La Mercè 2025 Opening Speech: ‘Starting the Festa Major with the performing arts is a tribute to the people and their artists’
The actress Emma Vilarasau kicked off the city’s Festa Major with her reading of La Mercè’s opening speech in the Saló de Cent, at an event presided over by Mayor Jaume Collboni and attended by Bev Craig, Mayor of Manchester. The actress reflected on her personal ties to the people, theatres and performance spaces of the city where she has built her career: ‘I want to show my appreciation for some of the people who have supported and guided me throughout my life. Theatre is ephemeral — nothing remains of what we have done or what I have shared with you, and that is one of its most beautiful qualities.’Vilarasau expressed her pride that the La Mercè 2025 poster is inspired by the ever-evolving performing arts, including dance, music, opera, the circus and theatre. ‘No other art form receives such an immediate response from its audience, whether that be a reading, criticism, praise or rejection. That’s why the performing arts are also the quickest to reflect the state of society,’ she stated.
She also took the opportunity to celebrate the strength of Barcelona’s theatre scene today, while warning that efforts must continue to sustain and improve it. ‘We have to reflect the multiculturalism of our streets on stage, fill theatres with a new and diverse audience, make our theatre more international and urgently resolve the challenges facing small venues, which are vital to the health of the city’s theatres.’
Born in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Vilarasau offered a detailed look back at Barcelona over the past fifty years through her own perspective and experiences, with the theatre as the common theme. She arrived in the city as a teenager, first as a sixth-form student and later as a student at the Theatre Institute: ‘Those were years of study, but also of discovering this creative, irreverent, mischievous, fun, free, explosive and very, very hardworking city,’ she recalled.
The actress paid tribute to the people who influenced her, including Carme Portaceli, the current director of the TNC, who was her teacher and mentor at the Theatre Institute; Anna Lizarán, whom she fell in love with from the moment she first saw her star in La bella Helena at the Teatre Lliure, and who later became her fellow cast member and close friend; and Fabià Puigserver, Lluís Pasqual, Josep Maria Benet i Jornet and her life partner Jordi Bosch, among others.
Vilarasau reminisced about her debut performance at the Teatre Grec in August 1983, seven years after the Montjuïc stage had been restored to the city. ‘Anyone who has performed at the Grec can tell you: those thousand-person stands, the sounds of nature, the silence so different from that of a theatre, the canopy of stars, the sense of smallness — it all makes performing at the Grec an almost mystical experience.’
La Mercè 2025’s opening speaker also used her time on the stage to call for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and urged action against the State of Israel. ‘Europe will never again be the same Europe some of us believed in. But at the very least, let us try to regain some credibility. I am tired — as I imagine many of you are — of feeling shame, anger, helplessness, and so much, so much sadness,’ she implored.
Vilarasau concluded the opening speech by calling on the people of Barcelona to occupy the city and enjoy it during La Mercè 2025 festivities. The event was presided over by Barcelona’s mayor, Jaume Collboni, who introduced the traditional Toc d’Inici after the speech, accompanied by dances featuring giants, big heads and the city’s mythical beasts.
You can find all the information about La Mercè 2025 on the website barcelona.cat/lamerce.
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