Alejandro Sanz‘s songs form the foundation of El Alma al Aire, a new musical that builds an original story inspired by his repertoire. The story is set in Gazulea, a fictional fishing village inspired by Cádiz, located in the south of Spain. The Stage Entertainment production premieres on Thursday (Oct. 1) at the Teatro Ocaso Coliseum in Madrid, after four years of development and with Sanz participating in the creative process.
“Sometimes I had fantasized about my songs ending up on stage in a different way,” Sanz said in a statement, in which he acknowledged discovering “a world that fascinates me, where I am a complete apprentice.” What surprised him the most was the musical transformation of his repertoire. “A musical is not a succession of songs, one after another, without any connection,” he added.
El Alma al Aire — which can be translated as “The Soul in the Open Air” — follows Ale, a young man with musical talent who lives with his mother and grandfather, and has Bruno as his best friend. The arrival of Alma, a real estate developer from Madrid who settles in Gazulea with her two daughters, disrupts the community’s life and sparks a conflict between the town’s future and the preservation of its roots. From there, relationships between characters from different generations intertwine as each one faces their own decisions.
Pepe Nufrio, Amanda Digón, Lydia Fairén, Hugo Ruiz and Natán Segado make up the principal cast, accompanied by a live band of 12 musicians. The vocal and acting prowess of the cast stands out, in a large-scale production that matches the level of major international musicals. The story celebrates love in various forms and features unexpected twists, with moments of humor and others that evoke laughter, applause and even a few surprises from the audience.
Flamenco plays a prominent role and finds one of its most powerful moments in Inma La Carbonera, who portrays Levante, the personification of the characteristic wind that blows on the Cádiz coast, while a storm even brings rain to the stage during the performance.
Playwright Álvaro Tato, a two-time winner of the Max Awards for Performing Arts, had considerable freedom in crafting the story, with only a few guidelines from Sanz: it shouldn’t be about his life, and the south, its culture and its roots had to be present. Although Sanz was born in Madrid, he has a deep connection to Cádiz: his parents are from the province, and he spent part of his childhood there. So the playwright traveled south in search of inspiration.
“I went down to Cádiz with a list of songs, to feel the Levante wind and to listen, simply letting myself be carried away,” Tato tells Billboard Español, recalling the trip where Gazulea and its characters began to take shape.
The repertoire includes Sanz’s biggest hits like “Amiga Mía,” “¿Lo Ves?” and “La Música No Se Toca,” which the audience immediately recognize and which here find their place within the story. Some even surprise with the way they are incorporated: “Y Si Fuera Ella” becomes a duet, while “Corazón Partío” starts with sorrow and ends in celebration. “We try to ensure that audiences looking for the songs will find them, but also feel like they are being sung for the first time,” Tato explains.
During the process, Tato discovered something in Sanz’s songwriting that helped bring his songs to the stage. “They always deal with someone wanting something they don’t have,” he notes. That sense of longing — whether romantic, personal or emotional — naturally gave the characters a starting point to make those lyrics their own.
Sanz closely followed the project from its early stages, participating in readings, rehearsals and meetings, and sharing his impressions with the team. Tato recalls that he always did so from the perspective of the “first spectator,” also marveling at how his own songs could tell a new story in this context. “You recognize great masters because they never stop being children in some way, never lose their sense of wonder,” the playwright says.
After four years of work, El Alma al Aire is just beginning its journey in Madrid, where Gazulea and its characters aim to have a long life on stage.
