Overview
- The Grec festival opened on Monday with Marta Pazos’s Catalan adaptation of L'òpera de tres rals, starring Nao Albet and Miriam Moukhles and running about three hours with an intermission.
- The creative team included Marc Rosich’s translation and Dani Espasa conducting a live ten‑musician orchestra placed in the pit that plays across much of the score.
- Pazos foregrounded visual and comic devices such as actors costumed as pigeons and a self‑parodying onstage cameo, while Albet’s Mackie featured a queer reading, a skirt and fluorescent green hair.
- Reviews were mixed to tepid, with several critics saying the dominant grey design, stylized choreography and heavy formal choices diluted the play’s political urgency and some audience members left at intermission.
- Festival leaders and city officials attended the semicentennial opener and the staging has prompted public debate about form versus message that could shape audience turnout and critical discussion during the Grec run.