Curtain Up! Lights!

Ever since my school days and then into my teen years, I had always been besotted by the theatre. I started off in school plays, first with parts like angel with wings, little tiger with a long tail and later on, as a teenager, I was already in leading adult roles of serious dramas, appearing on proper theatres, had even earned a few dollars in several modest productions.

Perhaps that's why I was never keen on sport, as I reckoned the theatre was already in itself a sport. It calls for all of your physical rhythm with every aspect of your emotions, to forget who you are totally and become somebody else. To Be somebody else but not Acting as somebody else is a very draining process and exercise.

So while the other friends of my age were doing all sorts of sports, I was always reading a script or in rehearsals, with other players, or even by myself in front of a mirror, trying to perfect some expressions from the depth of me, not counting on facial muscles. I was at that time dead set in becoming an actress or a dancer, professionally, as a life long career. For quite a while even with ambition to combine both.

Then boys appeared, Destiny plus circumstances changed, and I was never either. Not in the sense that I had wished it. This had not changed in the slightest my great passion for both these arts I appreciate and adore so much.

My interests in both fields stretch beyond the stage itself. I am interested in just about every aspect of the theatre, including the technical areas and behind the scene organization, management, and of course, music.

El Palau de la Musica in Barcelona a few years ago, to celebrate the centenary ceremony of this fabulous concert hall, which had an open day for anyone who wished to see and learn how theatrical special effects were achieved, for instance. I had the luck to attend. It was like an invitation to Heaven.

I have always been fascinated by the team of talents who could produce any kind of effects, sound, sight or atmospheric, practically at will. Thunder, lightning, rain, storm, fire, gunshots, cannons, squeaking floorboard or doors, baby crying, dog barks, cat meows ... all with perfect control and precision, in skilful hands with little or no particular tools and props.

That day hese were all shown to the wide-eyed public by the behind the scene artists, guided and explained while they passed from hall to hall, passage through passage, indoor and out in the garden where they often have open air performances. Apart from concerts, they often stage extravaganzas, stage plays, operas and vast scale musicals, in the 15,000 square meters haven of high entertainment, which shares equal fame with the El Liceo, mostly for operas.

Tags:theatres,concerts,palaudelamusica

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