Dua Lipa: The predicted victory of a queen with more talent than planning

Sometimes, on the most international, crowded, and ultra-planned tours in global pop, decisions are made that are so unusual they can only lead to stupor. Dua Lipa's concerts begin with almost five minutes of new age piano anesthesia while we watch a looping projection of ocean waves, more like a PowerPoint presentation of results from a shareholders' meeting. The 16,000 spectators gathered yesterday, Sunday, at the Movistar Arena in Madrid had to hold their breath until the diva emerged by elevator at 9:16 p.m., dazzling and resplendent as could be, showing off her glitter and those endless legs bestowed upon her by the gods. Perhaps it's a delaying tactic to increase our eagerness, but it's astonishing that an artist as brimming with virtues as this Londoner of Albanian-Kosovar descent takes so long to conquer an audience already surrendered.

Lipa is a woman of powerful voice and movement, knowing that no one can beat her because, just a few months away from turning thirty, she enjoys all the blessings that global mass culture demands at this stage of the game. From the very beginning, she's escorted by a dance group (or body) so generous in numbers that it takes a while to count and recount its 12 members, and with all of them, she blends in and interacts as if the vocal part were for her—how wonderful, a piece of cake. That said, everything is so planned, calculated, and measured that at times we get the feeling we're not attending a concert, but rather the recording of a music video.

Dua thus embarked on the European leg of her stratospheric tour, renewing her faith in that "radical optimism" that served as the name of her still-recent third album, and establishing her as the leader of a discourse that is, we're not sure, hopeful or merely candid and willful. She gives it her all: her booming voice, the choreography, the sumptuous costume changes , and a bouquet of hits conceived for dancing, escapism, and smiles. But it's surprising that in a decade-long career, she hasn't even considered for a moment the possibility of leaving the middle ground and taking any risk that would require her to stray from the obvious and the commonplace. In a quarter of an hour, we'd already witnessed three bursts of confetti and the first round of fireworks . And we had to wait until the sixth title, that great song that answers to the name of Levitating , for a funk bass to rise for the first time in front of the thick mortar of synthesizers and two-by-four drums that until that moment had monopolized everything.

As with so many other ostentatious productions, the Radical Optimism Tour 's repertoire adheres to an unchanging order, whether in Madrid or Vladivostok. That's why there was enormous curiosity about which Spanish version our queen of dance-pop would tackle in the only distinctive moment of the evening. " I'm very excited and a little nervous about singing in Spanish," announced Dua Lipa, her Spanish still imprecise, but strained and very welcome. And then she had no better idea than to sink her teeth into Héroe by Enrique Iglesias, a "local artist" living 7,000 kilometers away after having left us with all kinds of musical experiences more akin to purgatory than religion. If we think that Lipa opted for Crowded House in New Zealand or Tame Impala and AC/DC in Australia, there's some slight reason to, ahem, feel disadvantaged in the distribution of blessings to homegrown talents.

The Future Nostalgia singer exudes an undeniable charm when she comes down to greet the nearest faithful, a moment that Dani and Edu, boyfriends in the front row, take advantage of to take a selfie with her. An ecstatic fan wearing a visor gives her a super-cool doll-shaped replica, a 22-year-old boy repeats "You mean everything to me" to her in impeccable English, and another girl gives her a cream-colored boa, which she incorporates into her outfit for a few songs. The best part of the night happens, in fact, when she doesn't have to pay so much attention to the strict script and a glimmer of light opens up for the pulsating closeness of the audience. Hence, during the second act - for which Dua replaces the first grey dress with one in passionate red - These Walls works so well : not only because of its classic and impeccable workmanship, but because the boss moves to the small stage, in the middle of the dance floor, and gives prominence to her seven musicians, who surround her in a circle and show that they are not intended as extras.

The third quarter of the evening turns out to be the most toxin-removing and perfect for sending a WhatsApp message to your Zumba instructor. Back in the silver gray, Dua kicks things off with a spectacular Physical , a dance hit as devastating as its eponymous predecessor by Olivia Newton-John; and with the much more renewable than nuclear joy of Electricity , because clapping and dancing in a circle during a song is always a good thing. And then, the audiovisual designer strikes a chord again , introducing the fourth act with slow-motion images of galloping thoroughbreds, a scenario that can only get worse if we intersperse messages from Paulo Coelho's first year. A real-life example: "Eternity is impossible to measure."

We thus enter the section dedicated to songs of swoony love, and hence the styling veers towards a gorgeous, dazzling white dress , which we suspect is too sparsely woven to be used for a possible engagement to her partner, the model and actor Callum Turner. But our sublime poet of images has yet to say his last word: Happy for You , which leans towards charming pop until the epilogue of an absurd drum solo ruins everything, is accompanied by a background of celestial cirrocumulus clouds, perhaps a discard from Bill Gates' Windows 98 wallpapers.

And so, in the absence of anyone providing even the slightest bit of planning, we can easily go from horror to ecstasy. Love Again (which embeds a wonderful sample of Al Bowlly's My Woman ) takes place with the queen surrounded by a disturbing ring of fire. And that's nothing compared to her imminent levitation in a white robe on a circular swing, a stage set so striking, and unattainable for artists suffering from vertigo, that it ends up sowing a mixture of astonishment and unease during the performance (voice and piano, at times just voice) of the portentous interpretation of Anything for Love . It's the closest humankind has come during the 21st century to emulating Whitney Houston.

Before the encores comes the false ending with the infectious and unashamedly eighties-inspired "Be the One ," so conducive to handclapping. And the epilogue features black attire and gold chains, a stretch to return to the club (or after-hours ) with "New Rules ," the gymnastics routines of " Don't Start the Night," and the static chorus of "Houdini ," the one in which Lipa has almost all 12 notes of the chromatic scale left over. In reality, what Dua Lipa has most of is talent; now she just needs to dare to translate it into emotion.