A Walk Through the Lost Garden with Xavier Sabata and Rafael R. Villalobos

Barcelona"It is a show that is difficult to define," says countertenor Xavier Sabata. He is one of the protagonists of Genius Loci, the show co-produced with Rafael R. Villalobos, which will premiere on Saturday, July 5, at the Perelada Festival. The show combines poetry, music, dance, and sound spaces, taking the book as its reference. The Lost Garden by Jorn de Précy, a heteronym for the Italian writer and gardener Marco Martella. "They are the words of someone with whom I connected immediately," says Villalobos to explain that the protagonist is obsessed with tending a garden because he is very afraid of the outside world. The show is not linear, but is a dialogue between the protagonists who weave it: Xavier Sabata (countertenor and actor), Jonas Nordberg (archlute player and actor), Liam Byrne (viola da gamba and electronics) and Cachito Vallés (visual artist), all directed by Rafael R. Vilallobos , who also directed the lighting and scenography by Rafael R. Vilallobos .

"There is a point of modesty in adapting a text that I admire so much," confesses Villalobos. The book came to him thanks to art curator Joaquín García, and the idea of bringing it to the stage arose in mid-2023 during a conversation that also included Xavier Sabata, and they connected immediately. The creative process has focused on respecting the essence of the book, both in the construction of the show and in the final product. To achieve this, they have had to work differently than they were used to. "Rafael has distilled the text in such a poetic way that it preserves the most essential points of the book," says Sabata. Starting with the book, all five have contributed. "It's really a co-creation of the five of us," says Villalobos.

Villalobos and Sabata have worked together on other festival projects and productions; however, Nordberg, Byrne, and Vallés are making their debut in this project. "When they asked me to join the project, I was fully aware that my role wouldn't just be on stage playing," explains Nordberg. He recalls having a kind of shock when he received the script and that the entire process has been one of constant discovery of his role: "It was very important that they gave me that trust," he says. When Byrne joined, the others had been rehearsing for three days. He says he didn't fully understand how everything connected until he saw how they had worked with the materials. He explains that at times he is playing the viola da gamba and at others he is constructing new sounds by manipulating what he is recording on the computer. "I am not on stage, I am next to it," he adds.

The aesthetics of the stage design were entrusted to Cachito Vallés, who managed to create a living stage space that behaves like another body. The installation is made from industrial materials that interact with each other live. "Everything is generated and intertwined," he explains. "It is a space, although apocalyptic, very poetic and realistic," adds Sabata, who assures that, nevertheless, the show is completely contemporary. The goal isn't to tell a linear story; it's an invitation to get lost, as the protagonist who plays Sabata does: "My character is the one who lives lost in this moment."