Der fliegende Holländer, by Richard Wagner, at the Principal Theater. Impossible!, many of us thought. My faultDifficult, no doubt, but good work and sound judgment prevailed. This isn't a spoiler. It was a success, with a full house, and ohne irrtum —without error— as the composer would say, and surely if he didn't say it, he at least thought it. Everything worked perfectly. Nothing disappointed, and perhaps that remarkable balance achieved was the best and most essential of the many virtues the show possesses. The circle might have been smaller than usual, for obvious reasons, but it was undoubtedly a perfect one. A fact that was already clear from the very first agreements of theOpening, With the imposing brass announcing the stormy tragedy, the Balearic Islands Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Guillermo Garcia-Calvo, for whom Wagner holds far fewer secrets than for the vast majority of conductors, having so thoroughly captured the essence of Bayreuth, thus fulfilling this initial requirement regarding the size of the orchestra, which sounded powerful and expansive, as well as rich in textures and impeccably clear.

During her time as head of the General Directorate of Cultural Rights, a body under the Ministry of Culture, Jazmín Beirak has spearheaded the approval of a Cultural Rights Plan, which has begun to be implemented in various areas and initiatives. She will present it on Wednesday the 18th in Palma, at an event in the Flexas bar, starting at 1 p.m. A little later, at 6:30 p.m., she will be at La Colectiva to discuss her book. Ungovernable culture (Ariel) –MÁS por Palma has organized both activities.

The Government has awarded the 2026 Gold Medal of the Balearic Islands to the Mallorcan singer-songwriter Jaume AngladaThis was announced by the First Vice President and Minister of Economy and Finance, Antoni Costa, who explained that the artist will receive the award at a ceremony on February 28th at the Lonja de Palma. Born in Palma in 1972, Anglada has a long and distinguished artistic career. Among his most notable projects is the artistic duo he formed with actress Carolina Cerezuela. Last August, he suffered a serious accident: a car hit him while he was riding his motorcycle, and he was in a coma for several days. He gradually recovered his health. The regional government believes he deserves the award after a professional career in which he has combined "tradition and innovation" and linked island musical roots with other contemporary sensibilities. Costa also emphasized his commitment "to the cultural dissemination of the region and beyond."

The culture produced in the Balearic Islands over the last hundred years has often addressed the transformation of the territory. This has frequently been a conscious endeavor, as in the case of numerous authors and musicians, from Guillem Frontera to Joana Gomila, including some of the artists who gathered around the Taller Llunàtic. For others, however, establishing this conversation about the changes the islands' landscape has undergone requires the intervention of attentive and engaged observers, as has been the case with researchers and professors at the University of the Balearic Islands, Magdalena Brotons and Maria Sebastián. Since 2020, they have dedicated themselves to uncovering the Mallorcan locations that served as film sets throughout the 20th century, a task that has culminated in the publication of the digital book Mallorca filmed, the transformation of the territory through cinema (Leonario Muntaner, Editor).

MajorDocs, the Major Documentary Film Festival of Mallorca, presented the full program for its seventh edition this Monday. The festival will take place from November 25th to 29th in Palma, with sound as its central theme. Renowned British filmmaker Ben Rivers will be the festival's guest of honor. Festival director Miguel Eek emphasized that this edition invites viewers to pause and listen amidst the noise of the contemporary world. According to the press release, MajorDocs explores how sound can narrate what images do not show and give form to the invisible. Rivers, a leading figure in European avant-garde cinema, will open the festival with a screening of his film. The sky trembles and the world is afraid and the two eyes are not brothers and will give a masterclass about his creative process. Sound designer Philippe Ciompi will also participate, offering a masterclass and a sound performance during the opening ceremony.

Turning the city of Palma into an "interpretation center for itself." This is the ultimate goal, in the words of the General Coordinator of Culture and Tourism of Palma City Council, Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta, of a project that not only involves existing facilities, such as the Es Baluard Museum, Can Balaguer, and Bellver Castle, but also plans to incorporate at least three new ones: these are different interpretation centers. Major. The information that Cort has been willing to share about all of them, at the request of ARA Baleares, has been scarce and imprecise.

The cunning Guineueta, By Leoš Janáček, it might have seemed like a minor opera to open a season, that of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. In Czech, less than two hours long, and without the less-than-high-profile voices that, moreover, will line the majority of the titles in it. But whoever thought this way is seriously mistaken, and for quite a few reasons. To begin with, Leoš Janáček's music, a collage of delightful and highly varied factors and circumstances, which make each moment entirely appropriate to what is happening on stage. And again, although it's not news, from Josep Pons's baton emerged all the colors of a score filled with thousands of nuances and details of a complex yet exquisite simplicity. Only one small, however, at some point in the soliloquy of the gamekeeper, the male protagonist, the fragment that the composer chose to play on the day of his funeral, performed by baritone Peter Mattei, was overshadowed by the orchestra. However, the chromatic explosion was an unattainable musical kaleidoscope that placed this great little opera in its rightful place.

In 1974, and suddenly and unexpectedly, Climent Picornell, Guillermo Frontera and Aldo Spanhi joined forces to create the bar Es Pou Bo, an establishment in Genoa that was only open for two years, but became a meeting place for Mallorca's cultural, progressive, and anti-Franco world. Its opening was as surprising and unexpected as its closure; from one day to the next, the partners decided to abandon the project, and Es Pou Bo, a refuge for activists, marginalized artists, the wounded, and progressives, disappeared.