Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes

Golden Laurel Wreath Award for Best Director, 2008

Mess Festival of Sarajevo

Best Visiting Production, 2007

Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors of New York

Best Play, 2007

Unomásuno

Best national production, 2000 - 2001

Mexican Association of Theatre Critics

Best young dramaturgy, 2000 - 2001

Mexican Assosiation of Theatre Critics

Best actors, 2000 - 2001

Mexican Assosiation of Theatre Critics

The stuff of festivals in my mind has to contain provocative and dangerous works like this extraordinary show from Mexico. A staged polemic on the history and morality of castrati was never going to be an easy ride but they certainly gave it, forgive me, balls. Beautiful, bold, brash, abrasive… I was at times lost in the words and at others lost for words. And there were perhaps too many words racing over the stage as surtitles. But my god it had energy and anger and humour too. I loved it and I found it irritating in equal part. And above all it satisfied that need to see something that was not a guaranteed good night out and for that I applaud it. If you want to know what it’s about go see it, to tell more here would destroy it, and if you can’t get to this then get to El Gallo which promises to be equally startling.

The magnificent show and the stupendous cast deserved the unending ovation with which the audience greeted them.

The Siamese twins are admirably played by Raúl Román and Gastón Yanes; the their slave is delightfully played by Kaveh Parmas...

Monsters and Prodigies is a sophisticated yet good-natured lampoon of 18th-century opera. Despite the textbook data, the show is a spoof at heart, and it can be quite funny even for those who are not opera lovers.

Raúl Román's and Gastón Yanes's performances surprised and amused the audience.

A centaur, Siamese twins, a slave, a singing teacher, a castrato and Napoleon himself took huge laughs from the public and touched them with their mixture of comedy and drama, of theatre, singing, music and dance; based on Valdés Kuri's and Jorge Kuri¿s investigation.

The spectators gave prolonged ovations to the show that amused and touched them with its content and performances...

An impeccable production. The staging of Monsters and Prodigies gathered over 1000 spectators, of which it also got the best ovation.

An elegant, yet intentionally foolish play has been constructed using elements of the opera, the extraordinary sexual feats, and other successes of some of the castrati and with a constant reference to other monstrous phenomena. There are practically no insinuations why should there be and the chastity of the vocabulary adds an effective chilling element to the story. The fall of the reign of the castrati, when they are attacked by Voltaire and other intellectuals, is spectacular. At the end, a tiny Napoleon places a huge canon in front of him and simply blows them up.

Both the playwright and the director, fully understand and manage the conventions of baroque theatre, and know how to use them with tremendous effect. With a light touch, the play makes us feel the changes in social and theatre fashions throughout more than a century.

In witnessing how a Mexican company recreates baroque opera so brilliantly, it is impossible not to recall that at the height of the baroque era, Mexico City was the cultural capital of a universal empire.

The young soprano Javier Medina has a pure, clear voice with an extraordinary vocal range and remarkable diction in Italian.

The New York Times, Hispanic Theatre Festival, N.Y.,

USA

, June 28 / 01

The history of the castrati as presented by an unclassifiable Mexican company.

The strength of Valdés Kuri lies in his capacity to contrast opposites, foolishness with harmony, violence with gentleness. These singer-actors are capable of singing the most beautiful melodies (Gluck, Handel..) but are also capable of pleasurable nonsense.

These crazy fits of madness of course add to the charm of Monsters and Prodigies.

In a well blended fusion of history and fantasy, the height of the golden age of the castrati is described. It is not the scenically beautiful what concerns Claudio Valdés Kuri, which seems to come naturally, but it is his audacity in using the various theatrical and musical disciplines on the stage. He achieves a devastating mixture of gravity and irony that provokes the public to view the cruelties of an age amid Pergolesi and Gluck arias.

It is swift review of two centuries of music - from 'bel canto´ to techno passing through Claude FranÇois and Madonna!

Mexico sends over a beautiful iconoclastic work, well documented and even almos educationally worthwhile.

Singer, actor and director, Claudio Valdés Kuri presents a picaresque scene, hallmarked with circus-like aesthetics, which celebrates the theme of the castrati in an ironically tender fashion.

