious symphonic sound, two video game fans who fit with a more pop style, another character I associate with jazz. Each scene forced me to generate a very distinctive music for each moment, because the show travels through very diverse places," explains the artist.

This is his second musical; the first was Stop the romances (2023), was inspired by the Catalan popular imagination and was performed in Vic and Girona, but never made it to Barcelona. "When it comes to composing, I've always been a musical playwright, so my natural evolution was to go here," says Tordera, who also composed the music for the opera The lost cat, which was performed at the LiceuOn this occasion, he was particularly excited to bring sardana groups onto the stage to also recognize "their perseverance in keeping the sardana alive." At the Condal, there will be five of them inviting the audience to dance in this "collective celebration" of one of Catalonia's most characteristic dances.