Mayhem: The most Gothic and brutal Lady Gaga starts in Las Vegas new tour, turning her life into an opera | Culture

Lady Gaga seems to have deeply internally that maximum of Socrates “know yourself.” Because nothing better than looking inside and seeing its strengths, and throwing a walk through the past, so that the singer presents a round project. The homonym tour of your album Mayhemwhich launched last March, started on Wednesday, July 16 in Las Vegas and, in that hot desert night, the attendees quickly understood the reasons why the immense show of the operatic tone that the New York singer has permeated is selling tickets in eyelash: because she enjoys it, and knows that her fans will do it. And because it is an immense show, which keeps the public standing and is taken care of at the millimeter for the head of someone who has been in the entertainment industry for two decades and is very clear about what character is and what role it occupies in it.

Three years after his last tour, Lady Gaga – the name chosen for fame by Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, 39 – throws the rest. The singer takes the reins of the artistic direction of a show that, in just two hours, reviews a good part of her new album; From the new classic that is already Abracadabra until How Bad Do You Want Megoing through Perfect Celebrity, Garden of Eden, Zombieboy, Shadow of a Man o Vanish into youwhere he goes down to the track and mixes with the public. Also those unmissable successes that have raised him in these almost 20 years of career and do not fail: Bad Romance, Paparazzi, Judas, Just Dance, Million Reasons o Shallow (I inexplicably miss the catchy Telephone).

But he also reviews herself: she faces her self of the past, in different versions, she fights with the old gaga, even temporarily sends her to the cemetery, or beyond, walking through the Estigia lagoon.

He show It is not entirely new, because part of the premise has already taught it at the Coachella Festival, in Indian (California), in mid -April, but is much more refined and more complete than that, or that its replica in the massive scenario of Copacabana, in Brazil. If it was already a huge show, now he wins, with his thirty dancers, his very careful costume, his half dozen wigs. It maintains its structure in acts (four, plus a great end) and, although it does not last much more (it is around two hours and 10 minutes), it has a clearer conduct thread and some more themes. The singer is also fully vocally, with fewer moments of drowning than those who were noticed at the festival. The trial months are noticed.

His hand and his vision behind everything is evident. Since the public enters the function, as if it were an opera (entitled The Art of Personal Chaosor the art of personal chaos), there is a music palace on stage. Before the concert starts, a video of Gaga, dressed in red, with gela, gloves and immense lantern sleeves while writing in a parchment with an immense pen, is repeated for almost 40 minutes, while arias of operas sound Carmen y The traviata. All this helps to settle the tone of what you are looking for.

And he succeeds: in the end, more than a collection of songs, Gaga theatricalizes his artistic career, makes it a romantic dark opera of the nineteenth century, with changes of costumes, feathers, flowers, veils, smoke and fire on stage, but also through a fight against herself. This Lady Gaga faces the Lady Gaga of the past, played by another woman, with her face covered but widely recognizable, with some of the famous looks that the singer took at the time. Sometimes, the fight reaches the hands. The current gaga comes and goes during the acts of its opera in different versions of itself, until it manages to accept and see that it is not necessary to die or kill, but look forward.

It may sound cheesy, but that is the message and what it intends: with its staging, with its selection of themes (each designed for a moment of that vital route) and with the messages it transmits to its fans. In the two hours, put in his role – we must not forget that, after all, he is also an actress, and a fan of the drama -, he barely addresses the public. He only does it to ask for applause, dances or hands up. But when he sits on the piano to interpret Die With A Smile (Without Bruno Mars, although he is his neighbor, because he has a residence in the MGM Park, in front of his stadium), he is about to break. “Thank you all for the ways in which you have made me strong. Thank you for being a fabulous community, thank you for showing me so much love and love. Before going on stage I could not believe that you were here, that this was my show”He told his followers in tears.

The night is full of memorable moments: of the very long white veil that looks in Paparazziwhich ends up converted between applause into a rainbow flag, a giant skull, or the cage from which it is broken at the beginning. That basic operatic theater is also used conscientiously, growing, diminishing, in ruins. And also the arrow -shaped catwalk, which becomes of course on the dance floor, with the impeccable body of dancers, which manages to star in the moments of pause or changing the costume without losing the public’s attention, but also on a chess board or in the river, with a boat included.

In the final credits (as if it were a film), Gaga appears as director, and also as responsible for the creative direction, where a couple of regular collaborators such as their choreographer, Parris Goebel.

For more than six months and 60 concerts will walk the tour of Mayhem Throughout the world, from London to Barcelona (in October, after seven years of absence), Sydney or Tokyo. Instead of great stadiums, such as Taylor Swift or Beyoncé (which the first nights, in Los Angeles, left some unsold tickets), the artist has opted for medium scenarios, with an average of 20,000 people, such as those who have filled the T-Mobile de Las Vegas (and two more in the city have left). With that, it has been ensured to sell everything. On Wednesday morning, they only remained on the official website of resale, between 300 and 2,000 dollars. In the streets of Las Vegas, the Backing booths announced tickets for a little less than 300, but they reached $ 4,000, the sellers were rubbing their hands, making their August without yet to be. “It is Lady Gaga!” They smiled. She is also clear, clearer than ever: she is Lady Gaga and has come to prove it.