ORGIA

Orgia is a co-commission and a new co-production between Teatro Arriaga of Bilbao, the Festival Castell de Peralada and the Gran Teatre del Liceu that integrates many fascinating ingredients: on the one hand, the presentation of the latest lyrical score by Hèctor Parra, one of the Catalan composers with the greatest international renown. At his side, Calixto Bieito puts all his genius into dissecting the main characters in this tragic, self-destructive story in which we witness the sexual battle of a married couple.

The drama of Pier Paolo Pasolini (whose 100th anniversary since his birth we celebrated in 2022), will be a fabulous opportunity to descend into the unique depths of the human soul. After two previous operatic collaborations between Calixto Bieito and Héctor Parra: Wilde (2015) and Les bienveillantes (2019), they worked on the original text of Orgia

To denounce personal drama, the male lead of Orgia hangs himself after dressing as a woman. In fact, in the last moments of his life, he becomes aware of his homosexuality, and his suicide thus becomes an accusatory act. It is an opportunity to condemn a society that is intolerant, hypocritical, cruel and contemptuous of all those who live outside the established norms.

Through his verses, Pasolini penetrates reality, illuminating how fascism annihilates all traces of humanity in modern society through consumer culture. In Orgia, love and sex are at the service of sadistic destruction. Inside her bedroom, a closed space in which anguish and remorse cast monstrous shadows on the uncertain transition between the world of reason and the world of dreams, the young mother co-protagonist wants to break up with her husband, but just before committing suicide she commits the terrible act of Medea, killing her two children. A tragedy with actor/singers who are tailor-made for this new creative endeavour of the tandem Parra - Bieito.

Au Rin Stundyt

Soprano. Her repertoire includes Hèctor Parra's Orgia in Bilbao; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in Geneva, Vienna, Paris, Lyon and Antwerp; as well as Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Penderecki's The Devils of Loudun in Munich, Elektra and Bluebeard's Castle at the Salzburg Festival. This is her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Calixto Bieito

Stage director and librettist. He studied literature and history in Barcelona, stage direction at the Institut del Teatre and acting at the Escola d’Art Dramàtic in Tarragona. He was the director of the Teatre Romea in Barcelona for 10 years and created the Barcelona Internacional Teatre (BIT). Since 2017, he has directed the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2000/01 season with Un ballo in maschera.

Pierre Bleuse

Conductor. He studied conducting with Jorma Panula in Finland and Laurent Gay at the Haute École de Genève. Originally trained as a violinist, he was a concert musician and associate conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Tolouse. He has been the prinicipal conductor of the Odense Symfoniorkester (Denmark) since 2021 and starting in the 2023/24 season he will be the prinicpal conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. This is his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.