Season 2021— 2022
‘Paradise’: from the Greek parádeisos, ‘garden’. The Hellenics borrowed it from the ¯, meaning ‘supreme place’. Sanskrit paradesa, ¯ In Persian it is pairidaeza, inspired by Old Iranian pardez; in Hebrew, pardes. Before being humanized by Christianity, the gods lived there, as did the human power of knowledge. The flowers and groves around it were a metaphorical threshold, a wall of plants impregnable to evil. In paradise, the centre of the world for the ancients, are the fruits of life and of dual knowledge. No one was expelled from it. Anyone can find paradise in their heart or in their two honest hands. But it is essentially something to be lost. Some decide to depart, to forsake it, by crossing its four rivers. Those who leave paradise do so because they have accepted time. Only those who have dug and sown are able to return to its shadowy light, like birds remembering the branch of former springs.
Ramón Andrés essayist and thinker
Paradise
The Gateway to Paradise
“I have tried to write Paradise / Do not move / let the wind speak / that is paradise.” So wrote the great and flawed poet Ezra Pound, at the end of his life, in Notes for Cantos CXX. Human history is littered with attempts to write or create paradises—attempts that sometimes result in the invention of new forms of hell. Pound’s own quest for a pure modernist language led him into the morass of Fascism and anti-Semitism. As a species, we seem unable to create any kind of beauty that is not marked by its opposite. Walter Benjamin said it most bluntly: “There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism”.
patrons have seen performances by the likes of Caruso, Callas, Tebaldi, Pavarotti, Caballé, and de los Angeles. Singers at such a level can communicate the sense not only of an unsurpassable achievement but also of a vague hope for transformation, for elevation, even for revolution. Wagner’s Parsifal, an attempt at bringing the purely mystical into dramatic reality, had its first official staging outside Bayreuth at the Liceu, in the first hours of January 1, 1914. The performance went on until five in the morning—testimony to a religious faith in the significance of the act.
Yet we cannot give up our quest for paradise—we cannot envision life without some brighter horizon at the end of the journey. The singular human capacity to think outside of our own moment, to brood back upon history or to dream into the future, is innate to the species and the defining element of our human order. It is surely also innate to the impulse behind the creation of art. Images carved on the walls of caves were among the earliest modes of articulation, of memory, of the formation of identity and community. Music must have played a similar role, even if we have no record of what it sounded like. Opera is the art form in which all of the artistic rituals of self-expression and self-perpetuation coincide. There can be little doubt that the lost ancestors of the genre go back to the beginning of civilization and before.
We hardly need a reminder that this quest for paradise and perfection is destined to fall forever short of its goal. By the end of the year 1914, the world had plunged into an orgy of destruction, and Wagner’s music had become a propaganda weapon in the hands of a military machine. The advent of the Nazi regime, in 1933, saw an even darker manipulation of Wagner’s sacred aims. Considered in the broadest sense, opera remains a profoundly problematic institution. It has a long history of elitism, of alliances with wealth and power. It seldom presents an egalitarian and democratic face to the public today. Its repertory has to a great extent ossified. It is far too beholden to the past: the works of dead composers crowd out the works of the living, placing the opera stage at a stark remove from modern life.
All those who are devoted to opera have had glimpses of paradise on its stage. Over the onehundred-seventy-five-year history of the Liceu, its
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Far from achieving paradise, of realizing some future utopia, opera faces the task today of doing
Òpera
justice to the present. The composers of the past could never have tolerated a theatrical culture in which contemporary voices play so minor a role. Indeed, they could hardly have existed in such a culture. To build a bridge from the past to the present is the foremost challenge that opera houses confront today. Scarcely of lesser importance—and surely a related project—is the building of bridges from the élite to the broader population. Opera companies must become places where visitors of any age, background, or race can move without fear of being scrutinized or judged. Such democratization would never require a lowering of standards; indeed, it might require a raising of standards, an elevation of the emotional and moral and political stakes. The past can serve as prologue. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos proposes a compromise between tragedy and comedy, between “elevated” and populist modes of entertainment. All of Mozart’s operas negotiate the same barriers, with The Magic Flute standing as a particularly remarkable example of idealism and folklore interwoven. In a more oblique way, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande erodes the division between music and speech, discovering interior spaces between the two modes. Berg’s Wozzeck, too, is inner drama for which music is the only logical articulation. Britten’s War Requiem rises like an eloquent phantom from the twentieth-century history through which its composer lived and in which its chief poet, Wilfred Owens, perished.
destination at which eternal happiness ensues. Instead, paradise becomes visible in flashes, in sudden illuminations, even amid darkness and violence. \ Benjamin, in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” spoke of a “storm blowing from paradise,” which seizes the wings of history’s angel. We feel storms around us every day: progress that seems indistinguishable from destruction, the past crumbling before the flood tide of the future. Opera, at its best, offers a prolonged instant in which past and present converge in spectacular, uncontrollable fashion. What future lies in wait for this venerable art is not for us to know; but it is difficult to imagine that generations to come will not want to experience its grandeurs and sorrows, its ecstasy of collective perfection wrested from chaos. Alex Ross Writer, music communicator and music critic for The New Yorker
Our experience of sublimity in opera suggests that paradise is ultimately not a point of arrival—a
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Board of Trustees of the Fundació del Gran Teatre del Liceu
Executive Commission of the Fundació del Gran Teatre del Liceu
Honorary president Pere Aragonés Garcia
President Salvador Alemany Mas
President of the Board Salvador Alemany Mas
Representatives of the Government of Catalonia Natàlia Garriga Ibáñez Jordi Foz Dalmau
First vice-president Natàlia Garriga Ibáñez Second vice-president Andrea Gavela Llopis Third vice-president Joan Subirats Humet Fourth vice-president Núria Marín Martínez Representatives of the Government of Catalonia Jordi Foz Dalmau Irene Rigau Oliver Rosa Tubau Llorià Àngels Barbarà Fondevila Representatives of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport Javier García Fernández Amaya de Miguel Toral Joan Francesc Marco Conchillo Santiago de Torres Sanahuja Representatives of Barcelona City Council Marta Clari Padrós Josep Maria Vallès Casadevall Representative of Barcelona Provincial Council Joan Carles Garcia Cañizares Representatives of the Society of the Gran Teatre del Liceu Javier Coll Olalla Manuel Busquet Arrufat Ignasi Borrell Roca Josep Maria Coronas Guinart Àgueda Viñamata y de Urruela Representatives of the Sponsorship Council Luis Herrero Borque Elisa Durán Montolío José Manuel Casas Aljama Alfonso Rodés Vilà Honorary trustees Josep Vilarasau Salat Manuel Bertrand Vergès General Manager Valentí Oviedo Cornejo Secretary of the Board (not a trustee) Joaquim Badia Armengol
Representatives of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport Amaya de Miguel Toral Antonio Garde Herce Representatives of Barcelona City Council Joan Subirats Humet Marta Clari Padrós Representative of Barcelona Provincial Council Joan Carles Garcia Cañizares Representatives of the Society of the Gran Teatre del Liceu Javier Coll Olalla Manuel Busquet Arrufat Representatives of the Sponsorship Council Luis Herrero Borque Elisa Durán Montolío Secretary Valentí Oviedo Cornejo General Manager Joaquim Badia Armengol
Thank you for making it possible.
Anniversary Supporters
Corporate Partners
Mass media
Supporters
Corporate Supporters
Benefactors Carlos Abril Muntsa Alcañiz Salvador Alemany Fernando Aleu José Aljaro Lidia Arcos Josep Balcells Elena Barraquer Joaquim Barraquer Rafael Barraquer David Barroso Núria Basi Manuel Bertran Manuel Bertrand Agustí Bou Josep M. Bové Carmen Buqueras Marc Busquets Cucha Cabané Jordi Calonge Joan Camprubi Montserrat Cardelús Aurora Catà Ramon Centelles
Guzmán Clavel Sergio Corbera Rosa Cullell M. Dolors i Francesc Francisco Egea Fernando Encinar Joan Esquirol Patricia Estany Marisa Falcó Magda Ferrer-Dalmau Albert Foraster Mercedes Fuster José Gabeiras Jorge Gallardo Pau Gasol Francisco Gaudier Anna Gener Lluís M. Ginjaume Ezequiel Giró Enric Girona M. Inmaculada Gómez Andrea Gömöry Casimiro Gracia Jaume Graell
Francisco A. Granero Pere Grau Calamanda Grifoll Poppy Grijalbo Francesca Guardiola Maria Guasch Bernardo Hernández Pepita Izquierdo Gabriel Jené Mónica Lafuente Sofia Lluch Rodrigo López de Armentia Ma. Teresa Machado Waltraud Maczassek Rocio Maestre Jaume Mercant Josep Milian Verónica Mimoun José M. Mohedano Juan Molina-Martell Joan Molins Josep Oliu M. Carmen Pous Marian Puig
Francisco Reynés Blanca Ripoll Miquel Roca Pedro Roca-Cusachs Alfonso Rodés Gonzalo Rodés Josep Sabé Francisco Salamero Josep Ll. Sanfeliu Maria Soldevila Jordi Soler Karen Swenson Manuel Terrazo August Torà Ernestina Torelló Josep Turró Joan Uriach Joaquim Uriach Marta Uriach Manuel Valderrama Josep Viader Josep Vilarasau Maria Vilardell † Salvador Viñas
Corporate Collaborators
Thank you for making it possible.
The Gateway to Paradise 02 Resident artist 26 The voices of Paradise 29
OPERAS DANCE CONCERTS RECITALS PAGE
Season
Monteverdi Madrigals I (Concert) Myth and tragedy of Electra and Oedipus (Concert) Pierrot Lunaire (Concert)
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Proper names
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Ariadne auf Naxos (Opera)
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Robert Gerhard’s La nit de Sant Joan 54 (Dance) War Requiem 56 (Landmark performers)
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Dudamel conducts the symphonie fantastique by Berlioz 76 (Concert) Rigoletto (Opera)
2021— 2022
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Jordi Savall: Beethoven’s 8th and 9th 84 (Concert) The Nutcracker (Dance)
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Javier Camarena (Recital)
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Pikovaya Dama (The queen of spades) 90 (Opera) Caballé contest final round (Concert)
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Orpheus (C.V.) (Opera)
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Winterreise (Dance)
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Partenope (C.V.) (Opera) Piotr Beczała (Recital)
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Wozzeck (Òpera)
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Pelléas et Mélisande 104 (Opera) The other Pelléas (Concert)
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Mozart- Da Ponte Trilogy (Opera)
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Le nozze di Figaro
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Don Giovanni
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Così fan tutte
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Liceu Brass ensemble amb Christian Lindberg 163
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175th anniversary: Anna Netrebko (Concert)
CHAMBER MUSIC
De Scheherazade a Yo, Carmen (Dance)
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Monteverdi madrigals II (Concert)
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Die Zauberflöte (The magic flute) (Opera)
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Lina Tur and Dani Espasa, baroque as it originally sounded 164 El Mosaïques quartet and viennese classicism 165
TALKS EXHIBITIONS LICEU LP SESSIONS PAGE
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EL PETIT LICEU PAGE
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La petita flauta màgica 174 The jazz nutcracker 176 Magdalena Kožená, Sir Simon Rattle & friends (Recital)
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(Òh!)pera (Opera)
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Norma (Opera)
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Els músics de Bremen
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El conte de Nadal
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La Barcarola
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La cuina de Rossini
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El monstre al laberint
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Miralls
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It dansa
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Sonya Yoncheva sings Puccini (Concert)
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Giselle by Akram Khan (Dance)
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Subscriptions AND TICKETS
Winterreise at the ‘La Model’ prison (Concert)
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Liceu Apropa Directory of artists
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3 1. Scenery construction workshop, Gran Teatre del Liceu. Museu de les Arts Escèniques, Barcelona. 2. Queue outside the Liceu in 1927. Museu de les Arts Escèniques, Barcelona. 3. The present-day opera house, rebuilt after the 1994 fire. Antoni Bofill. Archive of the Fundació del Gran Teatre del Liceu. 4. A standing ovation at the Liceu in the 1950s. Archive of the Fundació del Gran Teatre del Liceu. 5. Sketch showing one of the typical masked balls staged at the Liceu in the 19th century. Archive of the Fundació del Gran Teatre del Liceu.
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Prodigious album of marble and bronze built, wherein lie the aspiration to build a glorious renown and the presentiment of its passing from age to age and from person to person. (POEM BY AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR TO CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU IN 1847) 4
Still on our feet, our convictions unchanged I find it remarkable that we are still on our feet, our convictions unchanged, after having to halt and restart our programme three times because of the pandemic. Those same convictions give us the courage now to present our 2021/2022 season when we are by no means sure what the future holds in store. We come to you armed with resolve, and with art, music, dance and opera, in order to fill this venerable building once more with the best singers, the best productions and the best conductors. We trust our subscribers and audience will find the programme we have designed to their liking. It has been no easy task to steer the Liceu through the restrictions, doing everything we could to make culture “safe”. For a long time – and still today – ours has been one of the few theatres in the world to remain operational with limited seating capacity. We managed it thanks to the loyalty of our audience and the cooperation of the authorities, who considered our protocols strict enough for us to go on offering the live performances which are the very essence of the Liceu. The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of culture as an “essential product” in a society demoralized by the situation and tired of consuming everything on screens. Culture has been the beacon in our darkness, our spiritual food. Once the pandemic has been conquered and we can look back on our experiences, we will come to realize this.
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On 4 April 2022 we will be celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The official opening, in 1847, aroused great excitement and, as most of us know, the first opera, Anna Bolena, was staged a few days later, on 17 April. At the time the Liceu was Europe’s largest opera house, with a seating capacity of 3,500 and a stage that boasted the very latest in contemporary equipment and technology. Now, 175 years later, the Liceu is determined to retain its landmark status. The charismatic soprano Anna Netrebko will perform the characters of Musetta, Lady Macbeth and Turandot. And throughout the 2021/2022 season – which will have paradise as its leitmotiv – the Liceu will be taking up more new challenges in a bid to reconcile creativity and quality with safety in a context of renewed hope. Whatever paradise each of you aspires to, we hope you will find it in this varied programme which includes spectacular operas, dance performances, a new micro-opera project, three symphony concerts and new productions for younger audiences, and is permeated, as always, by the conviction that art must be an impetus to change.
adverse situation. Without you we could never have overcome the financial and logistical difficulties posed by the health crisis. Your loyalty, generosity and adaptability have made us greater and stronger. I also want to draw attention to the herculean efforts made by the Liceu’s staff, the different levels of government and our benefactors and sponsors, all of whom have walked beside us, searching for solutions and providing support at the most difficult moments. And before signing off I must also mention the artists, musicians and singers who so eloquently expressed their recognition of the Liceu, its audience and our country by overcoming all kinds of obstacles to travel to Barcelona. Thanks to them we kept the flame of opera burning. This resilience, which we are determined to maintain, is a source of moral wealth and prestige which can only enhance the Liceu’s future and enrich our common heritage. Salvador Alemany President of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
ÉIt is an honour and a pleasure to invite you to leaf through these pages in search of your own particular paradise. We trust we may have further chances to meet up at the Liceu and share new evenings of living culture. Thank you once more for the support you have given us in this very
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The strength of the Liceu
What constitutes the Liceu’s strength and probably its most valuable asset? The Liceu’s strength is a way of being, a way of understanding the relationship between the opera house and everyone associated with it (subscribers, audience, benefactors, sponsors, government and staff). It is the invisible hand that supports us through hard times, makes demands when it can, offers applause and congratulations to buoy us up, acts constructively and proactively when it believes excellence is within reach and encourages us to strive to attain it. During this present season, 2020/21, which is now nearly over, the Liceu’s strength has been omnipresent. Dismay, apprehension, fear and caution have come to dominate us this past year but the people close to the Liceu, those who constitute its strength, have been beside us, giving support. By coming here you showed us that our efforts to press ahead with the season were worthwhile. The curtain could not fall while there was the slightest chance of keeping it up. And so we did. The energy, enthusiasm, eagerness and confidence which the Liceu and its audience infused into one other allowed us to keep the music playing and the doors open. Together we wrote some inimitable pages in the Liceu’s history and their memory will live on. We had to reschedule performances for different days and sometimes cancel them, assign you different seats, at different times, and even
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make you sit a long way from the friends and acquaintances with whom you share your subscription, those you enjoy chatting to during the interval about the work, the cast, the sets and the performance of our orchestra and chorus. Yet despite all this, we received nothing but support, encouragement, thanks and cooperation. So now it is the Liceu’s turn to thank you. We knew we were not alone, we could feel your affection, and we knew the path we followed throughout the season was the right one. And we are grateful first and foremost because by coming to the opera house as you did, you preserved that unique treasure you possess: the ability to let yourselves be moved by opera and music. Thanks to this strength of the Liceu’s, we embark on the 2021/22 season with greater excitement and enthusiasm than ever. On 4 April 2022 the Liceu will celebrate its 175th birthday. It has been making history for all of 175 years and to celebrate the fact we have designed a season in which the emotion of opera will sweep you off your feet once more. As our artistic director Victor Garcia de Gomar puts it, we want to take you to paradise by offering you an ecstatic journey through a heavenly universe of sounds, sights and aesthetics. It will be a season for rediscovering the Liceu and for thrilling to each and every note as the voices of star singers echo through the auditorium.
