opera

Alexina B.

Alexina B. (2020-2021)

Opera for four singers, little choir, sinfonietta and electronics

Alexina B. (2020-2021)

To be WORLD PREMIERED within the season 2022/23 of the Gran Teatre del Liceu

Music and video by Raquel García-Tomás
Libretto by Irène Gayraud

Stage direction by Marta Pazos

​

The creation of this opera has been funded by Becas Leonardo 2020 (Fundación BBVA).

​

​

​

​

​

​

Alexina B. and the Gran Teatre del Liceu have been shorlisted for the Fedora Opera Prizes 2021. Vote for us and help us reach the next phase of the competition:

​

ABOUT

This opera has come about from an interest in the story of Adélaïde Herculine Barbin, also known as Alexina, an intersex person born in 1838 (and at a time when intersex persons were called “hermaphrodites”).

​

Alexina detailed her life in an extremely moving account written in 1868 called Mes souvenirs. At birth she was designated as female and grew up exclusively among girls: at first, she was in a convent and later as a young teacher in a boarding school. In this latter position, she fell in love with Sara, one of her fellow teachers. This romance shone through some years and led her to affirm herself as a man. And so her struggle began: first to make the church, science and the law accept that her gender as masculine.

​

This is a story of the struggle for an identity which takes place between masculine and feminine. The violence of the religious and medical institutions, which could not accept a duality of sex or gender, should not make us forget the great power of decision and self-affirmation shown by Alexina during her lifetime. The libretto wishes to spotlight this, as a sign of the need to think more in terms of gender than of sex, through the story of a person whose life is emblematic for today’s intersex community.

Per Precaució

Per Precaució (2020)

Micro-opera for soprano and harp

Per Precaució (2020)

PREMIERED ONLINE at the YouTube channel of the GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU

from 15 to 22 November 2020

​

to be World Premiered (live) within the season 2021/22

Music by Raquel García-Tomás
Libretto by Victòria Szpunberg

Stage director: Marc Rosich

Musical director: Francesc Prat

Set designer & Lighting designer: Laura Clos “Closca”

Costume designer: Núria Llunell

Director assistant: Jordi Pérez Solé

Maria Dolors Aldea, Soprano

José Antonio Domené, Harp

Produced by the Òpera de Butxaca i Nova Creació, in collaboration with the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
 

Per Precaució belongs to the collective opera project Sis Solos Soles

​

Six brand new operas are sung in 6 different parts of the opera house Liceu by 6 different women

A young woman steps into a bathtub and slowly sinks into the water for what may be her last bath; a mature female singer, avid for beauty, finds happiness only in the contents of a miserable refrigerator; an old woman fights against the inevitable by refusing to be taken into a home; a girl anxiously awaiting a phone call is afraid to leave the house lest she is left without network coverage; a young Danae, with a knife hidden in her clothes, returns to the basement where her father abused her; and a teenage YouTuber tells her followers that this is her last message before the end of the world.

SIS SOLOS SOLES is a New and Pocket Opera project which unites six monodramas for female voice and instrumentalist into a single performance. It was commissioned from six different librettist-composer teams.  While exploring the bowels of a theatre, the audience discovers, through a sort of intimate confession, the tales underlying the different voices which are trapped in their respective home environments.

Je suis narcissiste

Je suis narcissiste (2018-2019)

Opera for two sopranos, tenor, bariton, sinfonietta and electronics

Je Suis Narcissiste (2018-19)

PREMIERED AT THE TEATRO ESPAÑOL (Madrid), within the season of the TEATRO REAL (Madrid). Further performances in Barcelona, at TEATRE LLIURE.

6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 March 2019

12, 13 and 14 April 2019

Music by Raquel García-Tomás
Libretto by Helena Tornero

​

Stage director: Marta Pazos

Musical director: Vinicius Kattah

Set designer: Fernando Ribeiro

Lighting designer: Nuno Meira

Choreographer: Amaya Galeote

Costume designer: Pier Paolo Álvaro

Sound engineer: Sixto Cámara

Clotilde: Elena Copons

Giovanni: Toni Marsol

Women: María Hinojosa

Men: Joan Ribalta

Produced by the Òpera de Butxaca i Nova Creació, in collaboration with the Teatro Real, the Teatro Español of Madrid and the Teatre Lliure of Barcelona.
 

STARTING POINT

It appears to be a more than opportune moment to talk about narcissim. This type of narcissism that inundates everything; that inflates our perception of ourselves and encourages us to do everything in grand style, even if we may have forgotten the reason why we are doing it. Based on black humour, making no concessions, Je suis narcissiste offers us a person who organises cultural events and who lives each day as though it were an obstacle course existing between herself and her happiness. The events overwhelm her and people leave her immersed in a sensation of loneliness. Couples, pets, bosses, artists or funeral home employees appear to be a lot more interested in talking than listening. Given such a fecund cultural medium, it proves sufficient that the reaction is triggered -in the form of a dead cat- for her complete emotional collapse. Exhausted, she arrives at the office of a psychiatrist who embraces all kinds of theories as eccentric as he himself. The two of them will travel together through an experience of transformation (or not).

