After opening in March in Santander, Música para Hitler (García Serrano and Rubio 2021) played in Teatros del Canal (Madrid) in April and has since then embarked on a tour around Spain; for instance, it will play in Murcia on 3rd May.
Based on a real event, the play, which revolves around two opposing figures (cellist Pau Casals [1876-1973] and a fictive Nazi), fictionalizes a key moment in this Catalan musician’s career. Music, moreover, is a central element of the play; it is used to warn against the dangers of extreme polarization.
Casal’s important contribution to music is thus visibilized. The play’s artistic director, Juan Carlos Rubio, was interviewed for the journal Revista Godot, where he stated that this 20th-century influential musician is known “for his skilled interpretation of the cello and for his virtuosic technique”; yet, he was equally internationally recognized for his political action in support of world peace. This is an aspect of his life which Música para Hitler also highlights (Hinajeros 2025). Drawing attention to the figure of Casal’s persona can be thereby read as a means of restorative justice. In general terms, the play attempts to bring to the limelight the work of those who fought against Hitler and denounced his crimes, regardless of the danger of punishment for taking such an open approach.
Whilst the core event of the play is based on a real historic event (the visit of a Nazi officer at Casals’ house in Prades (south of France), where the musician had exiled in 1939 and where this officer turned up to request him to play for Hitler), the particulars of how the cellist replied negatively are fictionalized. In their construction of the encounter between these two opposing figures, García Serrano and Rubio have placed special emphasis on the dialectics between music and Nazism. The binary opposition between the two characters is highlighted in several manners: references to Wilhelm Furtwängler; presence of a cello as a key element of the props; a circular wooden stage, designed by Leticia Gañan and Allen Wilner to represent a soundboard.
Music, therefore, stands as a symbol of cultural resistance against hate and inhumanity and is a key component of the play’s commitment to highlight human being’s capacity to choose, to say “No”; the play’s underlying message seeks to remind the audience that keeping up to our morals remains a relevant choice today.
Finally, if you want to know a little bit more about the play, please make sure to read through this link, where the two authors of the text are interviewed. Carlos Hipólito and Kiti Mánver, who play the roles of Casals and his life-partner in exile (Titi), are also interviewed.
References:
Hinajeros, David. 2025. “Pau Casals, el músico que se negó a tocar para Hitler”. Godot: Revista de Artes Escénicas. Available at: https://revistagodot.com/pau-casals-el-musico-que-se-nego-a-tocar-para-hitler/
Related news:
Esteban Monje, Ángel. 2025. “Música para Hitler”. Kritilo. Available at: https://kritilo.com/2025/04/09/musica-para-hitler/#more-12692
Losánez, Raúl. 2025. “Crítica de Música para Hitler: El desplante de Pau Casals al Führer”. La Razón. Available at:: https://www.larazon.es/cultura/critica-musica-hitler-desplante-pau-casals-fuhrer_2025041567fe203fa1a8a90001ac1dc6.html
Vallejo, Javier. 2025. “Música para Hitler: La naturalidad de Pau Casals y el artificio del Führer”. El País. Available at: https://elpais.com/babelia/2025-04-04/musica-para-hitler-la-naturalidad-de-pau-casals-y-el-artificio-del-fuhrer.html