and brilliant artistry can exist side by side and where educational and social projects will help create tomorrow’s audiences. But above all we want culture to exert its potential for transformation so that young people see the Liceu as something that belongs to them. And needless to say, we also want the Liceu to be the home of the greatest creators, musicians, singers and artists. In short, we want you all to feel you are an integral part of this 175th anniversary. Because if the Liceu is to reach its distant objectives, we must all travel together. Happy 175th anniversary! Valentí Oviedo Conductor General of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Much thought has gone into this 175th anniversary year. We want to be an opera house where equity
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(Re)discovering Paradise
PRESENTING art and opera as paradise in a bid to protect ourselves from our bleak surroundings. Our personal relationships have been distorted by the capitalist system, which serves to produce merchandise, and by the urge to collect experiences ad infinitum. Where hedonism is predominant, only art can help us to organize society better. ACTING to make opera into a stimulus for growth and a means of apprehending humanity’s concerns in their context. As an aesthetic experience calling on many different disciplines, opera can paint an unadulterated picture of the present and assess what the future holds in store. The drop of the curtain is metaphorically charged: it is the guillotine cutting us off from the magical worlds we create.
RETHINKING humanity and its uncertainties from the stage. Today’s man faces new challenges and concepts: frontiers, identities, ways of loving, digitalization, artificial intelligence, modern-day slavery, environmental degradation, and many more. At this stage in the Liceu’s history, we want to talk about our planet, its deterioration and its contradictions. Lucidity is no longer enough: we must call upon art to imagine and (re)define the world.
ADVANCING towards individual salvation. As beings caught in a web of narratives, stories and legends, opera cares for us and saves us. What happens in a theatre symbolizes both our dreams and our nightmares (reality versus poetry). Thus the Liceu is a place inhabited by words, images
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and ideas; it is a grammar in sound, made up of interlocking emotions, which seeks to lay bare the vestiges of humanity and to blend into contemporary debates.
DEFENDING identity in the face of globalization. Opera is a perfect example of the European personality but it needs revitalizing. By evolving into a centre for the arts and for reflection, the Liceu is returning to the original values and radicalism of opera. It is mediating between the public, artists, creators and thinkers while triggering connections and acting as a living institution that sees opera as a handbook for life. IMAGINING a complex ecosystem of activities focussing, this year, on the concept of paradise. This season invites us to reflect upon the human condition and Man’s anxieties by assembling a series of characters who yearn for a better fate. Some are heroines, others are already dead; they experience hope, tragedy, vitality and resignation and question their principles as they travel the long road to paradise (paradise lost, perhaps, or to be won, glimpsed, imposed or demanded). Tamino dreams about Pamina; Mélisande and Ariadne about true love; Rigoletto and Wozzeck about a peaceful home; Mozart about his trilogy; Da Ponte about the value of forgiveness; and to the traveller in Winterreise, death is a fate that brings comfort.
evenings to mark the Liceu’s 175th anniversary with ongoing support from Josep Pons and Àlex Ollé and input from artists with whom we are forging new relationships: Anna Netrebko, Javier Camarena, Gustavo Dudamel, Matthias Goerne, Marc Minkowski, Piotr Beczala, Sonia Yoncheva, Sondra Radvanovsky, Simon Rattle, William Christie, Xavier Sabata, Núria Rial, Jordi Savall and Rinaldo Alessandrini. There will be productions by the likes of Katie Mitchell, Wolfgang Tillmans and Steven McBurney to enjoy and other personalities will be asking relevant questions to guide us in our utopian ramblings: William Kentridge and Antonio López (visual artists), Patti Smith (poet), Ramón Andrés (essayist and philosopher) and Jordi Bernadó (photographer).
ENVISIONING the Liceu as a haven from shipwreck, a place where we can seek perfection. For we are the path and the destination: we are
PARADISE! Víctor Garcia de Gomar Artistic director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
SEEING the Liceu of our dreams, in other words, colluding with tradition in order to foresee the future. We will be organizing some unforgettable
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With spirit of overcoming
The pandemic has had an especially painful impact on choruses and orchestras because it has affected the way they are arranged on stage. After three centuries of efforts to find and perfect a particular arrangement, COVID changed everything in the flash of an eye. The seating plan in a classical orchestra was designed chiefly on the basis of proximity because ease of hearing ensured better synchronization of the musical lines. With this in mind, different layouts were devised, invariably in order to achieve homogeneous acoustics. In the string section, the violins can be placed stereophonically to the right and left of the conductor, as Mozart did, or “à la française”, with the first violins, second violins, violas and cellos arranged along an arc, or in “German” style, with the cellos in the middle, the violas to one side, and the double basses behind, on the right or left, or alternatively in the middle, behind the wind section, as we see them at the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna. But there were always two musicians per music stand and this affects the way scores are printed, how page turning is done, and so on. The chorus evolved in the same way: the setup always aimed at proximity, but with variations to produce particular types of sound. And then, as I said, COVID upended it all. So that the chorus and orchestra could sing and play without infringing health regulations, we
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had to work in the opposite direction from the one taken throughout history. Players of wind instruments and singers had to be at least 2 metres apart and in the string section there could be only one player per stand at a distance of at least 1.5 metres. So all of a sudden stages and orchestra pits which had previously seemed spacious became too small. There is no stage or orchestra pit in the world that can accommodate the orchestras called for by Mahler, Strauss or Wagner while abiding by COVID regulations. On the other hand, once the obstacle of distancing had been overcome and we had adjusted to the new sound, we realized that when the musicians are farther apart, the sound has more room to expand and a smaller string section can produce greater volume. What the post-COVID era will be like –and I hope it comes soon– remains to be seen. In all likelihood we will redefine certain previously undisputed standards, among them the layout of the orchestra.
One of the symphony concerts belongs directly to the world of opera. It consists of two dazzling works based on Greek tragedies which marked musical turning points: the instrumental suite from Strauss’s Elektra and a concert version of Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex, inspired by Jean Cocteau’s adaptation of the play by Sophocles translated into Latin. The other two concerts are designed to counterpoint one of this season’s operas: Debussy’s masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande. One consists of other works based on the Pelléas theme by Schoenberg, Fauré and Sibelius and dating from the same period, when the whole of Europe was experiencing shockwaves of Maeterlinck’s play. I hope and trust that you will find this season very much to your liking. Josep Pons Musical director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Meanwhile we have planned the concerts for the 2021-2022 season on the assumption that we will all fit on the stage again. The outline programme is as follows: three symphony concerts in the auditorium, one with a chorus; three chamber orchestra concerts in the Foyer; and a series of concerts by smaller chamber ensembles.
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The Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu with its resident conductor, Josep Pons.
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The Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu with its resident conductor, Conxita Garcia.
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Resident artist Àlex Ollé
Àlex Ollé (Barcelona, 1960) is one of the artistic directors of La Fura dels Baus (1979), the group with which he created shows including Accions, Suz/O/ Suz and Tier Mon. In 1992 he and Carlus Padrissa created Mediterrani, mar olímpic for the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympic Games. Since then he has diversified his output. The foremost plays he has directed are F@ust 3.0, XXX, Metamorfosis and, more recently, Histoire du Soldat. He has made one film: Faust 5.0. He has built up his operatic career (initially in partnership with C. Padrissa) with titles such as L’Atlàntida, La Damnation de Faust, D.Q. Don Quijote a Barcelona, Die Zauberflöte and Mahagonny. His solo ventures include notably Le Grand Macabre, Quartet, Faust, Pélleas et Mélisande and Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher. In 2019 he directed Frankenstein, Turandot and Manon Lescaut. 2020, and now 2021 as well, will go down in our collective memories as the COVID-19 years. Everyone involved in the performing arts, in whatever capacity, has suffered during this time, both personally – more than anyone else we need to communicate with our audience – and professionally –our lives were left hanging from a thread by the disaster of closed theatres–. For that very reason I want to see the future as the start of a new cycle. But first let me recall that, despite so many defeats on so many fronts, these two convulsed years have also left some good things behind. – Art is necessary. While health workers and researchers were battling on the front line, we
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ordinary citizens immersed ourselves in culture on an unprecedented scale, watching more films, listening to more music and reading more books than ever. The usefulness of art and culture can no longer be in doubt. – Research is vital. Research –and not only in laboratories– is a state of mind which must permeate society from top to bottom. Art, music, opera, drama, poetry and indeed all forms of culture do as much as science to foster this state of mind which, if we are to prosper, must also invade politics and the economy. – We have learnt to reach our audience in new ways. Art is full of optimism and life. All creative artists in the world, including those working in opera, have found thousands of new ways to reach their audience. Must we resort to streaming to awaken emotions? At any rate such paths warrant further exploration. – The community of cultural consumers is indomitable. Despite fear, problems of mobility, cancellations, and the rest, each time a theatre, concert hall or book shop has opened its doors, the public have returned. We can live in the virtual world, but we like the real one best. These four points, it seems to me, amount almost to a statement of the principles which underlie – and it’s no coincidence – the entire 2021-22 programme. The Liceu’s Artistic Council already intended to reinforce the role of opera in stimulating change: now the task has become more urgent than ever.
of the plastic arts – the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans and William Kentridge from South Africa – alongside such distinguished stage directors as Gilbert Deflo, Ivan Alexandre and Simon McBurney. And even more remarkable, in a world with so many shortcomings from a woman’s point of view, is the presence of British stage director Katie Mitchell and Monique Wagemakers from the Netherlands. As for myself, in my capacity as the Liceu’s resident artist, I will be presenting two productions of which I am especially proud. One is Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, which enables me to give shape to the fascinating and enigmatic world of Maeterlinck, and the other is Bellini’s Norma, in which I focus on religion in modern society. I could encapsulate my current state of mind by saying that the Artistic Council and I find ourselves very much in harmony: we are clear about what it means to be an opera house with a commitment and what our future goals must be; we have assimilated the notion that opera has the duty to stimulate thought and be a tool of social change; and we have pledged ourselves to supporting new artists and boosting the Liceu’s role as a venue for new creations. But we are sure of one thing above all others: that we want to fly farther and farther. Just fly into the future, without looking back.
I find it especially noteworthy, for instance, that our programme should feature two representatives
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Drawing by William Kentridge.
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The voices Òpera
The voices of Paradise
Reality overwhelms us, our lives are marked by pressure and malaise. The communications and social media, the systems of social organization, feed on consumerism. Contemporary society suffers from stress.
William Kentridge
Often art is a buffer which separates us from day-to-day problems, almost inviting us to flee. In the game of citations and self-citations, between what is real and what is merely represented, opera is a paradise where we can live and the Liceu a magnificent place in which to submit to its spell.
Painter and sculptor
The operatic repertory is a departure point for exploring strange places and travelling far away (without even leaving our seats). Our feelings serve as a compass, the score supplies the vehicle.
Jordi Bernadó
By choosing paradise as this season’s topic, the Liceu invites its audience to embark on this journey during which places, both poetical and physical, will be candidly revealed and everyone is fleeing from something and seeking peace in someone else’s arms. Our guides will speak with a variety of voices: they are sensitive people who defend the experience and benefits of freedom but they also hold the key to deeply hidden emotions and will show us where we can settle down.
Temporada 2021— 2 022 Season 2021— 2 022
Artist and painter
Antonio López Anne Carson Poet and writer
Ramón Andrés Essayist and thinker Photographer
Cristina de Middel Photographer
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The voices of Paradise
William Kentridge Painter, sketcher, theatre and film director, scenographer Kentridge is an artist who works in black and white, a printmaker who also uses drawings, animation, films, drama, sculpture, opera and even tapestry to produce his convincing works, which delve into some of the darkest corners of history and the human psyche. Born in Johannesburg in 1955, he is the son of two distinguished anti-apartheid lawyers who defended Nelson Mandela and in recent years has become one of the world’s most highly reputed contemporary artists. Starting from the multiple layers of Kentridge’s monochromatic images, our powers of imagination begin to reconstruct reality. His work captivates us, as does its light. We find it hard to move away from that light, surrounded by shadows, figures and pentimenti, which reveals the wounds and contradictions of the world with inventiveness, skill and compassion.
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‘I am an artist. I live in Johannesburg. All of my work is about Johannesburg in one form or another. My schools --university, art school, all the training I had has been here in Johannesburg-apart from my year in Paris. Thematically I suppose I work with what’s in the air, which is to say a mixture of personal questions and the broader social questions. Questions this year, questions last year, responsibility, retribution, recrimination, before issues of what histories are hidden in the landscape. Often they’re fairly broad questions but generally they arrive through quite a personal or particular starting point’.
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The voices of Paradise Antonio López Painter and sculptor Antonio López (b. Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, 1936) uses painting, drawing and sculpture to reflect on the passing of time, human beings and their surroundings. His patient observation of life leads him to give equal weight to words and silence. The characteristic quiescence of his work contrasts with his positive, simple and honest spirit. López will be making his first incursion into set design at Barcelona’s former ‘La Model’ prison, where he will show his version of Schubert’s Winterreise. The mature Narrator-cum-Convict, who can only travel in his mind’s eye, sets out in search of fundamental values, divesting others of their superfluous attributes. The main subjects of López deals with (among them landscapes, interiors, still lifes and individuals) are loaded with meaning. They arouse constant concern and become an excuse for looking more deeply into things that are apparently small or empty. In his efforts to immobilize the single instant, with all the subtlety that enriches it, he exalts the ephemerous and his own fragility. He examines the surrounding reality, slipping into the cracks to apprehend its constituent physical and psychological aspects and working always from a single angle so as to capture its essence. What do you run away from? I’ve never felt I was running away from anything. I’m proactive, I feel capable: that’s the opposite of giving up or escaping. It would be different if the question were “What do I renounce?”
