Angélica Liddell's 'Liebestod' Merges Love, Death, and Bullfighting

Angélica Liddell's performance 'Liebestod' premiered as the third chapter of Milo Rau's 'Storia(e) del Teatro' project at NTGent. The work draws on the biography of torero Juan Belmonte, Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde', and the writings of Emil Cioran. Liddell, born in Figueras in 1966, uses blood, monologue, and song to confront audiences with existential truths. The stage features pale orange drapes and a wooden palisade evoking a bullring. Liddell addresses spectators directly, admitting her inability to tell anything but her own life and criticizing a society of 'cold, stale, bourgeois super-development'. The performance includes a silent bull as a Tristan figure and a Michelangelo-style pietà with a disabled performer. Liddell's voice shifts from shrill to sweet, accelerating and breaking into song. The work is both a self-critical confession and a demand for audience self-honesty, linking tauromachy to spiritual mystery.