Throughout the 2025–26 school year, during their religious education lessons, the first-year secondary school pupils (ESO) at the Salesian centre in Villamuriel worked hard to familiarise themselves with the songs from the musical “Jesús, el compañero perfecto” (Jesus, the Perfect Companion), then to learn them and finally to master the choreography. “This is the second year we’ve taken part, and it certainly won’t be the last,” said the heads of the Salesian school.
Ideas and highlights of the show
It is the year 2050. Eva, played by Amanda García – a mother and teacher, in that order, in real life – is visited by a humanoid robot played by Laureano Ramírez – an actor and singer with extensive experience in musical theatre. Together they form a dynamic duo on stage at the Symphony Hall of the “Miguel Delibes” Cultural Centre.
Does Emmanuel, the humanoid robot, have answers to everything? With algorithmic precision and speed, he offers Eva solutions that could be provided by any Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant – such as those used on the computers, tablets and mobile phones of the large audience filling the auditorium.
But Eva feels she needs something more, something beyond a robot’s understanding. Then a kneeler enters the scene. The lighting projects a cross. And the sound of an organ transports the audience inside a church where the protagonist opens up to speak with God, after a time away from him, and shares a crisis of faith with which anyone can identify: the incomprehension and the feeling of loneliness caused by the death of a loved one.
“Alleluia!” sings the large choir of more than a hundred schoolchildren, conducted by Father Goyo Casado, a priest of the Archdiocese of Valladolid, to remind Eva too that Jesus “will always be a faithful friend” and the Church, a “home”.
A choir of 4,000 students
This large choir – made up of the pupils who performed in the eight productions staged in Valladolid and comprising pupils from various schools, both in the city and in neighbouring provinces and the nearby diocese of Palencia – is the star of the show and has enabled around 4,000 pupils, across the various performances, to take centre stage at the “Miguel Delibes” cultural centre in Valladolid and feel like artists for a day, whilst taking part in a show with a thought-provoking message.
A musical whose staging marks the culmination of a project that began at school in September, with students and teachers working through teaching units based on religious education content, whilst also rehearsing the show’s songs and choreography.
Learning through song
Cantamor, the production company behind the show – founded by Fr Goyo Casado and Sergio Merino, a committed layman who, on stage, plays guitar in a band comprising three other musicians – has once again moved the people of Valladolid with a performance that champions faith and the soul in an age of artificial intelligence.
It is a project that evangelises and teaches at the same time, through song, bringing pupils closer to a humanistic and Catholic perspective on a topical issue that is not alien to them, such as the appropriate use of these new technologies. And all this, to the rhythm of pop, rock, blues and even rumba.
Archbishop Luis Javier Argüello García, Archbishop of Valladolid, stated before the start of the second performance of the show on 1 June: “It will surely be among the first initiatives putting into practice what Leo XIV asks of us in his encyclical.”
Bishop Argüello was referring directly to Magnifica Humanitas, the text recently published by the Holy Father in which Leo XIV states: “In the age of artificial intelligence, when human dignity risks being overshadowed by new forms of dehumanisation, we have an urgent duty to remain profoundly human, lovingly safeguarding that magnificent humanity which has been given to us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, and which no machine will ever be able to replace in its splendour” (MH, 15).
A statement very much in tune with this musical, in which education – to which, in the same encyclical, Leo XIV attributes “decisive importance” for the digital age – and music are placed at the service of the common good.
With “Jesús, el compañero perfecto”, the project that Cantamor launched last year with another musical, “Si Jesús Hubiera tenido Instagram” (If Jesus Had Had Instagram), has thus been consolidated; a project that will be further developed next year, with a new production for which registrations are already open: the musical “El viaje de tu vida” (The Journey of Your Life).
Source: Salesianos.info
{gallery}Spagna – Musical Villamuriel 2026{/gallery}