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What is your idea of paradise? Man invented the term paradise, just as he invented the gods. It’s a big word and at the same time a dream. Important things have arisen from dreams, like the Parthenon for instance, which has a lot to do with the supernatural. Paradise for me has to do with love, not money. From Arturo Ripstein’s film El diablo entre las piernas (Devil between the legs) to the poetry of Saint John of the Cross, the register of love is very wide. What physical place represents your paradise? I’ve accepted my destiny and adjusted according to the needs of every moment. Spaniards must be the least pretentious of the world’s citizens. I’d say my place is Tomelloso. CONCERT 9, 10 and 11 May 2022 8 pm
FORMER “LA MODEL” PRISON
F. Schubert: Winterreise, D. 911 Visual project with works by Antonio López Àlex Ollé – Valentina Carrasco, idea
EXHIBITION FORMER “LA MODEL” 12 May to PRISON / LICEU 19 June 2022 Works by Antonio López CONVERSATION FOYER GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU Monday 9 Conversation between Antonio May 2022 López, Víctor Erice and Ramón Andrés
The voices Òpera
The voices of Paradise
Anne Carson Poet and writer “If prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it”. Anne Carson Though known as a writer about the classics, Anne Carson (Toronto, 1950) makes a living out of global literature. Her verses are luminous and beat with a highly contemporary rhythm. A poet, essayist, classics professor and translator, she has made herself a fascinating and unclassifiable slot which has earned her worldwide recognition. Both highly erudite and ground-breaking, she addresses age-old themes (love, desire, sexual yearning and despair) from new viewpoints. Carson is passionately fond of Hellenic literature, which profoundly influences her work. Her tranquil and yet exuberant and troubling voice strives with predatory skill to recover, rethink and renew poetry. Her works, which lack any pre-existing mould, never fail to surprise her readership because they arise from visual rather than verbal stimuli. Drawing and painting take pride of place in her imagination, which is the cornerstone of her conception of writing. Susan Sontag said of her: ‘’She is one of the few writers writing in English that I would read anything that she wrote”. Her poetry subverts her passion for philology with exquisite meditations and charms us with its mysterious glow. Truly inimitable!
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Greece as Paradise: “They’re at the root of things that then grew up and formed the trees where we now live—they’re fresh, the ideas still have dew on them. And thousands of years later our ideas have some of that left in them but they’re all kind of crusted over and with centuries in between. The newness of the world keeps dawning on the Greeks”. What are you running away from? Dry places, dry times, dry self. What is paradise for you? Swimming. What physical place represents your paradise? A lake at evening shaded by trees. POETRY FOYER OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU READING Poetry reading by Anne Carson To be confirmed CONVERSATION FOYER OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU To be confirmed Conversation between Anne Carson and Ramón Andrés
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The voices of Paradise Ramón Andrés Essayist, poet and thinker Ramón Andrés, who has a single, universal gaze and a multiplicity of interests, will be assisting us in our deliberations throughout the season. With his refined humanism and thirst for knowledge, he will raise questions about such topics as music, myths, Europe and technology in an intimate manner but with great transcendence. Andrés (Pamplona, 1955) is an essayist, poet and authority on music who has written many musical and literary studies. Music, to him, has to do with consolation and is possibly the art which reaches most deeply into our souls. He asserts the importance of culture, one might say, as an opportunity to travel inwardly in order to overcome our deep solitude. Ramón Andrés is an advocate of the present and future of the West, an unusual writer, and an observer whose work is conceived from the periphery. What do you run away from? Falsehood and pretence, human depredation, mindlessness, opulence and the ambition of power.
What physical place represents your paradise? The gentle, green mountains where I live, with trees as ancient as the first language. And woods and meadows, with mists floating along a river that is still clean, like the people who gaze at it. There is silence and a wise awaiting. Immediate reality does not exist, except for a passing flock on its way south.
CONFERENCE FOYER OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU Friday Lecture on the myth of Orpheus 28 October, 2022 – 7 pm CONVERSATION FOYER OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU Monday 9 Conversation between Antonio May, 2022 López and Ramón Andrés CONVERSATION Wednesday 9 June, 2022 – 7 pm
FOYER OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conversation with Raquel Garcia-Tomàs, Joan Magrané, Hèctor Parra, Fabià Santkovsky and Ramón Andrés
Què és el Paradise per a tu? A place where everything is mortal, with no forbidden fruits and no envy, which is the fatal flaw of our species. A great garden from which no one is expelled, with a lot of apples and nobody covetous.
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The voices of Paradise
Jordi Bernadó Photographer The photographs of Jordi Bernardó, who was born in Lleida but resides in Barcelona, raise a reasonable doubt in the viewer’s mind: are his images really a representation of what we are seeing or merely a simulacrum. They seem certain and verifiable, but the moment a photographer chooses what he wants to portray and how, photography stops being pure representation and becomes transformation or reinvention. However, in this case not only does the fiction arise from the photographer’s interpretation but the true meaning of the photograph derives from the object and the subject that observes it. In the last resort, it is up to the viewer’s gaze to discover what is real in his works and to complete it. What do you run away from? And secondly, the danger of living many years without really living.
What is your idea of paradise? To borrow a few words from Jorge Wagensberg, I’d like to think of paradise as the place where, by mixing, rubbing, colliding and intersecting, you can at last live in constant doubt and contradiction. Or the exact opposite. What physical place represents your paradise? A precise place in an indeterminate location. A ship between the islands of Kinaros and Levitha. An aircraft exactly midway between Madagascar and Australia.
PHOTOGRAPHY AUDITORIUM, GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU Sunday 26 Me We June 2022 EXHIBITION FOYER GALLERY From 20 June to Barcelona: a statistic 31 July 2022 in photography CONVERSATION CHORUS ROOM Tuesday 28 Conversation and introduction June 2022 – 6 pm to his work
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The voices of Paradise
Cristina de Middel Photographer Cristina de Middel (Alacant, 1975) is a documentary photographer and artist whose life and work span Brazil, Mexico and Spain. She has been a member of the prestigious Magnum agency since 2016. After doing major reports on armed conflicts, seen from an artistic viewpoint, she has concentrated on more personal work. Her way of portraying the world, which transcends verisimilitude and straddles reality and fiction, has given rise to some reflection. Middel, who was awarded the Spanish government’s Premio Nacional de Fotografía in 2017, questions the language of photography as a document. Her works engage the viewer in a game that consists of (re)constructing new archetypes and realities while using fiction to promote a more critical gaze. Her photobook The Afronauts brought her widespread fame. Her projects create paradises and impossible dreams which exist only in her pictures.
What do you run away from? Everything malicious. What is your idea of paradise? A place where people all understand each other. What physical place represents your paradise? A house with books and views over the sea at Itacaré (Brazil). EXHIBITION FOYER GALLERY / MIRROR ROOM From 28 February Exhibition of photographs by to 13 April 2022 Cristina de Middel Mirror Room: representation of a primaeval jungle. The mirrors will be turned into windows looking out over the jungle, a place untouched by culture and untrammelled by opinions and interpretations. EXHIBITION FOYER GALLERY From 28 February Boa Noite Povo. Work by Cristina to 13 April 2022 de Middel and Bruno Morais CONVERSATION TENOR VIÑAS ROOM Tuesday 1 March Cristina de Middel: Conversation 2022 – 7 pm and introduction to her works
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Angelin Preljocaj Ais of Provence (France)
René Jacobs. “The world seen from a space ship”
Julie Fuchs Pont du Gard (between Nîmes and Avignon) Mark Padmore Farm Bank House, Glaisdale, in North Yorkshire (United Kingdom)
Simon Keenlyside West Wales (United Kingdom) Katie Mitchell Cwm Oergwyn Llanfrynach Brecon Beacons (Wales)
Christopher Maltman Iceland
Akram Khan Wimblendon (United Kingdom) Josep Pons Montserrat (Catalonia) Jordi Savall Bellaterra (Catalonia)
Sondra Radvanovsky “Our little forest at home” in Caledonia, Ontario (Canada)
Ramón Andrés The Baztan valley (Navarre) Antonio López Tomelloso (Ciudad Real) Antonio Ruz El Cañuelo beach (Cadiz)
Michael Spyres The Ozark mountains (USA)
William Christie. The Alhambra (Granada) María Pagés. Asilah (Morocco) Sara Blanch Darmós (Tarragona)
Olga Peretyatko Tenerife (Canary Islands)
Javier Camarena Carmen Beach (Mexico)
Flat as the table it’s placed on. Nothing moves beneath it and it seeks no outlet. Above—my human breath creates no stirring air and leaves its total surface undisturbed. Its plains, valleys are always green, uplands, mountains are yellow and brown, while seas, oceans remain a kindly blue beside the tattered shores. Everything here is small, near, accessible. I can press volcanoes with my fingertip, stroke the poles without thick mittens, I can with a single glance encompass every desert with the river lying just beside it.
Àlex Ollé Minorca (Balearic Islands) Gustavo Dudamel Mérida (Venezuela)
Núria Rial The Château de Chillon (Switzerland) Benjamin Appl Morcote (Lake Lugano, Switzerland) Cristina de Middel Itacaré (Brazil). A house with books and views over the sea
A few trees stand for ancient forests, you couldn’t lose your way among them. In the east and west, above and below the equator— quiet like pins dropping, and in every black pinprick people keep on living. Mass graves and sudden ruins are out of the picture.
Magdalena Kožená Stankovice (Žatec, Czech Republic) Iréne Theorin Sweden in the family, frozen landscapes
The paradises of ours artists Simon McBurney The Orkney Islands (Scotland) Gilbert Deflo My native Flanders
Ivan Alexandre. The Pierre Gagnaire restaurant in Paris (France) Sonya Yoncheva. Gland (Switzerland) Marc Minkowski. Mount Cervin (Switzerland) Marta Mathéu. Castiglione del Lago (Perugia, Umbria)
Jordi Bernadó. A ship between the islands of Kinaros and Levitha. Piotr Beczała Zabnica (Poland)
Paolo Fanale Japan in spring
Tatiana Pavolvskaya. Jerusalem (Israel)
Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov My home (Vienna) Monique Wagemakers Positano, Amalfi Coast (Italy) Rinaldo Alessandrini Sabina, Roma (Italy) Sir Simon Rattle Soneva Fushi in the Maldives
Kader Belarbi La Digue Island (Seychelles, Indian Ocean)
Jordi Bernadó. An aircraft exactly midway between Madagascar and Australia
Nations’ borders are barely visible as if they wavered—to be or not. I like maps, because they lie. Because they give no access to the vicious truth. Because great-heartedly, good-naturedly they spread before me a world. Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012) Map, 2012
OPERAS DANCE CONCERTS RECITALS Season 2021— 2022
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Òpera
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These are a few of the personalities waiting to meet you in the PARADISE of the 2021-2022 season:
Monique Wagemakers
René Jacobs
Ivan Alexandre
Simon McBurney
Javier Camarena Piotr Beczała Olga Peretyatko Marc Minkowski Sondra Radvanovsky
Iréne Theorin Sara Blanch
Wolfgang Tillmans Marta Mathéu
Jordi Savall
Gilbert Deflo
Núria Rial
William Kentridge
Christopher Maltman 46
Proper names
Anna Netrebko Benjamin Bernheim
Àlex Ollé
Julie Fuchs
Gustavo Dudamel Simon Rattle Josep Pons Katie Mitchell Anne Carson Mark Padmore Ramón Andrés Benjamin Appl
Marina Rebeka
William Christie
Sonya Yoncheva Rinaldo Alessandrini
Simon Keenlyside
Antonio López Matthias Goerne
Jordi Bernadó
Joseph Calleja
Cristina de Middel Season 2021— 2 022
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ARIADNE AUF NAXOS Richard Strauss From 22.09.21— to 04.10.21
OPERA COMPRISING A PROLOGUE AND ONE ACT
Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal World premieres: 25/10/1912 at the Kleinen Haus des Hoftheaters, Stuttgart (first version) and 04/10/1916 at the Wiener Hofoper, Vienna (definitive version). Barcelona premiere: 14/01/1943 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Last Liceu performance: 12/11/2002 Total number of Liceu performances: 24
Stage director This version Dramaturgy Set design Choreography Costume design Lighting Production
Katie Mitchell Eloise Lally Martin Crimp Chloe Lamford Joseph W.Alford Sarah Blenkinsop James Farncombe Gran Teatre del Liceu, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Finnish National Opera & Ballet, Royal Danish Opera
SEPTEMBER 2021
Turn
Price From 14 to 269 €
WEDNESDAY 22
7 pm
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THURSDAY 23
7 pm
#LICEUNDER35
20 €
SUNDAY 26
5 pm
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From 14 to 269 €
MONDAY 27
7 pm
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From 14 to 269 €
TUESDAY 28
7 pm
A
From 14 to 269 €
WEDNESDAY 29
7 pm
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From 14 to 269 €
7 pm
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From 14 to 269 €
OCTOBER 2021 SATURDAY 2
Price
SUNDAY 3*
6 pm
F
From 14 to 269 €
MONDAY 4
7 pm
H
From 14 to 269 €
Approximate running time: 2 h 40 min *Function with audio description
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MAJOR-DOMO Maik Solbach MUSIC MASTER José Antonio López COMPOSER Samantha Hankey 22, 26, 28 september and 3 october Paula Murrihy 23, 27 and 29 september, 2 and 4 october TENOR (BACCHUS) Nikolai Schukoff 22, 26, 28 september and 3 october Brandon Jovanovich 23, 27 and 29 september, 2 and 4 october OFFICER Josep Fadó DANCING MASTER Francisco Vas WIG MAKER Jorge Rodríguez Norton LACKEY David Lagares ZERBINETTA Elena Sancho Pereg 22, 26, 28 september and 3 october Sara Blanch 23, 27 and 29 september, 2 and 4 october PRIMA DONNA Iréne Theorin 22, 26, 28 (ARIADNE) september and 3 october Johanni van Oostrum 23, 27 and 29 september, 2 and 4 october HARLEQUIN Benjamin Appl NAIAD Sonia de Munck DRYAD Anaïs Masllorens ECHO Núria Vilà SCARAMUCCIO Vicenç Esteve TRUFFALDINO Alex Rosen BRIGHELLA Juan Noval Moro SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons PARADISE: love
Opera
Sara Blanch
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ARIADNE AUF NAXOS Richard Strauss
Many key works in the repertory arose from intensive teamwork between librettist and composer. Such tandems include Mozart-Da Ponte, Verdi-Boito, and Strauss-Von Hofmannsthal. Ariadne auf Naxos was the third of six operas written by the last-named duo, coming after Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier. The day after the 1911 premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss and his poet-librettist decided to renew their partnership by adapting Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. The original project was extensively revised before the definitive version of Ariadne auf Naxos was premiered in 1916. It was an instant success. Apart from its Mozartian hues, it presents numerous interplaying features: neoclassicism and Italian masked dances, echoes of Wagner’s most fiery moments, a lullaby Schubert might have written, and an uninhibited, flexible and expressive idiom that heightens the drama.
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The distinguished director Katie Mitchell brings us her own take on Ariadne auf Naxos, a tale about the wealthiest man in Vienna who commissions a young composer to write a serious opera and then invites a troupe from the commedia dell’arte to come along as well. When both are instructed to perform together, the flirtatious Zerbinetta sets about convincing the tragic Ariadne that men are all the same, and indeed interchangeable. By thus juxtaposing fidelity and metamorphosis, the opera honours both Molière and Mozart with a result that is as impertinent as it is irresistible. Life leaves us no choice but to forget and move on. Pirandello’s “theatre within a theatre” is an integral part of Ariadne. The disappointments of love and life are concealed beneath a veneer of humour and a multiplicity of feelings come into play. Eventually the two worlds collide, giving way to resignation: paradise, after all, is unattainable.
Opera Òpera
Soprano ARIADNE
Soprano ZERBINETTA
Iréne Theorin
Nikolai Schukoff
Theorin, a graduate of the Royal Opera School, Copenhagen, has sung at venues including the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the New York Metropolitan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Staatsoper Berlin and the Opéra National de Paris. Her first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu was in a concert version of Tristan und Isolde. She returned more recently in Turandot (2019/20).
Born in Graz (Austria), Schukoff studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His repertory includes Parsifal, Siegmund (The Valkyrie), Don José (Carmen) and Florestan (Fidelio). He has sung at leading opera houses and festivals all over the world. His debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu was in Iphigenie auf Tauris (2010/11) and he returned for Katya Kabanova (2018/19).
Tenor BACCHUS
Elena Sancho Pereg
Samantha Hankey
A graduate of the Escuela de Canto in Madrid and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Sancho Pereg won the Opernwelt Prize for the best young singer of the year in 2015/16 for her interpretation of Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos) at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. She first appeared at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2016/17 in Werther.
