The journey into music began as a quiet family memory, rooted in a grandmother who played the piano and shaped a lifelong passion. Yet it remained largely unpursued, a thorn that persisted in the mind: I have never studied music, even though it burns as a deep, frustrated longing.
Another path opened for Lola Blasco, the Alicante-born playwright, actor, and director born in 1983, who found a route through opera. In 2021, his opera libretto was staged by MaryProduction at the Teatro Real in Madrid, and that same year the zarzuela I Will Love You, with music by the master Alonso, premiered at the Teatro de la Zarzuela.
Blasco, a creator from Alicante, was honored with the National Award for Dramatic Literature in 2016. His career has expanded into new forms, including a Valencian opera. In this venture, author Voro García invited Blasco to write the lyrics while García composed the music for the novel, a collaboration joined with the Valencian novelist Manuel Baixauli.
Music, in Blasco’s view, has always been a companion along the way. A photograph captioned Musician Voro García accompanies the story, highlighting the joint effort behind the project.
“The novel fascinated me because it is well written, though very complex,” Blasco explains. “It’s a fragmented work, yet that fragmentation allows me to tell a lot, or perhaps not everything.”
The text touches on creation and failure, describing the feeling of watching brilliance in others and how that can sting. It echoes the mood of a difficult novel by Thomas Bernhard and remains intricate due to its many double-layered games. Still, it holds resonance and a persistent link to music, which Blasco finds highly engaging.
scenario difficulty
The writing task for the libretto, due by December, demands conciseness and precision. Blasco notes that his background in poetic theater helps reduce the challenge, even if the goal remains demanding.
Blasco recalls his early experiments with music in his productions, especially in his own directing work. He now sees composing opera librettos as a natural progression, a step that merges his theatrical instincts with musical storytelling.
Captions accompany a separate image: a cover that hints at the novel Ignot and the creative energies at play.
For the playwright preparing for a National Dramatic Centre production next February, which he will both write and direct, Blasco describes the process as intimate. Writing a script brings the music closer, and it feels like a beautiful collaboration where the musical voice must have a role. He also notes his admiration for García’s work and frames the project as a cooperative effort: the initial script will be shared, then adapted with music, resulting in a collaborative artistic enterprise.
The project will also reach audiences beyond the local setting, with translations into Romanian and a presentation planned at the Instituto Cervantes in Bucharest. Blasco reflects on how a story rooted in Alicante travels worldwide, resonating across cultures and communities, underscoring the universal language of music and theater.