The 'Lost Cat' from Raval visits other neighbourhoods with success

BarcelonaEnthusiasm has spread this Saturday through L'Auditori in Barcelona during and after the premiere of the suite for choir and orchestra by The lost cat, the opera by Arnau Tordera with libretto by Victoria Szpunberg. More than a hundred singers from the Cor Canta, the musicians from the Original Soundtrack Orchestra (OSTO) and the five solo singers were exultant receiving the ovation of the public, which almost filled L'Auditori, the third stop of a tour that has passed through Vic and Tarragona and that will close on March 2 in Man. It was the encore, and it sounded We are from Raval, the neighborhood anthem, one of the most exciting moments of the work.

We must applaud the initiative of to give continuity via suite to the opera produced by the Liceu and of which only were made Two performances in October 2022. The Cor Canta proposal was quite ambitious, and Arnau Tordera accommodated it with pleasure. The result is a piece of about thirty minutes that links together different fragments of the opera, the most representative musically. In addition, David Pintó has designed a staging with few very well-chosen elements used by the singers (sunglasses, caps, masks) and with the complicity of the singers Joan Mas, Albert Cabero, Anna Campmany and Mar Esteve, who have assumed a very active and entertaining role on stage.

Under the direction of Elisenda Carrasco, the cat has walked fresh and elegant, spurred on by the life experience of the singers and the youth of the musicians and soloists. Both have conveyed the feeling of having a great time while they were interpreting this music that wants to "claim the strength of culture in social transformation and the persistence of people in the fight against speculation and the interests and whims of power", as said by the director Jordi Lluch, who dedicated the concert to Viqui Molins, the street nun who promoted the Santa Anna field hospital and who died a few days ago.

The suite of The lost cat has taken up the second part of a concert dedicated entirely to works by Arnau Tordera, which has been completed with two other premieres. The first, the concerto for electric guitar Musical walk along the C-17. Tordera himself played the guitar in a composition that was rhythmically and melodically "very American", as one spectator commented. Conducted by Albert Torrebella, this symphonic ride along the road featured horns, whistles and radio tunes, and the orchestra reproduced the noise of traffic with the playful spirit of a soundtrack from a Jacques Tati film. Afterwards, Jordi Lluch conducted The people, a composition for choir and orchestra based on two poems by Miquel Martí i Pol, in which Tordera was one of the solo voices.