Xavier Albertí and Jordi Lara expose the shadowy figure behind Pau Casals' success

BarcelonaPau Casals' echo is international, but it is not widely known that his brother Enric also contributed to his success. "He was Pau Casals' technical soul. He was the one who orchestrated and also acted as his manager, friend, and assistant director," points out stage director Xavier Albertí. In alliance with writer Jordi Lara, they have created a show about the relationship between the two Casals brothers and their ways of experiencing success. The play is titled "Les barques volen pel cel" and premieres on Saturday at the Church of Santa Maria d'Àneu, as part of the Dansàneu festival. Later, in December, it will also be performed at the Palau de la Música.

"We wanted to explore the tension between the successful figure and the one who knows that without him that success would not have happened but cannot reap its rewards. The show is about accepting the idea of being the failure, the invisible one, but at the same time knowing that without you the other would not be who they are," explains Albertí. The dialogue is established on stage through two pianos, played by Albertí and Lara. The repertoire consists of music arranged by Lara, original works by Casals, and other pieces such as Bach's "Concerto for two harpsichords". "Neither Jordi nor I had ever played with two pianos before. To feel that you are dialoguing with the other is an extraordinary pleasure," emphasizes Albertí.

The music is structured around a text by Lara written from letters, documents, and biographies of the Casals brothers. "We try not to break with historical verisimilitude, but it is not a Wikipedian show. I am fascinated by working with historical figures, because a work of art is ultimately the product of the construction of a soul," highlights Albertí. The play also reflects on the loneliness of the concert performer and on the ideological components of not wanting to perform in places ruled by fascism. "On this issue, Enric had a slightly different position from Pau's. He wondered if the population of these places truly did not need music, despite everything," says Albertí.

Rescuing the pharmacist Joaquim Morelló

The 35th edition of Dansàneu, the festival of Pyrenean cultures, will kick off on Friday with Sonoma, by La Veronal, and will run until August 2nd. In between, the program will include other notable shows, such as a monologue based on Drames rurals i altres contes by Víctor Català, directed by Sergi Belbel and performed by Àngels Gonyalons. There will also be concerts by artists such as Magalí Sare, El Petit de Cal Eril, Obeses, and the Companyia Elèctrica Dharma, and the dance solo El martiri de sant Sebastià, performed by Víctor Pérez Armelo. The festival will commemorate the centenary of the death of the pharmacist and photographer Joaquim Morelló, who was an Aneu philanthropist and discoverer of the Romanesque paintings of Santa Maria d'Àneu. It will do so with an exhibition and with the show Joaquim Morelló: pastilles i excursions, directed by Xavier Albertí and performed by Laura Aubert.

"Morelló is a character about whom nobody knows much. He lived through the paradigm shift of pharmacists, when pharmacies went from offering master formulas prescribed by doctors and made on the spot with a mortar to the industrialization of the sector," explains Albertí, who wrote the text for the play. "Until penicillin arrived, in 1928, going to the pharmacy was like praying to a saint of good omen. Doctors prescribed palliative treatments that sometimes poisoned the patient and hastened their death," adds the director. In this context, he has created a piece conceived as a performative conference that rescues the figure of Morelló and also traces a journey through pharmacology from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

"The show is conceived with humor, with a clear theatrical intention. Laura Aubert starts by taking an expired Morelló pill, and throughout the conference she will have interruptions directly related to the pill," explains Albertí. Beyond the pharmacological part, the work also recalls Morelló's vocation as a photographer and his more than 2,000 images, which until recently were not viewed artistically. He was, for example, the author of the first aerial photograph of Lleida, taken in 1911.