Hankey joined the ensemble of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 2019/20, making her debut as Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel). The previous season was one of the most active in her career, including notably her first appearances at the New York Metropolitan as Wellgunde (The Rhinegold) and Mercedes (Carmen). This is her first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
«Ein schönes war», Ariadne, Opera. After being abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos, Ariadne mourns her fate and longs for death.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Season 2021— 2 022
Mezzosoprano KOMPONIST
«Großmächtige Prinzessin», Zerbinetta, Opera. Zerbinetta interrupts the opera seria performance to give Ariadne some worldly advice: the way to cure her broken heart is to look for another man.
«Gibt es kein Hinüber?», Ariadne, Bacchus, Opera. Bacchus arrives on Naxos and promises to liberate Ariadne by turning her into a constellation in the sky. She surrenders to his love.
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TOWN ON THE WAY THROUGH GOD'S WOODS
Tell me. Have you ever seen woods so. Deep so. Every tree a word does your heart stop? Once I saw a cloud over Bolivia so deep. Mountains were cowering do you ever? Look in so quick you see the secret. Word inside the word? As in an abandoned railway car. One winter afternoon I saw. The word for 'God's woods.' (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Essays and Poetry - 1995)
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Òpera
Drawing by William Kentridge.
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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LA NIT DE SANT JOAN Robert Gerhard In the Foyer From 08.10.21— to 10.10.21 Soirées de Barcelone was Robert Gerhard’s second ballet, composed between 1936 and 1939 for the Director Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo in response to a new and choreographer commission from Colonel de Basil. They never On-stage pianist premiered it, however, because the troupe was Costume design disbanded. Léonide Massine, who wanted a “Catalan Lighting ballet” based on Catalan dances and folk festivals, Dancers and travelled to Berga to see the festivities for the eve of choreographic Saint John’s Day (23 June). The result was a ballet with assistance a scenario by Ventura Gassol which was originally called Els focs de Sant Joan (the Fires of Saint John’s Day). To make the source of inspiration easier to identify abroad, the title was later changed to Soirées de Barcelone.
ANTONIO RUZ COMPANY
The basic theme of the magical midsummer night is illustrated by a dance of torchbearers, which arouses the libido of the couples of dancers. They pair off and the ballet concludes with a dawn wedding.
Coproduction with:
Antonio Ruz Miguel Baselga Rosa García Andújar Olga García (AAI) Melania Olcina, Elia López, Carmen Fumero, Begoña Quiñones, Pau Aran, Miguel Zomas and Julián Lazzaro PARADISE: the Catalonia of our dreams
The Liceu presents this coproduction with the Juan March Foundation to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Gerhard, one of the best known Catalan composers the world over. Created by dancer and choreographer Antonio Ruz, it offers a refreshing, dream-like interpretation and a unique chance to enjoy his music.
OCTOBER 2021
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Price
FRIDAY 8
7 pm
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35 €
SATURDAY 9
5 pm
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35 €
SATURDAY 9
20.30 h
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35 €
SUNDAY 10
5 pm
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35 €
Approximate running time: 1 h 10 min
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Dance
Drawing by William Kentridge.
WAR REQUIEM Benjamin Britten From 19.10.21— to 02.11.21
Text of the mass for the dead and poems by Wilfred Owen World premiere: 30/05/1962 at Coventry Cathedral Barcelona premiere: 31/10/1977 at the Palau de la Música Catalana Liceu premiere: 03/07/2010 Last Liceu performance: 06/07/2010 Total number of Liceu performances: 2
Stage director Set design and video artist This version Choreography Dramaturgy Co-Set design Costume design Lighting Production
Daniel Kramer Wolfgang Tillmans Elaine Tyler-Hall Ann Yee Luc Joosten Justin Nardella Nasir Mazhar Charles Balfour English National Opera
Soprano Tatiana Pavlovskaya Tenor Mark Padmore Baritone Matthias Goerne CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor CHILDREN’S CHOIR: VEUS - AMICS DE LA UNIÓ DE GRANOLLERS
Josep Vila i Jover, conductor OCTOBER 2021
Turn
Price
TUESDAY 19
7 pm
#LICEUNDER35
20 €
THURSDAY 21
7 pm
B
From 14 to 269 €
SATURDAY 23
7 pm
C
From 14 to 269 €
MONDAY 25
7 pm
A
From 14 to 269 €
WEDNESDAY 27
7 pm
D
From 14 to 269 €
FRIDAY 29
7 pm
E
From 14 to 269 €
SUNDAY 31*
6 pm
T
From 14 to 269 €
7 pm
HOLA LICEU
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons PARADISE: peace
NOVEMBER 2021 TUESDAY 2
From 14 to 269 €
Approximate running time: 1 h 38 min (without intermission) *Function with audio description
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Landmark performers
Matthias Goerne
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WAR REQUIEM Benjamin Britten
On the first page of the score, Britten reproduced the following lines by the poet Wilfred Owen, who died in World War I: “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The poetry is in the pity... All a poet can do today is warn”. The War Requiem is masterpiece of universal music. It was commissioned for the 1962 consecration of Coventry’s new cathedral, built alongside ruins of the old cathedral which had been destroyed in the bombing raids of World War II. Since then the trauma of war and Britten’s powerful score have lost nothing of their impact and their ability to move us. The Requiem will be presented in a stage version by photographer and visual artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who expands on Britten’s call for an end to all wars. The composer was a conscientious objector and committed pacificist, who had spent some years in exile in the United States. The lasting approval of audiences has ensured that, sixty years after its first performance and despite Stravinsky’s scathing mockery, the War Requiem remains a landmark of great emotional and moral depth. Tillmans espouses Britten’s restless spirit by affording us haunting images of human atrocities and leading us into a world occupied by the plant kingdom. The triumph of plants over ongoing violence and the inevitability of death were also prefigured in the Concert for the Biocene by Eugenio Ampudia, which was performed at the Liceu during the pandemic. Both afford valuable consolation, with frequent allusions to the Vanitas, while raising a desperate cry of a protest against the inhumanity of man himself: is our planet, deep down, already dreaming of a paradise beyond man?
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Landmark performers
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Soprano
Baritone
“Recordare Jesu Pie”, cor, Dies Irae.
“Sanctus”, soprano, cor, Sanctus.
This peaceful prayer will turn out to be the calm before the storm since it precedes the curse (“Confutatis”) and the explosive beginning of the requiem’s second “Dies Irae”.
The angelic voice of the soprano praises the glory of God to the accompaniment of a mixed chorus and with the gradual introduction of metallic sounds.
“It seemed that out of battle I escaped”, tenor, baríton, Libera Me. Two soldiers –one British and the other German– meet in the world of the dead, where they will now find rest.
Tatiana Pavlovskaya
Mark Padmore
Pavolvskaya graduated from the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory in Saint Petersburg before joining the Mariinsky Theatre, where she made her debut as Tatiana (Eugene Onegin). Other roles in her repertory include Desdemona (Otello), Nedda (Pagliacci) and Liù (Turandot). This is her first apperance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Opera, concerts and recitals all feature in Padmore’s career but he is especially noted for his performances in Bach’s Passions. In the field of opera, he has taken leading roles in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Corridor and The Cure at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. In London he has also sung in Death in Venice. This is his first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Tenor
Matthias Goerne
Josep Pons
Goerne has performed in the world’s leading opera houses, notably the New York Metropolitan and London’s Royal Opera House. Key roles in his repertory include Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Marke (Tristan und Isolde) and the title roles in Bluebeard’s Castle and Wozzeck. We first heard him at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2006/07 in a Mahler Concert.
Considered one of the most prominent conductors of his generation, Pons conducts major orchestras throughout the world. He has recorded some fifty works for Harmonia Mundi France and Deutsche Grammophon and received key distinctions including the Grammy and Cannes Classical Awards. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 1993. Since 2012 he has been the Liceu’s music director.
Season 2021— 2 022
Conductor
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TOWN OF MY FAREWELL TO YOU
Look what a thousand blue thousand white. Thousand blue thousand white thousand. Blue thousand white thousand blue thousand. White thousand blue wind today and two arms. Blowing down the road. (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Essays and Poetry - 1995)
WAR REQUIEM OPERA
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Drawing by William Kentridge.
MONTSERRAT CABALLÉ INTERNATIONAL SINGING CONTEST 22.10.21— Thanks to cooperation between the Fundació Privada Montserrat Caballé and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Montserrat’s dream of staging an edition of this contest in her beloved Barcelona is about to come true. The contest has helped launch the careers of many talented young singers – over six thousand from all five continents have taken part– and will continue to do so. Previous winners have made their debuts in the world’s foremost opera houses to acclaim from both critics and audiences. Indeed, many of their names –Pretty Yende, Nadine Sierra, Levy Sekgapane, Pene Pati and others– are already familiar to us. The event is held in a different place each year and forthcoming editions will be staged in other opera houses.
OCTOBER 2021 FRIDAY 22
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«The Montserrat Caballé Singing Contest, a prime challenge for any young singer, will be staged at the Liceu for the first time in this 175th anniversary year.»
Concert
Temporada 2021— 2 022 Montserrat Caballé
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ORPHEUS
(CONCERT VERSION)
Georg Philipp Telemann 30.10.21—
Orpheus oder “Die wunderbare Beständigkeit der Liebe” OPERA IN THREE ACTS
Librettist unknown World premiere: 9/03/1726, at the Oper am Gänsemarkt d’Hamburg Premiere at the Gran Teatre del Liceu
Countess artists over the centuries have been fascinated by the character of Orpheus, whose seductively powerful singing enabled him to enter the underworld to save his beloved Euridice. But on one condition: he must not look at her or speak to her. The legend, an insuperable example of constancy in love and the power of music, is ideal for any musical drama. This has prompted René Jacobs to propose a journey spanning three seasons during which we will visit the same myth through the music of Telemann, Gluck and Monteverdi. Telemann’s version, premiered in Hamburg in 1726, is considered the finest German opera of the first half of the 18th century and the composer’s own best work. Because it includes passages in different languages (German, French and Italian), it was long considered a pastiche and the score remained in oblivion at Wisentheid Castle for centuries until rediscovered only 25 years ago. In this partially dramatized version, René Jacobs will highlight its dramatic qualities and the refined psychological nuances conveyed by the music, while uncovering the secrets of this synthesis of different styles and schools of composition. OCTOBER 2021 SATURDAY 30
6 pm
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ORPHEUS ORASIA EURYDICE EURIMEDES ISMENE / PRIESTESS PLUTO ASCALAX CEPHISA
Krešimir Stražanac Kateryna Kasper Mirella Hagen David Fischer Salomé Haller Christian Immler Benno Schachtner Gunta Smirnova B’ROCK ORCHESTRA
Conductor René Jacobs The start of a three-year-long project with René Jacobs focussing on the myth of Orpheus: SEASON 2021-22
G. Ph. Telemann Orpheus SEASON 2022-23
Ch. W. Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice SEASON 2023-24
C. Monteverdi L’Orfeo PARADISE: love and
constancy
Approximate running time: 2 h 30 min
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Opera
René Jacobs
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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ORPHEUS
(CONCERT VERSION)
Georg Philipp Telemann
Bass-Baritone ORPHEUS
Soprano EURYDICE
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
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Krešimir Stražanac
Kateryna Kasper
Bass-baritone. Stražanac studied at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart before joining the resident company at the Zurich Opernhaus, where he sang roles including Ping (Turandot) and Harlekin (Ariadne auf Naxos). He made his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 2017 as Fléville (Andrea Chénier). This is his first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Kasper commenced her musical studies in Donetsk (Ukraine). Her repertory includes Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Gilda (Rigoletto), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Antonida (A Life for the Tsar) and Pamina (The Magic Flute). She has sung at the Edinburgh, Bregenz, Savolinna and Bergen Festivals and the Los Angeles Opera. This is her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Soprano ORASIA
Mirella Hagen
René Jacobs
Hagen’s first roles were Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Pamina (The Magic Flute) and Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady?) at Braunschweig. She has also sung at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the Theater an der Wien, the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, the Oper Graz and the Semperoper in Dresden. This is her first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Jacobs began studying music in Ghent, where he was a choirboy at Saint Bavo’s Cathedral. In 1977 he founded the Concerto Vocale, an ensemble specializing in Baroque vocal works. He has conducted at many important venues: the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Theater an der Wien, La Monnaie in Brussels, and the Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence festivals. This is his first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Conductor
“A l’incendio d’un occhio amoroso”, Eurimedes, Act I.
«Furcht und Hoffnung, Hab und Liebe», Orasia; Act III.
«Fliesst ihr Zeugen meiner Schmerzen». Orpheus; Act III.
After Eurydice dies from a snake bite, Orpheus loses consciousness. His friend Eurimedes sings about the great mystery of love.
Orasia waits for Orpheus at the gates of the underworld. She is prepared to kill Eurydice for a second time in order to win his love once and for all.
After losing Eurydice, rejecting Orasia’s love and forsaking the friendship of Eurimedes, Orpheus reflects on his terrible solitude.
Opera
Drawing by William Kentridge.
THE GLASS ESSAY
(…) Everything I know about love and its necessities I learned in that one moment when I found myself thrusting my little burning red backside like a baboon at a man who no longer cherished me. There was no area of my mind not appalled by this action, no part of my body that could have done otherwise. But to talk of mind and body begs the question. (…) (Anne Carson: Glass, Irony & God - 1995)
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WINTERREISE Ballet Preljocaj From 05.11.21— To 10.11.21
WORK FOR 12 DANCERS CREATED IN 2019
Premieres: 24 January 2019 by the Ballet of La Scala in Milan 1 July 2019 by the Ballet Preljocaj at the Festival Montpellier Danse.
Throughout his career, choreographer Angelin Preljocaj has enjoyed seeking inspiration in a variety of sources, from the visual arts to literature, music, politics and religion, constantly using his observation of the world and society to challenge the body and movement. He regularly makes music the mainstay of his work. This time his starting point is Schubert’s brilliant Winterreise (Winter Journey), a work for voice and piano comprising 24 songs based on poems by Wilhelm Müller published in 1824. As Preljocaj himself puts it: “Ballets set to chamber music create complicity between the musicians, the dancers and the audience, like a magic triangle. The Lieder of Winterreise conjure up an intimate atmosphere, something like a journey through life, or a jardin d’hiver, a winter garden in which future seasons are also perceptible, an experimental laboratory of life”.
NOVEMBER 2021
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Choreography Angelin Preljocaj Music Franz Schubert, Winterreise D.911 Bass-Baritone Thomas Tatzl Pianoforte James Vaughan Set design Constance Guisset Lighting Éric Soyer Costume design Angelin Preljocaj Costume production Eleonora Peronetti Dance notation Dany Lévêque Assistant to the Youri Aharon Van den Bosch artistic director Assistant répétiteur Cécile Médour Comissionat pel Teatro alla Scala de Milà Production Ballet Preljocaj Co-production Festival Montpellier Danse 2019 i Les Théâtres - Grand Théâtre de Provence Created Les Salins - Scène Nationale de Martigues PARADISE: death, eternal rest, vanishing from the world without trace The Ballet Preljocaj / Centre Chorégraphique National is funded by the Ministère de la culture et de la communication - DRAC PACA, Région Sud - Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Département des Bouches-du-Rhône, Métropole Aix-Marseille Provence / Territoire du Pays d’Aix and the Ville d’Aix-en-Provence. It also receives support from the Groupe Partouche - Casino Municipal d’Aix-Thermal and from private and corporate sponsors and collaborators.
Approximate running time: 1 h 15 min (without intermission)
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Dance
MADRIGALS MONTEVERDI I Sala Foyer 07.11.21—
The madrigal reached its apogee in the work of Monteverdi and added a key chapter to the history of music as its evolution gave birth to a new genre: opera. Monteverdi’s madrigals were published in nine books between 1587 and 1651. They constitute an exercise in proto-opera in which the emotions take centre stage. We begin our voyage of exploration with the eighth book, where the style has already adopted a bolder idiom featuring ground-breaking play on harmony. Entitled Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi con alcuni opuscoli in genere rappresentativo, this is Monteverdi’s most ambitious collection of madrigals, though the musical form used was itself in decline.
