'Cum laude' for the wise Xavier Albertí

If wise is a person with deep and extensive knowledge about the topics they speak or write about, there is no doubt that Xavier Albertí is a wise man of theater and music. Who was director of the Grec Festival (1996-1999) and the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (2013-2021), colleague of Lluïsa Cunillé in the company La Reina de la Nit and director of small theater gems on texts by Harold Pinter, Thomas Bernhard, Josep Maria Benet i Jornet, until now had only flirted with acting, almost always in front of a piano, or cross-dressed as the Polish director Wanda Pitrowska for the premiere of L’aplec del Remei, by Josep Anselm Clavé in 2016 at the TNC, but had never achieved such prominence as in this Beethoven with a clear enough title.

Beethoven with a clear enough title.

Savi and an excellent communicator, Albertí offers a musically illustrated lecture around the most important composer of good music. Obviously, there are biographical elements to situate the great composer and even some anecdotes, but the most relevant aspect of Albertí's work, what makes it an excellent lecture on the artistic world of yesterday and today, is the ability to analyze Beethoven's importance in the future of music (even that of declared enemies like Chopin or the piano itself, to which he had more keys added), to relate him to great later figures of theater (Bernhard, Carmelo Bene) or music (John Cage) and to expose the artistic freedom with which Beethoven always worked outside of princes and flatterers.

In the end, therefore, a

cum laude for this wise man who is also a great professor. Hurry to hear him.