What does classical tragedy have to do with a bullfight? Angélica Liddell, an artist who follows her own, personal paths in her theatre, explores the things they have in common. She has taken an expression that appears in the final aria of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde as the title for the production, which combines the concepts of love and death in a single word. It’s no wonder that the figure of Juan Belmonte, the tragic, spiritual bullfighter par excellence, appears here. He had a dark side and in the end he committed suicide. In both classical tragedy and bullfighting, man faces his destiny, and perhaps his death. And, as with love, bullfighting puts us in contact with more authentic, primal emotions. The first Greek tragedies began with the sacrifice of sacred animals as offerings to the gods. Tragedy and bullfighting therefore come from the same primal violence that we find in life, whether it be in sex, childbirth or death. Valle-Inclán used to say that if the theatre of his time had been able to transfer the aesthetic violence of a bullfight to the stage, it would be theatre that was “as heroic as the Iliad". With these thoughts as a background, Angélica Liddell and her company create a series of “metaphysical pictures” based on episodes from the life of Juan Belmonte, or “El Pasmo de Triana”, as the man considered to be the founder of modern bullfighting was known. Liddell uses children to be baptised on stage, Angora cats that brought the bullfighter luck and clues that point towards the Africa that Belmonte dreamed of visiting to hunt lions...
The production is staged by a playwright, director, actress and scenographer who was born in Figueres in 1966. She has become one of the most respected names in theatre, with an extensive international career based on a dissident and often uncomfortable way of understanding the stage. She founded the Atra Bilis Teatro company in 1993, and she has written plays that have been translated into other languages, from French to Russian and from English to Polish. During her career she has won many awards, including the National Dramatic Literature Award (2012) in Spain, a Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale (2013) and the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, awarded by the French Republic’s Ministry of Culture in 2017.
A co-production from Atra Bilis, NTGent, Festival d'Avignon, Tandem Scène nationale Arras-Douai, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt).
Performed by: Angélica Liddell, Gumersindo Puche, Palestina de los Reyes, Patrice Le Rouzic, Borja López, Ezekiel Chibo Author, director and scenographer: Angélica Liddell Costumes: Angélica Liddell, Justo Algaba Animal trainer: Catvertise Taxidermy: Ferfauna Assistant director: Borja López Lighting design: Mark Van Denesse Stage manager: Nicolas Guy Michel Chevallier Sound: Antonio Navarro Technical director: Tirso Izuzquiza Production and logistics assistant: Saité Ye Producción director: Gumersindo Puche Photography: Angelica Liddell
