Three Greek poets and three Catalan poets, from three generations, read from their work. Based on a script, an actress links their writing and recites the poems they have just read, in Catalan in Catalonia and in Greek in Greece.
Over the centuries, the comings and goings between Sounion and Sant Pere de Rodes have woven a solid fabric. The first city to exist in Catalonia was Greek Empòrion, in the Gulf of Roses. Byzantine painterly stylisation sparked one of the key moments in the history of Catalan art, Romanesque painting. For a time, Crown of Aragon ruled over the duchies of Athens and Neopatras. King Peter III, the Ceremonious, paid for twelve crossbowmen to guard the Acropolis in Athens, protecting “the richest jewel in the world”. Then there are two literary monuments, Ramon Muntaner’s Crònica, who witnessed what he recounts, and Joanot Martorell’s novel Tirant lo Blanc, a fictional reworking of the adventure. In the early-twentieth century, Antoni Rubió i Lluch, father of Catalan philology, enamoured of Greece after studying the adventures of the Catalans in that land, became consul there, introducing his compatriots to contemporary Greek literature. Then came Carles Riba’s translations of the Greek classics, themselves now considered classics of Catalan literature, and his Elegies de Bierville, cornerstone of twentieth-century Catalan poetry. And, later still, Riba’s translations of the universal Greek poet Kavafis. Then, recently, Jaume Pòrtulas’ brilliant, delightful introduction to the Iliad, Introducció a la Ilídia, and Joan Casas’ translations of Iannis Ritsos’ dramatic poems, which has restored our taste for all things Greek. We now continue along this same path by delving once more into the poetic dimension.
This year, the recital includes works by the poets Nora Albert (1947), Pavlina Pamboudi (1948), Katerina Iliopoulou (1967), Josep Lluís Roig (1967), Stamatis Polenakis (1970) and Ramon Boixeda (1981).
Traducció: Joan Casas i Kleri Skandami; Guió, coordinació i posada en escena: Albert Mestres;
