Silvio Rodríguez Opens Peninsular Tour at Barcelona's Liceu

Silvio Rodríguez left the Kalashnikov at home. The Cuban singer-songwriter — who in March reportedly received an imitation, non-firing replica of the weapon he had publicly demanded to defend Cuba against the United States — arrived at Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu carrying only a guitar, or what Woody Guthrie once called his machine for killing fascists. It was the opening night of Rodríguez's peninsular tour, and the Liceu, a venue little accustomed to cries of "viva Fidel, viva Cuba Libre", heard precisely that from someone in the second tier before the concert properly began, to audible applause from much of the audience below.

Joan Isaac and Sílvia Comes warmed the house with a short set of Rodríguez interpretations, including Cua de núvol, Et dono una cançó, and Oli d'una dona amb barret, before the main figure appeared wearing a cap bearing the word "aprendiz" — apprentice — across the brow. He did not leave his chair for the entire performance, accompanied by seven musicians. His wife, Niurka González, played flute throughout, and their daughter, Malva, shared vocal duties.

Rodríguez framed the evening early by reading from José Martí's essay Maestros ambulantes, citing its description of essential truths fitting beneath the wing of a hummingbird, before moving into Ala de colibrí. The phrase "today I propose to found a party of dreams", from one of his songs, set a tone that the concert sustained: idealism coexisting with critique. Rodríguez is, by his own artistic testimony, a defender of the communist ideals of the Cuban revolution and simultaneously a critic of its failings.

The setlist ranged across decades of work. Historia de las sillas demanded hushed reverence; Pequeña serenata diurna and Quién fuera were murmured along by the audience. Virgen de occidente, performed with tropical rhythms, was introduced as a track destined for his forthcoming album, while Viene la cosa, drawn from his most recent record, offered a wry meditation on the Cuban euphemism for politics. Me acosa el carapálida, directed at the United States, and El necio, rendered with a jazz sensibility well suited to the theatre, each drew their own response. Rodríguez also remembered the late Pepe Mujica during the evening.

The most charged moment came when Rodríguez donned a kufiya — the black-and-white Palestinian scarf — and read aloud the poem Halt! by Luis Rogelio Nogueras, written after the poet's visit to Auschwitz. Nogueras's text reproaches the Jewish people for having, in his words, forgotten the vapour of hell too quickly. Rodríguez followed the reading directly with La era está pariendo un corazón, the coupling producing what the evening's most concentrated emotional response.

Outside, the political temperature was rather different in register if not in origin. Six protesters, surrounded by a police cordon that, according to La Vanguardia, more than doubled their number, displayed banners and shouted slogans against Castroism to the curiosity of passing tourists and the hostility of those queuing for the concert. The protesters reportedly called the audience "charos" and "perroflautas"; the audience responded with a mixture of indifference, raised fists, and a gesture that the review described with dry precision as a fist with the index finger extended. None of the noise outside penetrated the theatre walls.

The concert closed with Ojalá and Por quien merece amor in the encore, before the evening's final petition: "Let the frost depart, let the hummingbird fly."