The 'Cat' from Raval that defies the stigma of "pity and the gallows"

BarcelonaIt took four years of work by the associative and creative fabric of the Raval to build the opera The lost cat, with libretto by Victoria Szpunberg and music by Arnau Tordera. All this culminated in Two performances at the Liceu in October 2022... and quite a lot. Until several singers from the Cor Canta who had participated in the opera wanted to continue it. "We contacted Arnau and told him: 'We want to take the work out of the drawer.' And he prepared a suite for us," recalls Sigfrid Quer, president of the Cor Canta, at an event held this Thursday in the Martí el Humano hall of the MUHBA, which served precisely to present the four concerts in which it is performed. The lost cat.

Tordera, easily convinced by "projects as tempting as this one" composed "a synthesis of the work, both thematically and musically". The result will be premiered on 15 February at the Atlántida in Vic (8 pm) and will also be performed on Sunday 16 at the Teatre Tarragona (6 pm), on Saturday 22 at L'Auditori in Barcelona (12 pm) and on Sunday 2 March at the Teatre Kursaal in Manresa (6 pm). The four concerts will be performed by the Cor Canta, the Original SoundTrack Orchestra and the soloists Albert Cabero, Joan Mas, Anna Campmany, Mar Esteve and Arnau Tordera himself. "We want to export what the solidarity fabric of the Raval represents," says Quer, who recalls that the speculative intrigues that the opera denounces resonate everywhere. "What is happening in Raval is the same thing that Trump wants to do in Gaza: expel people," Quer adds. For Enric Canet, from Casal dels Infants, The lost cat It is an example of the solidarity of the neighbours of Raval, a neighbourhood that is rebelling against the stigma of "pity and the gallows".

The concert programme is completed with two other works by Tordera, which are also premieres: the choral piece The people, based on poems by Miquel Martí i Pol, and Musical walk along the C-17, for electric guitar and orchestra. "They had the idea that the entire program was to be my work, something not very usual," says Tordera, and even less so with living composers. In the poem The people, Tordera found "a link" between Martí i Pol's working-class Roda de Ter and the Raval of The lost cat. And to unite both pieces he thought of "something as grotesque and earthly as the C-17", the road that links Osona and Barcelona.

At the beginning of the event at the MUHBA, moderated by Ignasi Aragay (deputy director of the ARA) and in which Irene Calvis (head of LiceuApropa) and Elisenda Carrasco (director of Cor Canta) also participated, Enric Canet reviewed the history of the Barcelona Raval. The first, the servitude, or the service, because "the Raval was a place of departure that was wanted to be used for many things, as explained in The lost cat"; a place where the neighbourhood movement has always stood up. The second parameter has to do with "the margin": "El Raval was born on the margins of the Rambla and the first medieval wall, and it is always sent out of the city," recalls Canet. ma with three parameters that correspond to three values: "the solidarity" of the associative fabric, which goes from the choral societies of the 19th century to the different social and cultural networks of today; "the sense of revolt", and the "feeling of belonging".