Just four days after the death of legendary flamenco guitarist, Paco de Lucía, Sara Baras opened the 2014 London Flamenco Festival with La Pepa. It was an emotional and unforgettable evening filled with sentiment, especially when Baras sat onstage during the finale and poured out loving thoughts and memories of the great guitarist.
Her latest show, Vuela (fly), opened this year’s festival proceedings, presented as a memorial to de Lucía while also jointly celebrating the 25th anniversary of her company, and the 20th incarnation of the London Flamenco Festival.
Baras has honed her stage shows into theatrical spectaculars, with stunning lighting designs by Óscar Gómez De Los Reyes, which never failed to provide emphatic visuals, possessing more than a touch of Las Vegas. The lighting elevated the less salubrious set designs, mostly comprising four large pot plants and to begin with, a huge projection of the rear view of Baras, the fingers of her open palms splayed wide behind her back. It’s a measure of her star quality that those hands could not have belonged to anyone else!
Baras is now 54. I mention this simply because the power of her performance is incredulous at that age and for the first hour of the show I thought how cleverly she paced herself. She began seated on a chair, in the style of La Chana who performed here at the 2018 Festival, aged 71. However, once the chair, a sort of mini golden throne, was discarded, Baras’ performance was as powerful as ever. She rattled out hundreds of beats a minute with insouciant precision in her trademark zapateado, and swivelling in fast flamenco turns; but until the finale these impressive solos were tightly interlaced with the performance of others, either by her six excellent bailaoras plus their shared male partner (Daniel Saltares). In the opening ensemble number, post Baras-on-the-chair, the rhythms of seven pairs of feet were enhanced by the simultaneous stamping of their walking canes, a traditional flamenco device.
The spectacle of Vuela was given extra extravagance by a plethora of costume changes for both the star and her entourage. Baras wore an elegant black suit, and an intriguing double-layered dress in which she could manipulate the outer layer as if it were a cape and then tuck it into her waistband so that we could concentrate on her stunning footwork. The most unappealing of her several outfits was that of the finale, a shapeless purple tent of a dress with layers of frills, tiered like a wedding cake, out of which sprouted a black bra top. It was the only blip in an otherwise impressive array of costumes and shawls by Luis F. Dos Santos.
To be frank, Baras could have worn muddy overalls, and it would not have detracted from her all-consuming theatricality. She oozes charisma in the manner of every great stage star, commanding our full attention but nonetheless giving fulsome praise to her support team, leading them to take applause after each of their solos. They were all outstanding but special praise must go to Rafael Moreno for his masterful percussive skill on the cajón and to Alexis Lefevre for an impressive riff of jazz flamenco on the violin, reminding me of the late great Stéphane Grappelli.
Early thoughts about Baras pacing herself were completely blown away in the final third of the show when she was virtually ever-present, enjoying intimate conversations in a passionate seguiríya with Saltenas, and then one-by-one with several of her musicians: a vivacious copla with Lefevre and the cantaor, El Mati. The latter (full name, Matías López) displayed an impressive vocal range from the heights of a countertenor to the deep guttural notes of cante jondo.
In a show celebrating the genius of de Lucía, the guitar-playing must be outstanding, and musical director Keko Baldomero did not disappoint with a beautiful soleá solo entitled Solitude. He was very ably supported throughout the show by a second guitarist, Andrés Martínez.
As in all flamenco shows, Vuela took an adorable age to come to a full stop! The house lights went up for the first of many standing ovations at about the 90-minute mark with still half-an-hour to go, during which Baras introduced her fellow artistes, including calling on to the stage, the Festival’s founder and director, Miguel Marín, who gave a brief cameo of his own dancing skills, alongside Moreno and the other outstanding singer (May Fernández) both also giving some impromptu dance moves.
The absorbing power of Baras’ performance appears unabated and although one supposes that each visit to London may be her last, on this showing it hardly seems likely. Like the voice of Tom Jones, the feet of Sara Baras have an enduring artistry that remains second to none.
