Documentation

Context and Artistic Process

The production was conceived in direct dialogue with IMPA, a worker-recuperated factory in Buenos Aires that had become a cultural centre after being reclaimed and self-managed by its workers.

The factory was not treated as a backdrop but as a dramaturgical partner. Britten’s meditation on loss, pilgrimage and the search for truth resonated with the social and political history of a place built through collective resistance and the ongoing defence of work as a shared value. The industrial architecture, the traces of manual labour and the coexistence of artistic and productive practices became integral elements of the scenic language.

Co-directing the production alongside Diego Rodríguez, we developed a staging that embraced the dialogue between ritual and everyday life. Rather than recreating a medieval landscape, the performance unfolded within the existing environment of the factory, allowing performers, musicians and audience to inhabit the same architectural and symbolic space. The orchestra, singers and movement became part of a single scenic organism in which music, space and collective presence continuously informed one another.

The creative process was grounded in the cooperative ethos of the company. Artistic decisions emerged through sustained dialogue across disciplines, while the production itself was built through shared labour, with performers and collaborators contributing beyond their specialised roles. This collective mode of creation shaped not only the making of the work but also its aesthetic, proposing opera as a living, collaborative practice rooted in its social context rather than in institutional convention.

As a member of Lírica Lado B’s permanent artistic collective, I contributed not only in my credited artistic role on this production, but also to the company’s collaborative practice through production planning, organizational coordination and artistic development.

Press

“What we have gradually come to realize is that we do this because we truly want to, and that our real capital is our work. What we cannot achieve with money, we achieve through the work we devote to something we love.” — German Ivancic
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“Lírica Lado B opens a new path, proving that it is possible to be part of the opera world outside the rules of the commercial circuit while creating meaningful change.”
Anccom

“The visual concept created by Barbados—Diego Rodríguez and Germán Ivancic—was extraordinary. From the opening procession to the final image, every theatrical element transformed an industrial workers’ cooperative into a space of remarkable poetic and spiritual power.”
Opera Club

Tribuna Musical

Barricada TV

Cantábile