The performance of ‘Tirant lo Blanc’, an adaptation of what is considered to be the first novel written in the Catalan language by Joanot Martorell, includes in the cast well-known actors and actresses from Catalonian scenarios. Under the direction of Calixto Bieito, we find Joan Negrié, who gives life to the knight who is the leading character in the play; Victòria Pagès or Carles Canut, amongst others. The cast is completed with the performance of pop singer, Beth Rodergas, who plays Carmesina, the Knight Tirant’s loved-one. Converted into a cultural reference and saved by Cervantes in the famous scene of the burning of the Quixote books, Bieito has carried out a meticulous adaptation of this text which narrates the epic and amorous accomplishments of the Knight Tirant while describing the established social and moral orders of the Middle Ages.

Calixo Bieito (Miranda de Ebro, 1963) is one of the most important figures on the Catalan and Spanish theatrical panorama. He has directed other adaptations of classics of universal literature, such as Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’, Molière’s ‘The Bourgeois Gentleman’ or ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ by García Lorca. Amongst other awards, he has received the ADE Trophy for ‘La Vida es Sueño’ (Life is a Dream); the prize for the best theatre director given by The Irish Times-ESB Theatre Awards for ‘Comedias Bárbaras’ (Barbarous Comedies) at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival, the Herald Archangel prize for the best artist of the 2003 Edinburgh Festival for his adaptation of ‘Hamlet’, or the 2005 Ercilla award for ‘King Lear’. His recent ‘Platform’, a successful adaptation of the controversial novel by Michel Houellebecq, has received two Max Awards in their 2008 edition.