C. Monteverdi Eighth book of madrigals (part 1) CONCERTO ITALIANO Conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini PARADISE: the seed of a new genre: opera
The conductor and harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini, a leading authority on Monteverdi, guides us along this lush and fascinating path studded with exquisite miniatures. In the words and the music, the declamation and the stile concitato, we witness the first attempts to depict human passions through text and harmony. The programme includes the famous Lamento de la nimfa.
NOVEMBER 2021 SUNDAY 7
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Rinaldo Alessandrini
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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MYTH AND TRAGEDY OF ELECTRA AND OEDIPUS 12 / 13.11.21— Opera, cantata or oratorio? Oedipus Rex is a ceremony like no other. Written in secret and presented to Sergei Diaghilev to mark the 20th anniversary of the Ballets Russes, it received its first performance in concert version in Paris in 1927. Diaghilev himself expressed gratitude for the “very macabre gift”, which is based on Jean Cocteau’s adaptation of the tragedy by Sophocles. The libretto of this powerfully dramatic work was translated into Latin to avoid vulgarization. The leading character, Oedipus, here played by Michael Spyres, is permanently on stage. He discovers, following a maelstrom of calamitous events, that he has killed his own father and flees from Thebes after putting his eyes out with a pin. The concert will begin with the suite from Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra. In view of the prominent role
the orchestra plays in the opera, it seems surprising that no one before Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, should have turned the music into a suite. The result is a rich musical mosaic which highlights the striking nature of the opera. The refined reworking of the textures undertaken by Josep Pons is bound to recall the acclaim he received when he conducted Patrice Chéreau’s production starring Herlitzius, Meier and Pieczonka in the Liceu’s 2016-17 season.
R. Strauss Elektra Suite (arrangement by Manfred Honeck) I. Stravinsky Oedipus rex OEDIPE JOCASTE CREON / COURIER TIRESIAS SHEPHERD
Michael Spyres Ekaterina Gubanova José Antonio López Albert Dohmen David Alegret CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, directora SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons NOVEMBER 2021
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FRIDAY 12
7 pm
#LICEUNDER35
SATURDAY 13
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PARADISE: the creation of a new sound world in history
Approximate running time: 1 h 15 min
72
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Josep Pons
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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PIERROT LUNAIRE Arnold Schönberg In the Foyer From 16.11.21— to 18.11.21 “I believe I am approaching a new form of expression,” wrote Schoenberg in his diary on 12 March 1912. He had just found the solution for composing Pierrot Lunaire. Written in 1912 and based on the German translation of the Symbolist poems of Albert Giraud, it is in many ways a transgressive work and conjures up an unusual atmosphere. Schoenberg used a singing style known as Sprechgesang, a curious blend of speech and singing which works in conjunction with the music and mysteriously complements the states of mind reflected in the poems. The music is atonal but not dodecaphonic, and though Pierrot is male, his role is usually sung and recited by a female voice. The Liceu has taken a new approach by inviting the countertenor Xavier Sabata to play the part. Despite its underlying mathematical structure (the three sets of seven poems, for instance), Pierrot Lunaire creates an impression of total freedom and of floating weightlessly. It was a musical milestone, a contemporary, mould-breaking paradigm which changed the course of musical history and had many imitators.
NOVEMBER 2021
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On a set designed for the Foyer by the group Cube. bz, Xavier Sabata will recreate the atmosphere of a Berlin cabaret which permeates the score itself. Sabata, a deeply committed artist, will transport us to the limits of human emotion: the unwholesome obsession with a loved one, the decapitating power of the blade-shaped crescent moon, and Pierrot’s hankering for his native Italy. His voice and acting skills are ideally suited to Schoenberg’s buffoon-hero Pierrot. Counter tenor Dramaturgy and director Set and lighting Movement
Xavier Sabata Xavier Sabata CUBE.BZ Maria C. de Vaca SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ENSEMBLE OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Francesc Prat PARADISE: memories of a happier past in the midst of an obsessive disorder
Concert
Drawing by William Kentridge.
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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DUDAMEL CONDUCTS THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE BY BERLIOZ 21.11.21— There are events that cast lustre on an entire season and project. This is undoubtedly one of them. Maestro Dudamel’s close relationship with Barcelona (and latterly with the Gran Teatre del Liceu) has given rise to a series of joint endeavours. Now, at his instigation, Paris and Barcelona are to become twin opera houses.
This exchange proposal involving the two orchestras and their conductors attests to the warm relationship between the two opera houses. For the Liceu, its orchestra and Josep Pons, the Paris rendezvous will be a highlight of this 175th anniversary year.
As part of the exchange, the Parisian orchestra and its brand new, charismatic conductor will come to perform in Barcelona and Josep Pons will travel to the ‘city of light’ with the Liceu’s orchestra in January.
AT THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU (BARCELONA)
AT THE OPÉRA BASTILLE (PARÍS) SUNDAY 9 JANUARY 2022
B. Bártok Bluebeard’s Castle JUDITH Aušrine ˙ Stundyte ˙ BLUEBEARD Sir Bryn Terfel SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons Just a few days after taking up his position in Paris, Gustavo Dudamel will descend upon the Liceu like a hurricane of energy and vitality to uncover new secrets about such great composers as Mozart, Ravel and Berlioz. When it comes to creating addiction to particular composers and repertories, there’s no one like him. NOVEMBER 2021 SUNDAY 21
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M. Ravel Alborada del gracioso W. A. Mozart Simfonia No. 31, in D major KV 297, “Paris” H. Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique ORCHESTRE DE L’OPÉRA NATIONAL DE PARIS
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel
«Thanks to the twinning of the Liceu and the Opéra de Paris, exchanges will take place between the two orchestras and their respective conductors, Dudamel and Pons. A great relationship between two outstanding European opera houses is underway.»
Concert
Gustavo Dudamel
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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RIGOLETTO Giuseppe Verdi Del 28.11.21— al 19.12.21
MELODRAMA IN THREE ACTS
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave World premiere: 11/03/1851 at the Teatro La Fenice de Venècia Barcelona premiere: 03/12/1853 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Last Liceu performance: 06/04/2017 Total number of Liceu performances: 375
Stage director Set design Costume design Lighting This version Production
Monique Wagemakers Michael Levine Sandy Powell Reinier Tweebeeke Cor van den Brink Gran Teatre del Liceu i Teatro Real de Madrid
NOVEMBER 2021
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Approximate running time: 2 h 40 min *Function with audio description
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DUKE OF Benjamin Bernheim MANTUA 28 november and 1, 5, 10, 14, 18 december Saimir Pirgu 30 november and 2, 4, 9, 13, 17, 19 december Josep Bros 3 and 12 december RIGOLETTO Christopher Maltman 28 november and 1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 18 december Markus Brück 30 november and 2, 4, 9, 13, 17, 19 december GILDA Olga Peretyatko 28 november and 1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 18 december Aigul Khismatullin 30 november and 2, 4, 9, 13 ,17, 19 december SPARAFUCILE Grigory Shkarupa 28 november and 1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 18 december Liang Li 30 november and 2, 4, 9, 13, 17, 19 december MADDALENA Rinat Shahan 30 november and 2, 4, 9, 13, 17, 19 december Nino SuRguladze 28 november and 1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14, 18 december GIOVANNA Laura Vila COUNT Mattia Denti MONTERONE MARULLO Michał Partyka MATTEO BORSA Moisés Marín COUNT Stefano Palatchi CEPRANO COUNTESS Sara Bañeras CEPRANO CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Daniele Callegari PARADISE: daughter, family and home
Opera
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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RIGOLETTO Giuseppe Verdi
In a letter to his librettist Francesco Maria Piave, Verdi wrote: “Oh! Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’amuse deals with the greatest of themes and is perhaps the most important play of modern times. It’s worthy of Shakespeare!”. He was working on an adaptation of King Lear at the time but then returned to Hugo, to whom he owed the greatest triumph of his most difficult years: Ernani. The irresistible threesome of the king, his daughter and the court jester came as flash of inspiration to Verdi. Between the shallow, lecherous Duke (Hugo’s king) and Gilda, who is both a victim and captive of ignorance, he places Rigoletto, the wonderful, ambivalent hunchback whose paradise is the peaceful home and family he struggles to protect. Despite his outward deformity, Rigoletto is passionately loving being, but also a monstruous father, obsessed by a curse, who is harrowing, grotesque and sublime in equal measure. His star aria, “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata”, takes him from indomitable rage to humble supplication, attesting to Verdi’s ability to adapt a form he inherited from bel canto to dramatic realism. Monique Wagemakers’ exuberant production, with its delightful Venetian red costumes, focusses on the themes of ill-treatment, the quest for identity, and the abuse of power over the defenceless, as shown by the Duke’s domination of Rigoletto and Rigoletto’s domination of his daughter. Precisely the contradictions and conflicts on which the whole extraordinary score rests.
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Baritone RIGOLETTO
Tenor DUKE OF MANTUA
Christopher Maltman
Benjamin Bernheim
Maltman trained as a singer at London’s Royal Academy of Music. His rendering of Don Giovanni, a role he has sung in leading opera houses the world over, has earned him enthusiastic reviews. After his first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Iphigenie auf Tauris, choreographed by Pina Bausch (2010/11), we saw him in La bohème (2011/12), a concert with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov (2019/20), and Don Giovanni (2020/21).
A specialist in key Romantic roles, Bernheim appears regularly at such major venues as the Opéra National de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Berlin Staatsoper, Opéra National de Bordeaux and Teatro alla Scala in Milan and has also sung in Munich, Vienna, Hannover and Luxemburg. This is his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Saimir Pirgu
Olga Peretyatko
Pirgu has performed in opera houses far and wide under conductors including Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Philippe Jordan, Zubin Mehta, Antonio Pappano, Mariss Jansons and Claudio Abbado. He received the Franco Corelli Prize for his role in La traviata in 2009 and the Pavarotti d’Oro in 2013. We first saw him at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in La bohème in 2011/12.
Since her victory in the Operalia competition brought her to the fore, Peretyatko has sung at the world’s leading venues. In 2015 she won the Franco Abbiati prize for the best singer. Her recent engagements include Leïla (Les pêcheurs de perles) in Berlin, and Maria (Mazeppa) at the Baden-Baden Festival. She first appeared at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (2009/10).
«Gualtier Maldè… Caro nome», Gilda, act I.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Tenor DUKE OF MANTUA
Gilda ponders about her sudden love for the penniless student Gualtier Maldè, unaware that he is really the Duke of Mantua.
Season 2021— 2 022
Soprano GILDA
«Sì, vendetta, tremenda vendetta», Rigoletto, Gilda, act II. After rescuing Gilda from the Duke’s clutches, Rigoletto swears to take revenge but Gilda, who still loves the Duke, begs him to be merciful.
«La donna è mobile», Duca di Mantova, act III. The Duke of Mantua sings about the fickle nature of women prior to his tryst with Maddalena at the home of her brother, the paid killer Sparafucile.
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Drawing by William Kentridge.
Òpera
APOSTLE TOWN
After your death. It was windy every day. Every day. Opposed us like a wall. We went. Shouting sideways at one another. Along the road. It was useless. The spaces between us. Got hard. They are empty spaces. And yet they are solid. And black and grievous. As gaps between the teeth. Of an old woman. You knew years ago. When she was. Beautiful the nerves pouring around in her like palace fire. (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Essays and Poetry - 1995)
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JORDI SAVALL: BEETHOVEN’S 8th AND 9th 15.12.21—
“Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium” Friedrich Schiller – Ode to Joy, definitive 1808 version
This concert is the last in the series devoted by conductor Jordi Savall to the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven to mark the 250th anniversary of the Bonn-born composer’s birth. In it Savall’s Concert des Nations will play the last two symphonies. The Eighth is remarkable for the sharp contrast between events in the composer’s life and the joyful exuberance of the score. The Ninth, on the other hand, ushered in a new era, for it was unusual for a symphony to include solo voices and a chorus. The choice of Schiller’s poem contributed to the work becoming a symbol of freedom. These nine inimitable symphonies have gone down in the history of music as a single, priceless entity which established a new canon, sparking off so vast a revolution that Beethoven eclipsed all previous composers who had presumed to write symphony music. Savall’s interpretation will immerse us in the creative genius that changed everything: music itself, the figure of the artist, the audience and the world. An inexhaustible vade mecum embracing all possible emotions and a guide to life.
L. van Beethoven Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93 L. van Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in F major, Op. 125 “Choral” Soprano Mezzosoprano Tenor Baritone
Sara Gouzy Laila Salome Fischer Mingjie Lei Manuel Walser LE CONCERT DES NATIONS Beethoven Academy 2020
Concertmaster Assistant conductor Assistant Concertmaster Conductor
Jakob Lehmann Luca Guglielmi Manfredo Kraemer Jordi Savall
LA CAPELLA NACIONAL DE CATALUNYA Choirmaster Lluís Vilamajor PARADISE: freedom through brotherhood between peoples
With the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona Provincial Authority, the Barcelona City Council, the Fondations Edmond de Rothschild and the Fundació Banc de Sabadell. Le Concert des Nations is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the French Republic.
DECEMBER 2021 WEDNESDAY 15
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Jordi Savall
THE NUTCRACKER Ballet du Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse From 28.12.21— to 04.01.22
BALLET IN TWO ACTS
Libretto by Ivan Vsevolozhsky and Marius Petipa based on the tale The Nutcracker, adapted by Alexandre Dumas père from The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann
In his version of The Nutcracker, made for the Ballet du Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Kader Belarbi explores a wonderful, dream-like world in order to share it with others, like a father telling his children a bedtime story. On Christmas Eve in an old-fashioned boarding school, Clara is given a nutcracker as a present. This is the start of a marvellous fairy story that will enable the children to escape from their drab everyday life into a world of fantasy, where toys come to life and grow to human size, and the nutcracker turns into a prince. The Nutcracker is an unrivalled masterpiece of classical ballet with a long history behind it. Since Marius Petipa staged the original version in Saint Petersburg in 1892, numerous choreographers have made more modern, iconoclastic takes. Now it is Belarbi’s turn to unleash his imagination and infuse new vitality into this traditional piece. He keeps the magic of the Christmas story intact as he portrays the DECEMBER 2021 TUESDAY 28
7 pm
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DANCE
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The Nutcracker is a musical icon and one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular scores. Many of its numbers are part of our musical heritage: the Waltz of the Flowers, the Dance of the Reed Flutes, the March, the Russian Dance or “Trepak”, the Arabian and Chinese Dances, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and many more. All are endowed with an energy and melodic freshness that bears witness to the composer’s refined art. The ageless theme of love, the clash between the forces of evil and beauty, the magical scenery, the sumptuous costumes and the matchless variety of the dances make this ballet a must: an invitation to flee from the real world and let ourselves be dazzled by dreams. Music Composition and musical arrangements Choreography and mise-en-scène Sets Costume design Lighting Arrangements Assistant to the choreography
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Kader Belarbi Laure Muret Antoine Fontaine Philippe Guillotel Hervé Gary Anthony Rouchier Lola Sergent SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
JANUARY 2022 DIUMENGE 2
5 pm
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TUESDAY 4
7 pm
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Approximate running time: 1 h 30 min
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children’s paradise and dreams but takes an approach inspired by the films of Georges Méliès.
