One rainy afternoon I sat down to have a chat with María Bayo (born Fitero, Navarre, Spain) in a small room inside the recently inaugurated Baluarte Auditorium in Pamplona.
The night before, María was the star of the inaugural concert. She arrived straight from Seville, after five nights as Marguerite in Gonoud’s Faust, a demanding role that perhaps she accepted as a challenge.
Although a priori María transmits a certain sense of frailness, inside she has an iron will: her entire artistic life has been filled with challenges. If anything at all frightens her, it is being typecast or having labels attached to her. And right now her aim seems to be to show herself and everyone else, that she is in a position to tackle a wide variety of works and repertoires. María is one of the greats but when you are talking to her, it is as though she expressly wants to rid herself of the diva image.
Prior to our long conversation, we took a stroll around the spacious Auditorium, the work of the young, but already reputed architect, Francisco Mangado. And while preparing the photo shoot, María’s slight figure seemed to become lost in the geometric rooms, amid the profundity of the lines framing the black slate floor and toasted woods, the metal and glass, the green foliage peaking out from the neighbouring La Ciudadela Park, and grey sky.
She is tired, yet excited at the prospect of spending two days resting in her native region, visiting her father, nostalgically evoking fond memories of her mother, and catching up with old friends. So when she starts talking, you hardly even notice that she is tired. |
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