{"id":1418,"date":"2025-08-03T19:14:41","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T18:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/?p=1418"},"modified":"2026-01-10T15:51:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T14:51:22","slug":"benjamin-a-portbou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/music-diary\/benjamin-a-portbou\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin a Portbou, Liceu, Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>21 July 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I attended one of the performances of the world premiere of this semi-staged opera, invited by Peter Tantsits, the tenor who sang the title role, and I knew from Fanny &amp; Alexander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher and literary critic, died in Portbou in September 1940 while trying to escape Nazi persecution. He had crossed the Pyrenees fleeing the Gestapo and, upon arriving in Portbou, he learned that he was going to be expelled from Spain and sent back to France. Faced with the prospect of being handed over to the Nazis, he decided to commit suicide in this border town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BENJAMIN A PORTBOU Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona 2025\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BGA5Aegm6hI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cast<\/strong> <strong>and production team<\/strong>:   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liceubarcelona.cat\/en\/benjamin-portbou\">https:\/\/www.liceubarcelona.cat\/en\/benjamin-portbou<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Main roles:  Peter Tanstits, as Walter Benjamin; David Alegret, as Bertolt Brecht<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" data-id=\"1421\" src=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7354-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7354-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7354-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"1425\" src=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7326-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7326-scaled.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7326-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7359-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1423\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7359-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7359-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7356-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7356-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7356-300x225.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contemporary opera by Antoni Ros-Marb\u00e0. World premiere, conducted by the composer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[36,69,24,70],"class_list":["post-1418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-diary","tag-concert","tag-liceu","tag-opera","tag-peter-tantsits"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_7341-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1418"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1479,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions\/1479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayweiner.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}