Serrado is in love

BrickLike someone going out into the street to sing to their neighbors, Joan Manuel Serrat (Barcelona, ​​1943) moved all of Maó this Saturday. Three years after his official retirement from the stage, he returned to the Principal Theatre to lend his voice to the humanitarian missions of the Clarós Foundation and make it clear that his passion for singing will never leave him, no matter how many years pass.

"It's for a good cause, one that money can't buy," said Josep Clarós in the video that opened the evening. And Menorca responded gratefully, filling the more than 800 seats of the Mahón coliseum to overflowing and participating in the two hours of magical music in honor of Saint Cecilia.

It was about making "voices for a good cause" resound, and all the singers rose to the occasion. The opera singers who opened the gala (Rame Lhaj, Marcelina Román, Iryna Zhytynska, and Gayane Mnatsakanyan) were also there. But the audience, who snapped up all the tickets for the Teatro Principal in just a few hours, really wanted to hear Serrat.

After a fifteen-minute break, Josep Mas appeared Kitflus On keyboards and David Palau on guitar, and, as was later reported, the Principal was ready to receive the boy from Poble-sec, who is now a native of Maó, of his Mo, where he has had a house for 40 years and where his mother is buried, her ashes scattered in the immense and historic harbor.

For Mrs. Ángeles, in her memory, he opened the concert with the Lullaby, which he dedicated to her in 1967.Dew in the morning, heat at midday, mosquitoes in the afternoon, I don't want to be a farmer"," he intoned. And he expressed his "happiness" at performing at the festival he founded, with the "immense joy" of feeling "united and rewarded" in the city where he gave the opening address and from which he received the Gold Medal. "It's something you all let me know every day," he said. Early morning song, when "life is still asleep." And then he sang of life, which, as is known, in his verses "He kisses us on the mouth" and "She's so beautiful it's a pleasure to look at her".

But the first big ovation came with For freedom"The poem by Miguel Hernández, which became one of the emblems of protest song, was set to music by Serrat in 1975, just after his exile in Mexico."I am like the felled tree that sprouts again, because I still have life.The performance took on a special meaning, now that the 50th anniversary of the dictator's death has just passed. It sounded like redemption, like victory.

She had set out to sing for her neighbors and didn't want to hold back a single ounce of emotion, which was evident when she sang that bit about "making." city where "the talayot rises to the sky in case the pirates return" and where "a flabiol plays and an ancient cry of gin and celebration spreads across the island like Mo, Mo, Tan repeated so many times."Perhaps because my childhood is still playing on your beach.", ecstasy. The Mediterranean The acoustic song that everyone knows and that has been covered by dozens of artists in English, French, and Italian. The one that, for the magazine Rolling StonesIt's the best Spanish song ever.

And from the final 'nanananananainaina', almost without stopping, in Those little things "that left us with a time of roses"and that, as we can see, they have not managed to kill even the"time"nor the"absence".

After half an hour, Serrat's more combative side emerged, denouncing the inequalities and impositions of the "straw men who use cologne and honor to hide dark intentionsAnd what he cries out to his father, an environmentalist, is that "the river is no longer the river," nor the forest is no longer the forest, nor the countryside is no longer the countryside, because "they are killing the land." To finish, reciting Machado, with his own people Songs.Blow by blow, verse by verse"And the main right.

Amidst all the applause, there were those who asked Words of loveAnd Serrat obligingly agreed to her request to sing what is possibly the greatest love song in history. A joy he wanted to share with the audience, despite a gentle complaint that "only women sing." The farewell was still to come, and Serrat said goodbye. I'm going on foot. Who knows if it's for the last time. But in Mahón. His Mo. What now belongs to everyone…