Conductor Marius Stighorst PARADISE: restoring and preserving peace and the world of children
Dance
JAVIER CAMARENA 07.01.22—
Javier Camarena, one of the finest tenors in the world, returns to Barcelona to offer us this recital as part of the celebrations for the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Liceu. Accompanied by his usual pianist, Ángel Rodríguez, he will revisit some of the most characteristic songs and arias in his repertory, ranging from the music of his Mexican homeland to the cream of the bel canto repertory. Camarena has won himself a place at the Liceu as one of the best loved tenors of his generation and wins rapturous applause wherever he goes. His elegant singing, splendid sunny timbre and natural virtuosity make him a welcome visitor at all opera houses. Yet it is precisely with the Liceu that he is seeking to build an ongoing relationship.
«Camarena, accompanied by his usual pianist, will present the finest songs and arias in his repertory from the perspective of Mexican music.» Tenor Javier Camarena Piano Ángel Rodríguez
He is remembered in operatic circles as one of the few singers to have encored an aria at the New York Metropolitan. The piece was Tonio’s “Ah, mes amis” in La fille du régiment, with its daunting sequence of chest-voice high Cs. That achievement alone would justify his mythical status in the operatic world.
JANUARY 2022 FRIDAY 7
7 pm
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Approximate running time: 2 h 40 min
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Recital
Javier Camarena
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY From 26.01.22— to 11.02.22 OPERA IN THREE ACTS
Libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky based on the tale of the same title by Pushkin World premiere: 07/12/1890 at the Mariinksy Theatre, Saint Petersburg Barcelona premiere: 01/12/1922 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Last Liceu performance: 04/07/2010 Total number of Liceu performances: 31
Stage director Set design Choreography Costume design Lighting Production
Gilbert Deflo William Orlandi Nadejda L. Loujine William Orlandi Albert Faura Gran Teatre del Liceu CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor CHILDREN’S CHORUS OF AMICS DE LA UNIÓ DE GRANOLLERS
Josep Vila i Jover, conductor SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Dmitry Jurowski JANUARY 2022 WEDNESDAY 26
7 pm
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THURSDAY 27
7 pm
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MONDAY 31
7 pm
HOLA LICEU
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FEBRUARY 2022 TUESDAY 1
7 pm
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7 pm
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FRIDAY 4
7 pm
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HERMAN Yusif Eyvazov 26 January and 1, 5, 8, 11 February Martin Muehle 25 and 27 January and 2, 4, 6, 10 February ´ COUNT TOMSKY / Łukasz Golinski 26 January and ZLATOGOR 1, 5, 8, 11 February Gevorg Hakobyan 25 and 27 January and 2, 4, 6, 10 February PRINCE IELETSKI Rodion Pogossov 26 January and 1, 5, 8, 11 February Andrey Zhilikhovsky 25 and 27 January and 2, 4, 6, 10 February TCHEKALINSKY David Alegret SOURIN Ivo Stanchev TXAPLITSKI Antonio Lozano THE COUNTESS Elena Zaremba 25 and 26 January and 1, 5, 8, 11 February / Dolora Zajick 27 and 31 January and 2, 4, 6 and 10 February LISA Sondra Radvanovsky 26 January and 1, 5, 8, 11 February Lianna Haroutounian 25 and 27 January and 2, 4, 6, 10 February PAULINA / MILVOZOR Lena Belkina 26 January and 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11 February Cristina Faus 27 January and 2, 5 February GOVERNESS Mireia Pintó MASHA Gemma Coma-Alabert MASTER OF Marc Sala CEREMONIES PRILEPA Serena Sáenz PARADISE: gambling Approximate running time: 3 h 50 min *Function with audio description
Opera
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Thanks to his brother Modest’s libretto, based on a free adaptation of a tale by Pushkin, P. I. Tchaikovsky was able to respond in just 44 days to a commission from the Russian Imperial Theatres and Pikovaya Dama was born. For the young Herman, paradise consists of rising in society and gambling. He accordingly sacrifices his love for Lisa to his obsession with finding a magic formula for winning at cards which is in the possession of an old countess. After driving Lisa to suicide, Herman himself dies, deceived by the Countess’s ghost.
Gilbert Deflo’s opulent production transports us to a far-off age and underscores the composer’s own scathing portrait of society, for beneath the amiable appearance of the Russia of Catherine the Great, a lost generation lies hidden. Tchaikovsky’s score evokes the court, streets and river banks of Saint Petersburg through the deliberate recreation of 18th century musical forms and allusions to popular and religious music but never sacrifices his characteristically fervent lyricism. The Queen of Spades ranks alongside Eugene Onegin as his greatest contribution to the world of opera.
The tragedy of this complex Romantic hero, haunted by his passion for gambling and driven by fate to the loss of his lover and to crime and death, is counterpointed by elements from the world of dreams and the supernatural.
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Opera
«Po-luschish smertelny udar ty», Herman, act I.
«Ya vas lyublyu», Yeletski, act II.
«Akh! Istomilas ya goryem», Liza, act III.
A storm is brewing. Herman, left alone in the park, vows to discover the Countess’s secret for winning at cards.
Liza arrives at a masked ball with Yeletsky. Her expression betrays the distress caused by her meeting with Herman the day before. Yeletsky tries to cheer her by declaring his love for her.
Liza has asked Herman to meet her at midnight by the canal. She suspects he no longer loves her and bemoans her ill fortune while she waits for him.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Soprano LISA
Mezzosoprano POLINA / MILVOZOR
Sondra Radvanovsky
Yusif Eyvazov
Especially admired for her interpretation of Verdi roles, Radvanovsky has also won acclaim in Italian bel canto titles. Among her recent engagements are Amelia (Un ballo in maschera) at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Imogene (Il pirata) at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, and Aida at the l’Opéra National de Paris. Her first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu was also in Aida in (2011/12).
Eyvazov has sung at many prominent opera houses including the New York Metropolitan, London’s Royal Opera House, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Opéra National de Paris. We saw him at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the concert “Netrebko, Eyvazov and Maltman sing Verdi” (2019/20) and again in a concert version of Il trovatore (2020/21).
Tenor HERMANN
Lena Belkina
Łukasz ´ Golinski
In addition to leading roles in La donzella d’Orleans, Carmen and Teseo, Belkina’s repertory includes Varvara (Katya Kabanova), Ruggiero (Alcina), Nicklausse (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Isaura (Tancredi) and Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia). In 2020 she was nominated for the best young singer prize at the Opera Awards. This is her first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Best known for his performance in King Roger at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with Antonio Pappano on the podium, and his appearances at the Frankfurt Opera, the Opera Nadorowa in Warsaw and the National Opera in Prague, ´ has also played Elviro Golinski (Serse), Tonio (Pagliacci) and Masetto (Don Giovanni). He is visiting the Gran Teatre del Liceu for the first time.
Season 2021— 2 022
Bass-baritone COUNT TOMSKI / ZLATOGOR
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Your nose is wrong. Your feet are wrong. Your eyes are wrong your mouth is wrong. Your pimp is wrong even his name is wrong. (Anne Carson: Men in the Off Hours - 2001)
PIQUE DAME OPERA
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Òpera
Temporada 2021— 2 022
Drawing by William Kentridge.
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TENOR VIÑAS CONTEST 28.01.22— i 30.01.22
Since 1963, when Dr. Jacint Vilardell founded the Contest in memory of the famous Catalan tenor Francesc Viñas, it has earned great international prestige and support from the world’s leading opera houses. Prominent singers who have won the Viñas Contest include: Tamara Wilson (2011), Javier Camarena (2005), Violeta Urmana (1992), Zeljko Lucic (1997), Antonio Gandia (2004) and Vicenç Sardinero (1965).
«Discover the voices of the future in this new edition of the international Tenor Viñas Contest.» SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Daniel Montané
This year it reaches its 59th edition.
JANUARY 2022
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6 pm
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FINAL ROUND FRIDAY 28 FINAL CONCERT SUNDAY 30
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Concert
Drawing by William Kentridge.
BRIDE TOWN
Hanging on the daylight black. As an overcoat with no man in it one cold bright. Noon the Demander was waiting for me. (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Essays and Poetry - 1995)
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PARTENOPE (CONCERT VERSION)
Georg Friedrich Händel 29.01.22—
Winners of the 2021 edition of Le Jardin des Voix (LES ARTS FLORISSANTS – William Christie)
OPERA IN THREE ACTS
Libretto by Silvio Stampiglia. World premiere: 24/02/1730 at the King’s Theatre, London First performance at the Liceu
Handel – the “dear Saxon”, as he was nicknamed in Italian – dominated the London operatic scene for 22 years. He scored his first major success with Radamisto (1720). Partenope (1730) belongs to his so-called golden age. The plot tells of the trials, tribulations and inner conflicts of Queen Partenope, the founder of Naples, as she tries to choose a husband from among three rival suitors (Arsace, Emilio and Armindo). The ensuing intrigues, strategies and cases of mistaken identity reveal certain profound truths about love and war. This Baroque comedy (structured like an opera seria) won great acclaim on its first showing at the King’s Theatre.
PARTENOPE ARSACE ARMINDO EMILIO ROSMIRA / EURIMENE ORMONTE
Ana Vieira Leita Hugh Cutting Alberto Miguélez Rouco Jacob Lawrence Helen Charlston Matthieu Walendzik LES ARTS FLORISSANTS
Conductor William Christie PARADISE: the peace brought
by love
Though seldom performed, Partenope features captivating music and a charming, wildly imaginative libretto. William Christie will conduct this concert version performed by young singers from his prestigious academy, Le Jardin des Voix. Christie is an authority on Handel and his interpretation of this masterpiece will capture all the hidden allusions and touches of humour while exploiting the dramatic potential of each and every note.
JANUARY 2022 SATURDAY 29
7 pm
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Approximate running time: 2 h
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Opera
Temporada William Christie2021— 2 022
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PARTENOPE (CONCERT VERSION)
Georg Friedrich Händel
Ana Vieira Leita Soprano PARTENOPE
Hugh Cutting Countertenor ARSACE
Alberto Miguélez Rouco Countertenor ARMINDO
Jacob Lawrence Tenor EMILIO
William Christie Conductor
Helen Charlston
Matthieu Walendzik
Mezzosoprano ROSMIRA / EURIMENE
Baritone ORMONTE
*See the complete biographies on liceu.cat
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Christie, a harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist and professor, played a pioneering role in the rediscovery and popularization of French Baroque music. In 1979 he founded the instrumental ensemble Les Arts Florissants. His latest operatic productions include Rameau, maître à danser, Handel’s Jephtha, and Ariodante. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2017/18 with the last-named title and returned in 2020/21 with Platée (both in concert version).
LES ARTS FLORISSANTS This ensemble, founded by William Christie in 1979, is made up of singers and musicians of worldwide repute who perform Baroque music on period instruments. Under the batons of William Christie and Paul Agnew, it gives about a hundred concerts a year in France and throughout the world. Le Jardin des Voix, a training programme for young musicians, was set up in 2002 and has cooperated with the Juilliard School in New York since 2007. The Arts Flo Juniors programme is aimed at students from music conservatories.
Opera
SHORT TALK ON HOMO SAPIENS
With small cuts Cro-Magnon man recorded the moon’s phases on the handles of his tools, thinking about her as he worked. Animals. Horizon. Face in a pan of water. In every story I tell comes a point where I can see no further. I hate that point. It is why they call storytellers blind—a taunt. (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Glass, Irony & God - 1995)
Temporada 2021— 2 022 Drawing by William Kentridge.
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PIOTR BECZAŁA 03.02.22—
Since Polish tenor Piotr Beczala made his Liceu debut with a selection from Gounod’s Faust, he has won enthusiastic applause the world over and consolidated his reputation with a varied repertoire ideally suited to his lyric tenor voice. Beczala now returns after triumphing at the world’s leading opera houses, including the New York Metropolitan, London’s Covent Garden, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Opéra de Paris. His appearances at the Liceu in titles such as Werther, Un ballo in maschera and Luisa Miller have been equally unforgettable. This recital will give him a chance to demonstrate the versatility of his voice – one of the most attractive of the present day –, his infinite range of nuances and the mastery of mezza voce and pianissimo which are the hallmarks of his art.
«Piotr Beczała, the much acclaimed Polish tenor, returns to the Liceu to thrill the audience with his customary fervour and vocal versatility.» Tenor Piotr Beczała Piano To be confirmed
Thus the audience will have the good fortune to hear one of the world’s finest tenors, whose voice has acquired volume and density in latter years, while admiring the vast gallery of characters he creates in the different arias thanks to his personal commitment to each and every role. Savouring the talent of this singer at the height of his powers will be a source of immense pleasure.
FEBRUARY 2022 THURSDAY 3
7 pm
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Approximate running time: 2 h 40 min
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Recital
Piotr Beczała 2021— 2 022 Temporada
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PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE Claude Debussy Del 28.02.22— al 18.03.22
LYRIC DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS DIVIDED INTO FIFTEEN SCENES
Based on the play of the same title by Maurice Maeterlinck World premiere: 30/04/1902 at the Opéra-Comique, Paris Barcelona premiere: 11/10/1919 at the Teatre Tívoli First performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu: 16/12/1930 Last Liceu performance: 07/07/2012 Total number of Liceu performances: 13
Stage director Set design Costume design Lighting Assistant stage director Production
PELLÉAS GOLAUD ARKEL PHYSICIAN MÉLISANDE GENEVIÈVE
Àlex Ollé Alfons Flores Lluc Castells Marco Filibeck Susana Gómez New production based on an original Dresden Oper production Stanislas de Barbeyrac Simon Keenlyside Franz-Josef Selig Stefano Palatchi Julie Fuchs Dame Sarah Connolly CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons FEBRUARY 2022 MONDAY 28
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The PARADISE of true love
MARCH 2022 THURSDAY 3
7 pm
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SUNDAY 6
5 pm
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TUESDAY 8
7 pm
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FRIDAY 11
7 pm
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TUESDAY 15
7 pm
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FRIDAY 18*
7 pm
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Approximate running time: 3 h 20 min *Function with audio description
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Opera
Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE Claude Debussy
“Si j’étais Dieu, j’aurais pitié du cœur des homes” (Arkel, Pelléas et Mélisande, Scene I, Act IV) Pelléas et Mélisande, based on the Symbolist play by Maeterlinck, occupies a unique place in the history of opera. Though it met with total incomprehension from critics and the musical world in general after its Paris premiere, its dream-like idiom endows it with great magnetism and power. The characters are absent, passive beings who roam silently about in a disquieting atmosphere. The enigmatic Mélisande, who possesses a strange beauty, meets the king’s grandson Golaud in the forest and goes on to become his wife. When she later falls passionately in love with his younger brother, Pelléas, the relationship ends in both their deaths. The work is a transposition of the myth of Tristan and Iseult, in which love prevails over the characters’ wills and moral laws, finding fulfilment only in death. The musical language, in contrast, is completely new and a far cry from Wagner.
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Àlex Ollé interprets the score by resorting to the language of dreams, with additional references to Freud and Surrealism. The resulting aesthetic is akin to the style of other present-day directors such as Lars von Trier or David Lynch. Ollé’s version is conceived as an accumulation of impossible questions with no answers. The dominant feature of the set is a large black box which contains a great enigma and functions as a modern metaphor of the human mind. Within it the complex codes of dreams lie hidden, along with the truth about Mélisande’s tragic death. It is linked to the outside world by a single basic element: water. The text is a continuous melopoeia that relates the tragic love triangle by means of a largely static plot. In this phantasmagoric voyage through unreality, which is troubling, mysterious and dramatically well paced, the main characters see true love as the prime ingredient of paradise.
Opera
Tenor PELLÉAS
Baritone GOLAUD
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Julie Fuchs
De Barbeyrac first drew attention as Tamino (The Magic Flute) at the 2014 Aix-en-Provence festival and as Arbace (Idomeneo) on his debut at London’s Royal Opera House. Since then he has appeared at the world’s finest venues. This is his first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
The many roles Fuchs has sung include Marie (La fille du régiment) at the Wiener Staatsoper, Leïla (Les pêcheurs de perles) at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, Giunia (Lucio Silla) at Madrid’s Teatro Real, and Musetta (La bohème) at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. We first saw her at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2020/21 in the concert version of Mitridate, re di Ponto.
