BIENAL DE FLAMENCO DE SEVILLA 2008
MANOLO SANLÚCAR, 'BALDOMERO ROMERO RESSENDI. LA VOZ DEL COLOR'

Half rooster, half pigeon

'Baldomero Romero Ressendi. La voz del color'. Manolo Sanlúcar : guitar, music. David Carmona: second guitar. Carmen Grilo, David Pino: cante. Agustín Diassera, Tete Peña: percussion. Sandra Carrasco, Macarena de la Torre: choruses, clapping. 15th Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla. Teatro Lope de Vega. Seville, September 19th, 2008. 9 p.m.

"The hard part isn't playing the music, but rather getting across the spiritual essence that the music contains". And Manolo Sanlúcar managed to do so in the premiere of 'Baldomero Romero Ressendi. La voz del color', a show which emanates commitment to art and soul. And the thing is that the maestro was never of the type who give up, but rather of the kind who rise to the challenge. Befitting his white hair is the risk of seeing where others don't look, of finding what others don't seek. Although those listening don't have to suffer such a big inner debate. And less so when, as occurred last night at the Teatro Lope de Vega, a musician sits down to enjoy his music, as he said, by turning the stage into the living room of his house.

Manolo Sanlúcar paid off his pending debt to painter Baldomero Romero Ressendi, "remembering him, feeling him". Like a guide at his own museum, he used his wise words to situate the listener before each picture. Afterwards, he would make them felt one by one through his music without having them in view, without even having ever seen them. And the first one was 'Los condenados', a piece-painting which gives up dramatic density in order to express itself from the rhythm, a smooth tangos rhythm. Then a glimpse is caught of that beyond which he revealed for flamenco guitar in 'Locura de brisa y trino', that scope and that musical brightness which traditional toque lacks. Conviction. Punishment. Life. But no tragedy.

'La mirada del tiempo' is based on a painting of an old bullfighter who longs for the excitement of his past. A picture which Franco rejected because on dressing the character in a jacket which is big on him, his elbow goes off the canvas ... "and now I have it". And it sounds like a shaky, abrupt, broken taranta. A taranta which hurts like a taranta never hurt before. 'Abuelos gitanos' also tackles that looking at a distance. It takes the shape of a bulería, "but with the old flavor of when I was getting started and I used to meet with those maestros". And it isn't just the guitar which is dazzling, even in its beautiful attempts at imperfection, but also that skillful way that Sanlúcar knows how to put each ingredient of accompaniment in just the right place. Here, especially the voices. Nobody else designs the vocal melodies with so much pampering. And it happens while the guitar is broken, tautened, concentrated, loosened and sought in time. As the maestro said, "one sets out to seek the future and he forgets about what he has inside".

In 'La piedad', Ressendi "gets it right when he hides Mary's face when she is holding Jesus dead in her arms, since that grief is impossible to represent". And he understands well this father "orphaned by his son". That grief which is felt here por soleá. The guitar weighing him down like a cross. And the lyrics, just right: "I don't have anyone to comfort this grief of mine", which Carmen Grilo weeps. The light returns with 'El papa negro', a transatlantic portrait of the founder of the Bienvenida family. A bridge between Latin American sounds and that of the flute and the rociero drum, which crosses the back of the scene like an apparition when the group goes quiet. A group of young musicians totally doing their utmost for the show. "One, two, three and ... oh, if only Chacón were here to see!", the conductor of this orchestra says jokingly, happy because soul has appeared.

'Personalidad' , Angelita Vargas, El Chozas, Antonio Reyes, José Méndez Hotel Triana, 11 p.m. 'Personalidad'. Photos Bienal de Sevilla © Luis Castilla