One day in February 2000, just hours before the start of the election campaign that would reinstate him as the head of the Generalitat, Eduardo Zaplana attended a ceremony at the old palace. Sagunt Roman Theater with actress and singer Irene Papas, who He passed away this Wednesday at the age of 96.. Its aim was to present one of the megaprojects that will place the Valencian Community on the cultural avant-garde map of the country: City of Performing Arts.
Zaplana’s move with the City of Performing Arts seemed perfect: Honorable Moulting appeared not only in the company of one of the theater and film actresses on the eve of the elections. most famous in the worldbut he was doing it to make it known. Investment of around 12,000 million pesetas and this, in the end, saved a corrupt but essential area in the recent history of the Valencians.
headed by Irene Papas received nearly 180,000 annual fees for his advice (regardless of the cost of his interventions as actor or director), a foundation sponsored by the Generalitat that aims to improve the steel legacy of the former Blast Furnaces and allocate the executives’ chalets, workshop buildings, casino and commissariat into a complex culture centered on theater education and great performances.
Generalitat favored the indebtedness of the foundation, which had to launch the project to face these interferences. According to the 2008 Síndic de Comptes report, around €21 million was invested in the rehabilitation of the old steel warehouse, and €25.5 million in long-term debt was accumulated.
At about the same time as the announcement of the project, it was expected that the most important names of the natural and cultural scene would be included in the project. luis pasqual anyone Nuria Espert anyone Mstilslav Rostropovic.
2.5 million across six performances
But Irene Papas was the big star. More than 2.5 million euros were spent on just six performances in 2001 of “Las Troyanas,” a production directed by a Greek playwright, at the opening of the Nau, the only landscape in the Theater City that has ever come to light. .
The staging history of “Las Troyanas” is an example of the way to create the culture that prevailed in Valencian rulers until the crisis broke out in 2008. Despite Greek star Irene Papas taking charge of a dreamy Art City. Despite the selection of Euripides’ text for its universal presentation and the presence of La Fura dels Baus and Calatrava in the production, the work, which premiered in September 2001, went unnoticed among critics and audiences.
Despite this, the plans were not changed and Valencia montage of “Las Troyanas” goes to Rome Accompanied by Consell’s principal official embassy (to the Tor Vergata University campus) in 2003. An accident occurred with a serious injury during dismantling, and the sight of Calatrava, whose true cost was never known, was held by court order for more than three years. In fact, part of this decoration-sculpture of Calatrava is a part of the young Pope Pope II in Rome. It appeared in the background of a meeting with John Paul. It later returned to Sagunt and is still abandoned around La Nau today.
But back to Irene Papas. failure “Trojans” The assembly – which was also to be taken to Athens – ultimately did not take place – was not a sufficient reason for neither the actor nor the Generalitat to lower their ambitions. So much so that Papas was about to bring to the theater a version of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” starring Mario Vargas Llosa, Pedro Almodóvar and Gabriel Garcia, which Consuelo Císcar, then Director-General of Culture, promoted on this occasion. Marquez himself.
This other pharaonic project, however, was never materialized, and in 2005 the City Foundation for the Performing Arts, which was then integrated into the Teatres de la Generalitat, notified Irene Papas in a letter that it had terminated the contract that united her as artistic director until 2007. Paying tribute to Mostra in 1990, the Papas no longer returned to Valencia, at least for business reasons.