La Fura dels Baus second attempt at opera is a staging of The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. As with La Atlántida, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is not a conventional opera, or at least it is not an opera with a clear, perfectly defined story line. Using Claude Debussy’s music as an inspiration, Gabrielle d’Annunzio constructed a Symbolist drama around the original medieval mystery and the well-known image of the saint pierced with arrows. As a Symbolist work, D’Annuzio’s libretto offers as many readings as suggestive images, and a richness eventually translated into the first problem that the staging had to overcome. There was no solid plot structure, nor characters on which to base a sufficiently formulated theatre piece. Therefore, the first decision made in regard to The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian was the creation of a parallel dramaturgy, capable of supporting the interpretation put forward by La Fura dels Baus’ staging.

Debussy and D’Annunzio divided their “musical/symbolic mystery” in five parts or stanzas that thematically relate to Sebastian’s evolution. Five parts without any links, that end up shaping the entire story of the soldier who becomes a saint. In the staging by La Fura a new character is added, a narrator, represented as a doctor, whose job, both figuratively and literally, is to dissect Sebastian in order to, with a scientist’s logic, discern what it is that makes him so special, so different and yet so the same. Most of the “stanzas” are kept, but a great innovation is added: the last part, which portrays Sebastian’s arrival in heaven, now opens the performance. This substantial change is an attempt to delay without resolution the foreseeable happy ending, reinforcing the contradiction that the saint incarnates, and gaining symmetry by associating Sebastian’s death with the autopsy that begins the show, a sort of spiritual flashback.

Debussy and D’Annunzio divided their “musical/symbolic mystery” in five parts or stanzas that thematically relate to Sebastian’s evolution. Five parts without any links, that end up shaping the entire story of the soldier who becomes a saint. In the staging by La Fura a new character is added, a narrator, represented as a doctor, whose job, both.

Música
Claude Debussy (1862-1918).

Libreto
Gabrielle D’Annunzio (1863-1938).

Creación
Franc Aleu, Manuel Huerga, Àlex Ollé, Carlos Padrissa, Valentín Proczynski y Alfredo Taján; con la colaboración de Jaume Plensa.

Idea original
A.M.A. Le Tre Caravelle

Versión escénica
La Fura dels Baus

Dirección escénica y escenografía
Àlex Ollé, Carlos Padrissa.

Creación y realización vídeo
Franc Aleu, Manuel Huerga.

Dirección musical
Frederik Chaslin, Julian Kovatchev, Lorin Maazel, Georges Prêtre.

Vestuario y utillería
Jaume Plensa

Coreografía
Compañía Erre Que Erre

Adaptación y creación de textos
Guillem Martínez

Diseño de iluminación
Ramón Rey, Germinal Ruiz.

Diseño de sonido
Marc Sardà

Ayudante de dirección
Llorenç Ametller, José A. Gutiérrez.

Colaboración dirección de actores
Joan Castells, Al Víctor.

Reparto
Sebastián: Abraham Hurtado.
Diocleciano: Al Víctor, Ferran Terraza.
Narrador: Miguel Bosé.
Bailarines: Susana Castro, María Ángeles García, Mario García, Sergi Faustino, Ferran Carvajal, Teresa Navarrete, Joan Palau, Ricardo Salas, Marina Serrano.

Reparto
Alma de Sebastián y la virgen Erigona
Sopranos: Sophie Marin-Delgor, Ewa Malas-Godlewska, Nora Gubisch.

Los gemelos Marco y Marcelino
Contraltos: Cécile Eloir, Elsa Maurus.
Mezzosopranos: Lilliana Bizineche, Nora Gubisch, Sophie Pondjiclis, Elsa Maurus.
Roma: Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi di Milano y Coro de Valencia.
Cagliari: Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico de Cagliari.
Perelada y Valencia: Orquesta de Valencia y Coro de Valencia.
Bilbao: Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao y Coro de la Coral de Bilbao.
Nápoles: Orchestra e Coro del Teatro di San Carlo.
Madrid: Orquesta de La Comunidad de Madrid y Coro del Teatro de la Zarzuela.

Producción: Espectáculos Otel.lo

Producción vídeo: OVIDEO, TV, S.A.

Producción ejecutiva: Esther Badía

Dirección técnica: Susana Jové

Regiduría: Isabel Bres, M.Angeles Huedo, Jordi Soler.

Realización vestuario: Catherine Verdier, Rosa Solé y compañía.

Realización escenografía
Roland Olbeter, Roig Curvado S.A., Alberto Pastor, Xesco Morros.

Técnicos escenario: Carlos Bertolín, Boris, Arturo Faura, Rodrigo Martín, Pulgui, Juan B.Torres, Alberto Pastor, Julio Cámara.

Sonido
Jordi Fatjó, Carlos Gómez, Jaime Rodríguez.

Estreno
5/5/97, en el Teatro dell’ Opera de Roma.

Representaciones
17

Una producción de l’Associazione Musica e Arte «Le Tre Caravelle» con la colaboración de I Concerti Telecom Italia, Instituzione del Concerti e del Teatro Lirico «Pierluigi de Palestrina» di Cagliari, El Palau de la Música de Valencia, el Festival Internacional Castell de Perelada y el Teatro Arriaga de Bilbao.

Debussy composed this unique opera for a libretto by D’Annunzio that tells the story of St. Sebastian’s unique journey to martyrdom. La Fura staged this “symbolic musical mystery”, re-elaborating, also symbolically, the images originally suggested by the text.