El Último Jinete (The Last
Horseman) tells the story about a young Bedouin called Tiradh,
whose wish is to find the horse he has chosen in a dream, the same
horse that has chosen him, so that together they will ride towards
the conquest of a kingdom. This way they can fulfill the legend of
the desert which holds that there is a horse for every rider and
only when united can they achieve their destiny.
That is basically the story of the
Last Horseman, a musical of Arabic and ethnic airs, an adventure
story written by Spanish writer Ray Loriga, directed by David
Conde, with music by John Cameron, Albert Hammond and Barry Mason,
lyrics by Rangit Bolt and produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez, very
well-known in the world of cinema in Spain. Gómez is confronting a
scenic challenge with this show, which will premiere in Madrid on
December 5 in the Canal Theaters and next spring in London. It was
conceived simultaneously in both cities, with two parallel
companies, the same infrastructure and a total budget of 9 million
euros. In fact, as the producer pointed out, no totally original
musical not based on a novel, film or theater piece has premiered
in London in the last fifteen years….
How, where and why this musical was
born is probably as fantastic and incredible as the storyline of
the Last Horseman itself. Three years ago, the Spanish producer, in
view of the increasing difficulties involved in filmmaking, decided
to go to the Middle East to seek financial support to make an
animated movie. However, one of the sponsors he met proposed that
he do a musical in the West End of London, and that the plot should
revolve around the construction of the Saudi kingdom. "It was our
dream, I convinced them to also do it in Spain. Ray got totally
involved in this project for which he has written almost twenty
drafts of the script, " notes Andrés Vicente Gómez who is so
fascinated with the world of theater to the extent that in the last
few years he has been launching several projects such as putting
together the musical: Ay, Carmela, and sketching out a macro-show
about Spanish writer and playwright, Enrique Jardiel.
"In the show business,
responsibilities of all those involved are very much scattered.
Also there is considerable freedom and a marvelous feeling ensues
when one considers the little freedom there is in filmmaking, by
contrast, where everything depends on many factors," the producer
remarks in the presence of Ray Loriga who is making his first
incursion into the musicals: "A field I have always liked and
followed with interest, although I must say that this venture has
allowed me to enter the theater in style while at the same time
develop the story of Tiradh thanks to which I got to know the
desert, the Bedouins and a part of the planet that we always see in
a distorted fashion." The writer is convinced that to get to know a
people, one must know its poetry: "When talking about Saudi Arabia
one must try to understand what the people there think, their
dreams…" In fact the inspiration for the script is based on the
figure of Abd al-Aziz ib Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia
and the last person to conquer a kingdom on horseback.
In this sense, Víctor Conde, the
director, points out that in Loriga's script, in which he has mixed
historical and fictional characters, it is obvious that he has read
Arabic poetry: "It isn't an informative text; it is full of poetic
content and I appreciated very much to have such a beautiful text
at my disposal to which has been added a theatrical architecture
and carpentry as well as an awesome group of actors and crew," says
the director referring not just to themselves (Gómez, Loriga and
Conde) but to the musicians, the great costume designer Yvonne
Blake, the stage set decorator Morgan Large, the music director
Julio Awad, the choreographer Karen Bruce as well as renown artists
of the genre like Miquel Fernández, Julia Möller, Marta Ribera,
Toni Viñals, Guido Balzaretti, Leo Rivera and Elena Medina.
All of them will be working on the
show in which we'll see Tiradh pursuing the horse of his dreams
with the help of an immortal poetess, Al Khansa, who sings the
elegies of the fallen warriors. He will travel through Arabia until
he arrives in Egypt which at the time is undergoing the turmoil of
the Orient at the end of the 19th century, amid tribal
wars and foreign military interests. There, he will get to know his
land and himself and will discover the hard way that his dream,
like a kingdom, cannot be attained in one day.
"Around Tiradh unfolds a magical
world of dancing horses and chattering locusts, of warriors from
the past and future armies, of marvelous inventions; steam ships,
cinematographers, of criminals lurking in the dark and impossible
romances, in a spectacular & fantastic musical that is also the
untold story of the peoples of the desert," its creators
remark.
ROSANA TORRES.