Using scores from Rameau, Pergolesi, Bononcini, Handel, this accomplished company portrays three centuries of the history of music and its fashions.

The National Theatre Company of

Mexico

closed the Theatre Festival magnificently with a deliriously different production. There was a standing ovation in the full house for these talented Aztecs.

The main value of the text resides, undoubtedly, in the fact that addresses the topic of the castrati from different pint of view. So, the audience has the opportunity to come closer to this singular and aberrant practice, from a social, medical, surgical, sexual political and musical approach.

The play undertakes with social and musical depth, the supreme operatic aberration, through a text well documented that shows a comprised and precise history of the opera a deep and moving questioning about singing, human voice, the use and abuse, the capacity of going further, of being a wonder, of the addiction it causes, of the subjugation it provokes, and its terrible monstrosity.

Musical theatre higher than many traditional operas, musical theatre in the most ample and disturbing sense of the word, that in which the words: the emotion, all the senses, the singing, the reflection and dramatic tension melt together to form a whole.

A devastatingly clear and reflective mirror of operatic singing. On it, everybody, without exception, is reflected: singers, composers, scene directors, and librettists. And the reflection, the resultant image is tremendous. Kuri achieves what seemed impossible to undertake this subject: dramatic tension. And the fortunate and wise aesthetic amplitude, the play breaks the limits imposed by genres and time, which the simple operatic references would have stated.

It is surprising to see a group of artists do so many different things and, at the same time, with such a high level of performance.

The dramatic excesses, that go along well with the tone of the baroque style described, contrast with the sobriety of the scenic elements.

Multidisciplinary show or great divertissement very enjoyable and congruent with the heterodox, proteic and imaginative line that was foreseen in Becket, the previous work by this director.

This splendid production shows us an exacerbated imagination and pleasure, a diverse and unrestricted evident talent a theatrical product so new an plethoric of spark and wit.

Living music, choreography, horse training, costumes, props and special effects ad hoc to the time, those that must have been the great productions of the baroque period.

Claudio Valdés Kuri is outstanding for a daring and rigorous will of experimentation. Hernán del Riego, musician and actor of extraordinary gesticulation, and Mario Iván Martínez, also a singer and actor of powerful expression and comic talent, move in the complex development of a body language faithful to the evolution registered in the centuries that are embraced in the play. An intense work supports that shine of simple appearances.

The participation of Javier Medina in the core part of the play in this very good production.

The costumes and wigs have an outstanding role, designed by Mario Iván Martínez, call for detail: it is a delight for the sight.

A brisk sense of humour, without being petulant, runs through this painful story of paradox, greatness and human cruelties, which at the same time show us the horror. And makes of theatre an experience capable of provoking that strange desire of going back once again to the same show and confirm that an experimental play can have a full house days in advance.

Claudio Valdés Kuri, young and talented director, undertakes the sordid story of the castrati. A delirious, playful, dreamlike and pretty fun production in which aesthetic beauty is present all the time.

The Siamese brothers Jean and Ambrose Paré perform their work in a skilful way. Valdés Kuri gathers a talented group of actors-musicians headed by Mario Iván Martínez and Hernán del Riego, along with Javier Medina, who interprets a castrato, showing his vocal qualities as well as his acting capacities. Antonio Duque shows his interpretative talent giving life to Baldassarre Galuppi. The cast is consists of the precise acting of Luis Fernando Villegas, Kaveh Parmas and Miguel Ángel López. Magda Zalles, musical director, and Alan Stark, baroque dances, give the framework of the time to this play.

Of Monsters and Wonders authenticates the Valdés Kuri¿s great talent and offers a visual and sound joyful moment for the audience.

Surprising and enriching play by Jorge Kuri. The prodigious scene director is Claudio Valdés Kuri. Because it is not easy to melt so many good shots: la stage conception of poetic simplicity and the lighting designed, both, by Víctor Zapatero, give this production an dreamlike beauty. Magda Zalles, as the musical director, participates in the dynamics of the play in a very successful way, illustrating and playing. The acting task of the actors dazzles because of its discipline and virtues; exceptional singers and, in the case of Antonio Duque, the playing of the harpsichord.