Soprano MÉLISANDE
Simon Keenlyside
Dame Sarah Connolly
Keenlyside has sung in some of the world’s most outstanding opera houses including the New York Metropolitan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. The roles of Prospero (The Tempest), Posa (Don Carlo) and Giorgio Germont (La traviata) are part of his repertory. His first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu was in Hamlet (2003/04).
In 2020 Connolly was made an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society in recognition for her services to music. She has sung in numerous festivals and opera houses all over the world such as the New York Metropolitan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Her first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu was in L’incoronazione di Poppea (2008/09).
Mezzosoprano GENEVIÈVE
«Vous ne savez pas où je vous ai menée», Pelléas, Mélisande, act II.
«Oui, c’est ici, nous y sommes», Pelléas, Mélisande, act II.
«Mes longs cheveux descendent», Pelléas, Mélisande, act III.
Pelléas and Mélisande walk through the park till they reach the fountain. Their preternatural attraction to one another is clear.
Mélisande and Pélleas enter the cave where Mélisande told Golaud she lost her ring. As the moon lights up the cave, they realize it is inhabited.
Pélleas comes to Mélisande’s room to bid her farewell and finds her at the window, combing her long hair.
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PELLEAS ET MELISANDE OPERA
Well he said. Do you know she began. What. If I could kill you I would then have to make another exactly like you. Why. To tell it to. (Anne Carson: The Beauty of the Husband - 2001)
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Òpera
Drawing by William Kentridge.
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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VARIATIONS ON PELLÉAS 07.03.22—
The leading thread of this concert is provided by the play Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1892 by the Belgian Symbolist poet Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949). It tells a tragic and poetical love story which inspired an unusual number of contemporary composers. Among them were Jean Sibelius, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré and Arnold Schoenberg who used it as the basis for works ranging from symphonic poems to an opera. In 1902, at the same time as Schoenberg was writing his symphonic poem, Debussy set about turning the play into an opera bearing the same title. The characters’ ultimate fate recalls that of Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Iseult, but the tale is shrouded in a Symbolist aesthetic in which everything is suggested rather than stated. The works Fauré and Sibelius dedicated to the same story date from 1898 and 1905 respectively.
G. Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande, op. 80 J. Sibelius Pelléas et Mélisande, op. 46 A. Schönberg Pelléas et Mélisande, op. 5 SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons PARADISE: the Utopia of a love that can only find fulfilment after death
The presence of Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande on this season’s opera bill gives Josep Pons, a specialist in turn-of-the-century European music, an opportunity to remind us of these other scores. He will act our guide as we discover the different ways in which music can transform a given literary source.
MARCH 2022 MONDAY 7
7 pm
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Approximate running time: 1 h 40 min
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Concert
Drawing by William Kentridge.
THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD
My religion makes no sense and does not help me therefore I pursue it. (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Glass, Irony & God - 1995)
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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175th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT: ANNA NETREBKO 03.04.22—
Determined to celebrate its 175th anniversary in spectacular style, the Gran Teatre del Liceu has organized a veritable gala performance in which Anna Netrebko and her husband Yusif Eyvazov will play the leading roles in three complete acts from different operas. Thus we will see Netrebko as Mimì, Tosca and Turandot on a single, very special evening. This threefold challenge involves embodying three very different heroines: the innocent and fragile Mimì, who is doomed to die, the cold, enigmatic Turandot, and the jealous and resolute but also vulnerable Floria Tosca. Moreover each work is set in a different city (Paris, Rome and Beijing), so we will also embark on a thrilling journey as we watch our prima donna breathe life into these three fascinating women whom Puccini bequeathed to the history of opera. Anna Netrebko will take possession of the stage to demonstrate the superb artistry that underlies her brilliant career. By immersing herself in three different roles, she will have the opportunity to dazzle us with the multiple shades and depths of her voice and her ability to convey changes in personality and expression, from lyrical tenderness and elegant phrasing to fiery passion.
APRIL 2022 SUNDAY 3
6 pm
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This concert, on a par with the brilliance of Anna Netrebko herself, is a 175th birthday treat for our audience. May we continue to enjoy such mythical voices and legendary concerts for many years to come. G. Verdi Macbeth (Brindis act II) G. Puccini La bohème (act II) G. Puccini Turandot (act II) Soprano Anna Netrebko Tenor Joseph Calleja Baritone Àngel Òdena (Others soloists to be confirmed) Set design Valentina Carrasco Set Carles Berga CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Marco Armiliato
Approximate running time: 2 h 40 min
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175th anniversary concert
Anna Netrebko
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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175th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT: ANNA NETREBKO
Anna Netrebko
Soprano
Born in Krasnodar (Russia), Netrebko studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. She has won outstanding awards and distinctions and sung in the world’s leading opera houses and concert halls. Iconic heroines she has played include Giovanna d’Arco, Elsa (Lohengrin), Adriana Lecouvreur, Aida and Tosca. After making her Liceu debut in the 2012/13 season in a concert version of Iolanta, she returned in 2019/20 for a concert with Christopher Maltman and Yusif Eyvazov and another concert entitled Jour et nuit in 2020/21.
«A unique concert to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Liceu’s opening. Anna Netrebko will team up with tenor Joseph Calleja to play Musetta, Lady Macbeth and Turandot.»
Joseph Calleja
Tenor
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Calleja won the Caruso Competition in 1998 and Plácido Domingo’s Operalia in 1999. His repertory mainly consists of leading roles by Italian composers such as Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. He first appeared at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2004/05 as Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore.
175th anniversary concert
Drawing by William Kentridge.
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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THE DA PONTE TRILOGY Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart From 07.04.22— to 25.04.22
Marc Minkowski and Ivan Alexandre have taken up an ambitious and novel challenge: that of making the three operas written by Lorenzo Da Ponte and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart –which resemble the tessellae of a splendid mosaic– into three-part series which will be staged four times. Each opera is a masterpiece in its own right but they also have several features in common: respect for the unities of classical drama (unity of place, time and action) and the similarities between the characters (Countess-Donna Elvira / Don GiovanniCount, and so on). Thus each libretto appears in its true colours when the opera is seen in conjunction with the other two because certain traits are completed and clarified. Staging them one after the other, as in a festival, affords the audience new insights by enabling them to immerse themselves in the turbulent lives of the
motley gallery of characters. All the women share the suffering caused by the violence of the male characters. Their only refuge is feminine solidarity and their menfolk, after abusing their freedom, are invariably met with forgiveness. This new perspective brings new meanings to light, confronting the audience with the notion of seduction and raising crucial questions such as: “What does it mean to be a man or a woman in present-day society?”, “What limits do we put on our desires?”, “What does it mean to form a couple today?” or “What are the consequences of our impulses and of abuse?”. For seduction lies at the core of this trilogy, which is an ageless mirror, an inexhaustible handbook for life, and a folle journée as well, during which così fan tutt(i), while all voices unite to sing “Viva la libertà!”. PARADISE: the game of seduction, suffering leads to guilt and then to forgiveness
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Opera
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
DON GIOVANNI
COSÌ FAN TUTTE Season 2021— 2 022
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LE NOZZE DI FIGARO Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart From 07.04.22— to 23.04.22
World premiere: 01/05/1786 at the Burgtheater, Vienna Barcelona premiere: 02/02/1916 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Last Liceu performance: 20/11/2016 Total number of Liceu performances: 97
Stage director Set design Choreography Costume design Lighting Production
Ivan Alexandre Antoine Fontaine Nathalie van Parys Antoine Fontaine Tobias Hagström Ståhl Drottningholms Slottsteater
COUNT ALMAVIVA Thomas Dolié COUNTESS Anna-Maria Labin ALMAVIVA SUSANNA Angela Brower 7 i 19 abril Megan Marino 11 i 23 abril FIGARO Robert Gleadow CHERUBINO Lea Desandre MARCELLINA Arianna Vendittelli BARTOLO Christian Federici BASILIO / Paco García DON CURZIO BARBARINA Mercedes Gancedo SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Marc Minkowski PARADISE: the effect of
forgiveness APRIL 2022 THURSDAY 7
7 pm
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Price
B
From 14 to 269 €
MONDAY 11
7 pm
A
From 14 to 269 €
TUESDAY 19
7 pm
D
From 14 to 269 €
SATURDAY 23*
6 pm
F
From 14 to 269 €
Approximate running time: 3 h 40 min *Function with audio description
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Opera
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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DON GIOVANNI Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart From 08.04.22— to 24.04.22
World premiere: 29/10/1787 at the National Theatre, Prague Barcelona premiere: 18/12/1849 at the Teatre Principal Liceu premiere: 21/02/1866 Last Liceu performance: 28/10/2020 Total number of Liceu performances: 91
Stage director Set design Choreography Costume design Lighting Production DON GIOVANNI IL COMMENDATORE DONNA ANNA DON OTTAVIO DONNA ELVIRA LEPORELLO MASETTO ZERLINA
Ivan Alexandre Antoine Fontaine Nathalie van Parys Antoine Fontaine Tobias Hagström Ståhl Drottningholms Slottsteater Alexandre Duhamel Leonard Bernad Iulia Maria Dan Julien Henric Arianna Venditelli Robert Gleadow Leonard Bernad Angela Brower 12 and 24 April / Megan Marino 8 and 20 April CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Marc Minkowski PARADISE: self-indulgence
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FRIDAY 8
APRIL 2022 7 pm
E
From 14 to 269 €
TUESDAY 12
7 pm
PC
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WEDNESDAY 20
7 pm
G
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SUNDAY 24*
5 pm
T
From 14 to 269 €
Approximate running time: 2 h 55 min *Function with audio description
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Opera
Alexandre Duhamel
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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COSÌ FAN TUTTE Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart From 09.04.22— to 25.04.22
World premiere: 26/01/1790 at the Burgtheater, Vienna Barcelona premiere: 04/11/1798 at the Teatre de la Santa Creu Liceu premiere: 04/01/1930 Last Liceu performance: 30/05/2015 Total number of Liceu performances: 62
Stage director Set design Costume design Lighting Production
Ivan Alexandre Antoine Fontaine Antoine Fontaine Tobias Hagström Ståhl Drottningholms Slottsteater
FIORDILIGI Anna-Maria Labin DORABELLA Angela Brower 9 and 21 April / Megan Marino 13 and 25 April FERRANDO James Ley GUGLIELMO Robert Gleadow DESPINA Miriam Albano DON ALFONSO Alexandre Duhamel CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Marc Minkowski PARADISE: reconciliation
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SATURDAY 9
APRIL 2022 7 pm
C
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WEDNESDAY 13
7 pm
PE
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THURSDAY 21
7 pm
P
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MONDAY 25*
7 pm
H
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Approximate running time: 3 h 20 min *Function with audio description
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Opera
Anna-Maria Labin
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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THE DA PONTE TRILOGY Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO Lea Desandre
Mezzosoprano CHERUBINO
Proclaimed operatic artist of the year at the 2021 edition of the Victoires de la Musique Classique, Desandre’s latest engagements include Idamante (Idomeneo) at the Berlin Staatsoper and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, alongside Raphaël Pichon and Aurélien Bory. She has also toured Europe with the Jupiter Ensemble. At the Gran Teatre del Liceu we will be seeing her for the first time.
Robert Gleadow
Marc Minkowski
Bass-baritone FIGARO
Gleadow was able to study music thanks to the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, run by Royal Opera House in London, and the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio in Toronto. His recent engagements include performances at the Theater Basel, where he has also sung the title role in Don Giovanni. This is his first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Conductor
«Non più andrai», Figaro, act I.
Minkowski ranks among the most outstanding musical personalities of his generation. He began his musical studies as a bassoonist before deciding to concentrate on conducting. At the age of 19 he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre with the aim of reviving the Baroque repertory. He is the present director general of the Opéra National de Bordeaux and was first seen at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2020/21 in a concert version of Mitridate, re di Ponto.
As Cherubino prepares to leave the palace to join Count Almaviva’s regiment, Figaro gives him some sensible advice for his future life as a soldier.
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MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Opera
DON GIOVANNI
Baritone DON GIOVANNI
Mezzosoprano ZERLINA
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
Alexandre Duhamel
Anna-Maria Labin
Duhamel studied at the Conservatoire National de Paris and was a member of the young artists programme at the Opéra de Paris. Among his recent engagements are Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and Marcello (La bohème). He has sung in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala and in Paris at the Opéra National and the Théâtre des Champs Élysées. This will be his first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Labin made her debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in Die lustige Witwe. Mozart roles she has played – at the invitation of Marc Minkowski – include the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte). This is her first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Soprano FIORDILIGI
Megan Marino
Angela Brower
Marino made her debut at the New York Metropolitan in Die Frau ohne Schatten and returned there as Flora (La traviata), Laura (Iolanta) and the Nursing Sister (Suor Angelica). A specialist in bel canto, she has sung Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Angelina (La Cenerentola), as well as Meg Page (Falstaff). This is her first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Brower was a member of the opera studio of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Among her many recent engagements are Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier). She has sung in opera houses in Berlin, London, Aix-en-Provence, Chicago, Rome and San Francisco. This will be her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Mezzosoprano DORABELLA
«Madamina, il catalogo è questo», Leporello, act I.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Leporello shows Donna Elvira a catalogue of Don Giovanni’s conquests. He has seduced a total of 2065 women.
Season 2021— 2 022
«Soave sia il vento», Dorabella, Fiordiligi, Don Alfonso, act I.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
As Ferrando and Guglielmo set off to war, their fiancées bid them farewell and wish them a good journey.
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I was a young, strong, stingy person of no particular gender—all traits advantageous to the pilgrim. (Anne Carson: Plainwater: Essays and Poetry - 1995)
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Òpera
Drawing by William Kentridge.
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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SONYA YONCHEVA SINGS PUCCINI 30.04.22— The Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is one of the world’s most fervently admired singers and at the peak of her career. She will appear at the Gran Teatre del Liceu to offer us a concert of Puccini’s great arias to the accompaniment of the Liceu’s own orchestra. After being invited by William Christie to take part in Le Jardin des Voix in 2007, Yoncheva went on to score a great success in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Salzburg Festival and to triumph at the New York Metropolitan, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and and the Opéra de Paris. Since then her delightful voice has gained many new colours as she has tackled more substantial roles such as Mimì, Tosca, Desdèmona, Elisabetta in Don Carlo, and Luisa Miller.
«The much applauded soprano Sonya Yoncheva offers us an unforgettable evening in such star roles as Mimì, Tosca, Butterfly, Liù and Manon Lescaut.» ARIAS FROM THE OPERAS OF GIACOMO PUCCINI
Soprano Sonya Yoncheva SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Francesc Ciampa
The Liceu hopes Sonya Yoncheva will visit us often and offer us many unforgettable evenings. Mimì, Tosca, Butterfly, Liù and Manon Lescaut are just a some of the heroines she will recall to us in the course of this electrifying recital, which will convince us that hers is undoubtedly a voice to remember.
APRIL 2022 SATURDAY 30
7 pm
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C
From 10 to 180 €
Approximate running time: 2 h 40 min
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Concert
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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Sonya Yoncheva
GISELLE BY AKRAM KHAN English National Ballet From 04.05.22— to 07.05.22 Akram Khan’s choreography for Giselle concentrates Director and coreographer on the dark, sinister side of this tale about the spirits of dead maidens. The music, by Vincenzo Lamagna, is Artistic director a recreation of Adolphe Adam’s original score. Executive conductor Music The production, which boasts scenery and costumes by Tim Yip, a collaborator of film director Ang Lee, has won praise and awards as one of the best European dance shows.
Set design Lighting Dramaturgy Sound Coproduction
Diabolical precision and energy are the hallmarks of Khan’s masterly reinterpretation of one of Romantic ballet’s quintessential titles, which he endows with a strange and striking beauty.