AWARDS

• Alícia Awards 2019 (Catalan Academy of Music) – Interdiscipline Award.

• Ópera XXI Awards – Best initiative to promote opera: Òpera Butxaca i Nova Creació (OBNC), in its 25th anniversary and for the world premiere of Je suis narcissiste by Raquel García-Tomás.

• Premios de la Crítica de Amics del Liceu – Special mention

​

​

NOMINATIONS

• International Opera Awards 2020 – Best World Premiere

• Max Awards 2020 (Premios Max)

  • Best Music Composition (Raquel García-Tomás)

  • Best Lyrical Show (Ópera de Butxaca i Nova Creació)

  • Best Costume Design (Pier Paolo Álvaro)

disPLACE

disPLACE (2015)

Opera for soprano, bariton, viola, cello and electroacoustics

disPLACE (2015)

PREMIERED AT THE MUSIKTHEATERTAGE WIEN 2015

1, 5, 6, 8, 11. September 2015

Composed by Joan Magrané (1st part) and Raquel García-Tomás* (2nd part)

Llibretto: Helena Tornero 
Staging: Peter Pawlik 
Stage design: Alexandra Burgstallter
Light design: Harald Michlits 
Dramaturgy: Georg Steker 

With: Elena Copons, Sébastien Soules, Benedek Nagy, Ensemble PHACE

* Special thanks to composer H. Serrano for gratefully allowing the use of the recording of Elle est belle, eh ? by accordionist Oroitz Maiz.

A production by MUSIK­THEATERTAGE WIEN 

in conjunction with Òpera de Butxaca i Nova Creació, Barcelona

PRESS RELEASE (by Helena Tornero)

"disPLACE is an opera by composers Raquel García-Tomás and Joan Magrané Figuera, with a libretto by the playwright Helena Tornero.

​

The creation is a production by the Musiktheatertage Wien Festival and Opera de Butxaca i Nova Creació de Barcelona, which commissioned the author to write a libretto about the issue of gentrification.

​

The request was to write two stories dealing with the same issue from two different perspectives, as each story was to be created for a different composer. The author decided to write two stories separated in time but connected by the place where they took place: a flat at the centre of Barcelona.

​

Gentrification is a problem affecting thousands of districts of cities all over the world, Barcelona city being one of the cases where the situation is getting worse due to real estate speculation, the Spanish mortgage laws, the social impact of the economic crisis and the contradictions caused by current tourism politics.

​

disPLACE was premiered on 1st September 2015 in Vienna at the Festival MusikTheaterTage Wien and performed until the 11th September. It was staged by the director Peter Pawlik and performed by the Catalan soprano, Elena Copons, the French baritone, Sébastien Soules and the musicians of the Ensemble PHACE."

​

​

Promotional video of 'disPLACE'

Year: 2015

Music and video by Raquel García-Tomás

Special thanks to photographer Germán Caballero for allowing the use of his photographic material.

Promotional video of 'disPLACE'

Year: 2016

Video by Raquel García-Tomás

go, ÆNEAS, go!

go, ÆNEAS, go! (2014)

Collective opera for tenor, mezzo-soprano, clarinet/bass clarinet and cello)

Sets: Ulrike Reinhard

Costume design: Christina Kämper

Characterization: Anne-Claire Meyer

Movement: Èlia Lopez

Performers:

Æneas: Joan Ribalta

Europe: Anna Alàs

Clarinet: Christian Vogel

Cello: Cèlia Torres

Promotional video of 'go, ÆNEAS, go!'

Year: 2014

Music by Raquel García-Tomás, Octavi Rumbau & Xavier Bonfill

Video by Raquel García-Tomás

Promotional video of 'go, ÆNEAS, go!'

Year: 2014
Music by Octavi Rumbau
Video by Raquel García-Tomás

DIDO reloaded

DIDO reloaded (2013)

Collective opera for soprano, mezzo-soprano, clarinet/bass clarinet and cello)

Promotional video of 'Dido & Æneas Reloaded'

Year: 2013 |  Running Time: 2:12 min

Ouverture from 'Dido & Æneas Reloaded'

Music and video by Raquel García-Tomás

LSP 3.1 ['La serva padrona' rifatta] (2009-2010)

Opera for mezzo-soprano, jazz singer, mime and quintet (flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, keyboards, violin and cello)

Conductor: Raúl Patiño
Stage direction: Pol López
Artistic direction: Raquel García-Tomás

Staging, lighting, attrezzo and video: newDivision
Costume design: La Ke Kose (Mireia Nogueras)
Masks and make-up: La máscara de Pandora (Susana Conde)

'Son imbrogliato io già'

Year: 2010 |  Running Time: 2:49 min

from LSP 3.1 ['La serva padrona' rifatta]

Video: newDivision

'A Serpina penserete'

Year: 2010 |  Running Time: 5:01 min

from LSP 3.1 ['La serva padrona' rifatta]

Video: newDivision

'Questa è per me disgrazia'

Year: 2010 |  Running Time: 5:00 min

from LSP 3.1 ['La serva padrona' rifatta]

Video: newDivision