One surprise after another keeps the audience in a discourse of neurotic and metalinguistic freshness. The brightness of the text flourishes in the hands of the enviable team. A superb horse takes us to the childish illusion, the rider is Luis Fernando Villegas that shows his talent and gives us a very successful copy of Napoleon.

The voices come out potent in their beauty. The singular tessitura of Javier Medina stands out with vigour. Mario Iván Martínez and Hernán del Riego couple in a delicious schizophrenia. The vocal cords of both actors are privileged. Miguel Ángel López y Kaveh Parmas, both show an extraordinary physical effort, are very good actors.

Mario Iván Martínez and Hernán del Riego are involved in a monstrous Siamese reality, and accomplish a prodigious complement one to the other.

The production of Igor Lozada is clean and adequate helping to highlight with freedom the work of the actors.

A production that offers a different theatrical experience to the senses of the audience.

There is a combination of sense of humour and scenic talent, music, singing, equestrian choreographies, mythological tales and the possibility of listening the voice of Il Virtuoso Javier Medina, who due to a childhood illness suffered from natural castration and preserves the soprano voice.

There is no playwrighting; it is mores a scenic-musical-humorist tale that seems to be the exception to the rule: it shows that it is possible, under certain circumstances, to produce theatre without a dramatic text. The results show that if there is clarity in the proposal and precision in the effort, one can come to build a moving fiction.

The space conception is interesting. There is only 40 tons of sand, on it the horse and the actors move. The actors are expose to the empty space but they give their best. The Siamese couple is works with meticulousness, and together this two actors reach a facial free work. It is important to mention the musical menu offered, their versatility as actor and singers is remarkable and their effort seems endless. Sulaimán moves in the sand as if it were his natural habitat. Quirón, the centaur, seems cut off of a mythological book, his body work is precise as well as his intention. The delicate movements of the white and beautiful horse give an elegant atmosphere to the comic tone of the actors.

This spectacle offers a fresh, interesting and, above all, amusing, theatre proposal.

Ladies and gentlemen: Is it possible nowadays the existence of monsters and wonders? It may seem that these beings belong to ancient times, but nevertheless it is possible to see the on stage thanks to the play Monsters and Prodigies.

The journey is brilliant and pleasant, bright and precise, beautiful and critic.

The play bastes subtle cultural links, that allow us not only to follow the terrible and moving story of the castrati, but it also opens the reflection and stands a position in relation to culture.

Have you ever felt fascinated by the monsters, the wonders and all those things far from our understanding? This fascination is emphasized by the presence of the Siamese couple, embodies outstandingly by Mario Iván Martínez and Hernán del Riego.

A play that conjugates talent (director, actors, designers, and all the artistic crew), beauty (the scenic proposal, images, singing); the sense of humour, the possibility of sharing the disturbing world of the castrati, the surprise and the intrusion of the audience in the scene, the fascination for the history of music, the culture of show business, the precision and the requirements of a high quality theatre.

Claudio Valdés Kuri authenticates all the expectation he provoked with his first play, Becket by Anouilh. He is the ideal director for this text, where he pairs music and acting with a great playful sense building a great spectacle with minimum resources.

The musical direction by Magda Zalles, the baroque dances by Alan Stark and the splendid costumes designed by Mario Iván Martínez are the substantial contributions to the show.

The Paré brothers, played by Mario Iván Martínez and Hernán del Riego, adjust in a very outstanding way their movements and show off about their talent as actors and singers, as Antonio Duque, singer and harpsichord player, who incarnates a burlesque Galuppi. Javier Medina, the virtuoso castrate, achieves a good actoral performance. Kaveh Parmas, as the Negro Sulaimán has very fun scenes, Miguel Ángel López plays an excellent Quirón and the horse rider Luis Fernando Villegas, very elegant on Campeador, enters the game when he becomes Napoleon.

This play has an interesting text with a wit direction in which a small group of virtuosos achieve a full spectacle.

Monsters and Prodigies opened successfully in its international presentation. The History of the Castrati filled the audience with magic.

Cadiz Information, Cádiz Ibero-American Festival,

Spain

, Oct 21 / 00

An original and new play. A play of high quality that had a great success at Cadiz.

THE CRITICS