Akram Khan Tamara Rojo Patrick Harrison Vincenzo Lamagna (a partir de la partitura original d’Adolphe Adam) Tim Yip Mark Henderson Ruth Little Yvonne Gilbert Festival Internacional de Manchester i el Teatre Sadler’s Wells de Londres SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Gavin Sutherland Invited conductor Gerry Cornelius PARADISE: safety and opportunities for all
MAY 2022
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WEDNESDAY 4
7 pm
A
De 10 a 245 €
With support from the Loewe Foundation.
THURSDAY 5
7 pm
DANCE
De 10 a 245 €
FRIDAY 6
7 pm
B
De 10 a 245 €
Supported by public funding from the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England and the Giselle Production Syndicate.
SATURDAY 7
5 pm
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De 10 a 245 €
The role of Giselle is generously supported by Carol Brigstocke.
SATURDAY 7
9.30 pm
C
De 10 a 245 €
Special thanks are due to Aud Jebsen, who funds the Aud Jebsen International Talent Programme.
Approximate running time: 2 h
The English National Ballet is an associate company of Sadler’s Wells. .
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Dance
WINTERREISE SEEN BY ANTONIO LÓPEZ At the La Model prison From 09.05.22— to 11.05.22 The painter, sculptor and engraver Antonio López, born in Tomelloso (Castile-La Mancha), has been invited by the Liceu to take part for the first time in designing a stage set. In the course of his career, López has used his highly individual technique to depict the passing of time, human beings and their environment, childhood, and still lifes. Here he sets up a dialogue between his artistic works and the world of suffering evoked by the music of Schubert’s Winterreise. Considered one of the most important song cycles in the history of music and the composer’s musical testament, Winterreise is a daunting challenge for any singer.
F. Schubert Winterreise, D.911 Baritone Benjamin Appl Piano James Baillieu Painter and sculptor Stage directors and idea Video
Antonio López Àlex Ollé and Valentina Carrasco Onionlab PARADISE: death, eternal rest, vanishing from the world without trace
Antonio López will reflect on solitude and selfisolation, conveying the trauma, longing, hopes and fears of the wandering traveller. Adverse fate and despondency have so ravaged the character’s personal world that only the desire to escape from an oppressive community keeps his heart beating. Winterreise, in all its disquieting beauty, is an invitation to melancholy, each desperate episode evoking another step along the path of a man betrayed. Antonio López will act as the audience’s distinguished guide as they immerse themselves in Schubert’s poetic universe and make this inner journey into emptiness. MAY 2022
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MONDAY 9
8 pm
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35 €
TUESDAY 10
8 pm
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35 €
WEDNESDAY 11
8 pm
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35 €
132
Concert
Antonio López
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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WOZZECK Alban Berg From 20.05.22— to 04.06.22
OPERA IN THREE ACTS DIVIDED INTO FIFTEEN SCENES
Libretto by the composer, based on the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner World premiere: 14/12/1925 at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin Barcelona premiere: 30/12/1964 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Last Liceu performance: 17/01/2006 Total number of Liceu performances: 19
William Kentridge Luc de Wit Sabine Theunissen Greta Goiris Urs Schönebaum Catherine Meyburgh Kim Gunning Production Salzburger Festspiele
Stage director Co-Stage director Set design Costume design Lighting Video artists
WOZZECK DRUM MAJOR ANDRES CAPTAIN DOCTOR FIRST APPRENTICE SECOND APPRENTICE MADMAN MARIE MARGRET
Matthias Goerne Torsten Kerl Peter Tantsits Mikeldi Atxalandabaso Peter Rose Scott Wilde Äneas Humm Antonio Lozano Elena Zhidkova Rinat Shaham CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
MAY 2022
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Conxita Garcia, conductor COR VIVALDI-IPSI-PETITS CANTORS DE CATALUNYA
FRIDAY 20
7 pm
#LICEUNDER35
20 €
SUNDAY 22
5 pm
T
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WEDNESDAY 25
7 pm
B
From 14 to 269 €
SATURDAY 28
7 pm
PB
From 14 to 269 €
MONDAY 30
7 pm
A
From 14 to 269 €
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Josep Pons
JUNE 2022 THURSDAY 2*
7 pm
D
From 14 to 269 €
SATURDAY 4
7 pm
C
From 14 to 269 €
Approximate running time: 1 h 35 min *Function with audio description
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Òscar Boada, conductor
PARADISE in the family home and the couple
Opera
Matthias Goerne
Temporada 2021— 2 022
135
WOZZECK Alban Berg
On 5 May 1914, Alban Berg attended the first performance of the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner. The story impressed him so deeply that he decided to use it for an opera. He completed the score in 1922, interweaving some of his own experiences on the staff of the Austrian Ministry of War during World War I into the plot. Today, as at the time of the premiere, it evokes the brutality and despair of a society crushed by the horrors of warfare.
his captain to carry out the most servile of tasks, becoming an object rather than a human being and the property of the dominant class. The home he shares with his common-law wife Marie and their son are his true paradise but Marie betrays him with the Drum Major, plunging him into a vortex of rage and self-destructive jealousy. Wozzeck is at war with the world but is also waging an inner, mental combat against himself.
Wozzeck was an instant success and is considered a masterpiece of the Vienna School. The powerful blend of music and drama, amplified by Berg’s Expressionist technique, converted it into a source of inspiration and a cry of protest. Beyond its literal interpretation, the tale has a tragic dimension which endows it with universal relevance, highlighting factors inherent to the human condition such as life, love, desire and death.
This magnificent production brings together an outsize Matthias Goerne in the leading role, conductor Josep Pons, well known as an inspired exponent of this repertory, and a mise-en-scène by South African artist and stage director William Kentridge. First staged at the Salzburg Festival, it is an elaborate, sublime, total art work replete with Kentridge’s characteristic techniques – projections, charcoal drawings, criticism based on the absurd, scenery from the Johannesburg area –, all of which underscores the Wozzeck’s relentless dehumanization. Mankind files past us in the concluding danse macabre, but where is it heading?
Wozzeck is a soldier who lives a life of poverty and alienation and who succumbs, humiliated, to the harsh laws of exploitation and abuse. A victim of an army doctor’s cruel experiments, he is forced by
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Opera
«Was die Steine glänzen?», «Und ist kein Betrug», Marie, Wozzeck, act II. Marie, act III.
MOMENTS MUSICALS CLAU
Baritone WOZZECK
Tenor DRUM MAJOR
Marie gazes at the earrings the Drum Major has given her. When Wozzeck arrives and asks where they came from, she lies to him.
Marie is full of remorse over deceiving Wozzeck. She reads the bible at night in her room and begs God’s forgiveness.
«Dort links geht’s in die Stadt», Marie, Wozzeck, act III. Wozzeck and Marie are walking in the woods. She wants to leave but he will not let her. A blood-red moon appears and Wozzeck stabs her.
Matthias Goerne
Elena Zhidkova
Goerne has performed in the world’s leading opera houses, notably the New York Metropolitan and London’s Royal Opera House. Key roles in his repertory include Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Marke (Tristan und Isolde) and the title roles in Bluebeard’s Castle and Wozzeck. We first heard him at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2006/07 in a Mahler Concert.
After her debut at Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in a concert version of Parsifal, Zhidkova went on to sing in Handel’s oratorio Jephtha at the same venue with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting. She has also appeared at the Teatro Real in Madrid, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Wiener Staatsoper. This is her first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Mezzosoprano MARIE
Torsten Kerl
Josep Pons
Kerl embarked on a career as an oboist before taking up singing. His extensive repertory enables him to play numerous Wagner roles such as Erik (The Flying Dutchman), Parsifal, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Siegmund (The Valkyrie) and Tristan (Tristan und Isolde). His first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu was in Die tote Stadt (2005/06).
Considered one of the most prominent conductors of his generation, Pons conducts major orchestras throughout the world. He has recorded some fifty works for Harmonia Mundi France and Deutsche Grammophon and received key distinctions including the Grammy and Cannes Classical Awards. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 1993. Since 2012 he has been the Liceu’s music director.
Season 2021— 2 022
Stage director
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WOZZECK OPERA
Drawing by William Kentridge.
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Òpera
What are you doing? Calling the police. Why? To give them a description of your gun. How do you describe it? Thin, dark, rather nervous, almost birdlike. You have entirely misunderstood my gun. (Anne Carson: Decreation - 2005)
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN María Pagés El Arbi El Harti From 26.05.22— to 03.06.22 De Scheherazade a Yo, Carmen hailed all over the world as one of the finest contemporary flamenco shows, is a new take on the gypsy cigarette girl from Mérimée’s novella who was made famous by Bizet and the storyteller of the Arabian Nights. María Pagés reinterprets these two central characters as women who advance undaunted, proud of their sexual identity, women free of conventions and hackneyed folklore. Pagés enables us to hear “a woman’s voice rising clearly and powerfully before us to express the reality that confronts, builds and develops the female soul”.
Conductor María Pagés El Arbi El Harti Music George Bizet, Sebastián Yradier, Rubén Levaniegos, Sergio Menem, David Moñiz, María Pagés Choreography and María Pagés costumes Dramaturgy El Arbi El Harti Lighting Pau Fullana Coproduction María Pagés i Gran Teatre del Liceu
Coproduction with MAY 2022
Turn
Price
THURSDAY 26
7 pm
#LICEUNDER35
20 €
FRIDAY 27
7 pm
C
From 10 to 176 €
SUNDAY 29
5 pm
T
From 10 to 176 €
TUESDAY 31
7 pm
DANCE
From 10 to 176 €
WEDNESDAY 1
7 pm
H
From 10 to 176 €
FRIDAY 3
7 pm
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From 10 to 176 €
Paradise: be woman
JUNE 2022
Approximate running time: 1 h 20 min
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Dance
María Pagés
MADRIGALS MONTEVERDI II Sala Foyer 05.06.22—
Monteverdi’s fifth book of madrigals was a milestone in the evolution of polyphonic style towards a musical grammar that is more modern and more challenging in terms of harmony. Thus from the sixth book onwards, works with readily identifiable traits give way to a wide array of forms. Madrigals, the perfect medium for expressing human passions, became the point of departure for the composer’s subsequent research which culminated in the creation of opera.
C. Monteverdi Sixth book of madrigals CONCERTO ITALIANO Conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini PARADISE: the seed of a new genre: opera
The sixth book, which is for five voices, was published in 1614 and is divided into two parts, each beginning with a lament (Lamento d’Arianna and Sestina). The theatrical experience Monteverdi had gained in L’Orfeo caused his madrigals to evolve towards a more individual treatment of the voices. Alessandrini’s performances of Monteverdi have delighted audiences at Milan’s La Scala and the Opéra de Paris. Now he visits the Liceu to act as master of ceremonies at the presentation of these enigmatic madrigals.
JUNE 2022 SUNDAY 5
6 pm
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35 €
Approximate running time: 1 h 10 min
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Concert
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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Drawing by William Kentridge.
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart From 20.06.22— to 02.07.22 SINGSPIEL IN TWO ACTS
Libretto by Emmanuel Schikaneder World premiere: 30/09/1791 at the Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna Barcelona premiere: 15/01/1925 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Last Liceu performance: 28/04/2012 Total number of Liceu performances: 75
Stage director This version Set design Costume design Choreography Lighting Video Sound Production
Simon McBurney Josie Daxter Michael Levine Nicky Gillibrand Josie Daxter Jean Kalman Finn Ross Gareth Fry Dutch National Opera
JUNE 2022 MONDAY 20
7 pm
Turn
Price
H
From 19 to 333 €
TUESDAY 21
7 pm
A
From 19 to 333 €
WEDNESDAY 22
7 pm
B
From 19 to 333 €
SATURDAY 25
7 pm
C
From 19 to 333 €
SUNDAY 26
5 pm
T
From 19 to 333 €
MONDAY 27
7 pm
G
From 19 to 333 €
TUESDAY 28
7 pm
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From 19 to 333 €
THURSDAY 30
7 pm
P
From 19 to 333 €
CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conxita Garcia, conductor
JULY 2022 FRIDAY 1*
7 pm
E
From 19 to 333 €
SATURDAY 2
6 pm
F
From 19 to 333 €
Approximate running time: 2 h 50 min *Function with audio description
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SARASTRO Stephen Milling 20, 22, 26, 28 June and 1 July John Relyea 21, 25, 27, 30 June and 2 July TAMINO Javier Camarena 20, 22, 26, 28 June and 1 July Julien Behr 21, 25, 27, 30 June and 2 July SPEAKER Matthias Goerne PRIESTS/MEN IN Albert Casals ARMOUR David Lagares THE QUEEN OF Kathryn Lewek 20, 22, 26, 28 NIGHT June and 1 July Sara Blanch 21, 25, 27, 30 June and 2 July PAMINA Lucy Crowe 20, 22, 26, 28 June and 1 July Núria Rial 21, 25, 27 and 30 June and 2 July FIRST LADY Berna Perles SECOND LADY Gemma Coma-Alabert THIRD LADY Marta Infante PAPAGENA Serena Sáenz PAPAGENO Thomas Oliemans 20, 22, 26, 28 June and 1 July Joan Martín-Royo 21, 25, 27, 30 June and 2 July MONOSTATOS Roger Padullés
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel PARADISE: wisdom, knowledge and values
Opera
Javier Camarena i Núria Rial
Temporada 2021— 2 022
145
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
A children’s tale for some, a profound meditation on life and death for others, Mozart’s last opera is unquestionably a landmark achievement in which he expressed his deep spiritual beliefs. In it the chief concerns of the Enlightenment and the entire 18th century converge: education, morality, religion, culture, nature, and many more. This much lauded production by Simon McBurney was made in partnership with the cutting-edge theatrical company Complicité. It tells the fantastical story of Prince Tamino’s search for his beloved Pamina amid the conflict between two opposing powers: Sarastro (representing light and truth) and the Queen of Night (darkness and deceit). The opera was an instant success from the day of the premiere. At the heart of the enchanting tale
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lies a lost paradise of wisdom and knowledge which highlights the need to strike a new balance founded on universal values and virtues. McBurney recreates the fable skilfully and boldly, placing the singers in a mysterious, magical world peopled by actors. The live sound effects, the animation, the on-the-spot drawing and the orchestra which plays from the stage make this a unique interpretation, a present-day journey through the original pantomime atmosphere to capture the intrinsically popular spirit of the work. In this, his eagerly awaited first performance of Die Zauberflöte, Gustavo Dudamel will offer us a chance to explore the infinite details of the colossal, kaleidoscopic score, making each performance a historic event.
Opera
Tenor TAMINO
Baritone PAPAGENO
Javier Camarena
Lucy Crowe
Camarena has earned applause for his interpretations of many composers, notably Bellini, Bizet, Donizetti, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini and Verdi. In 2014 he drew attention throughout the operatic world by encoring Ramiro’s aria (La Cenerentola) on two consecutive nights at the New York Metropolitan. We first heard him at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in the 2012/13 season in L’elisir d’amore.
Crowe’s repertory ranges from Purcell to Handel and from Mozart to Donizetti (Adina in L’elisir d’amore) and Verdi (Gilda in Rigoletto). She has sung in opera houses and concert halls all over the world under the batons of Simon Rattle, Antonio Pappano, Daniel Harding, Emanuelle Haïm, John Eliot Gardiner, Andris Nelsons, Richard Egarr and others. This is her first visit to the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Thomas Oliemans
Gustavo Dudamel
Oliemans’ recent engagements include his debut at the Berlin Staatsoper, where he played Valmont (Quartett) for the first time with Daniel Barenboim on the podium, Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte) at the Amsterdam National Opera, and Mr. Redburn (Billy Budd) at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Royal Opera House in London. This will be his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Dudamel received his first violin lessons as a child and developed an interest in conducting from an early age. At 18 he was appointed music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela. He is currently music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His recent engagements include performances with the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Salzburg and Grafenegg festivals. We first saw him at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in a concert version of Il trovatore (2020/21).
«Der Vogëlfanger bin ich ja», Papageno, act I.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Soprano PAMINA
Papageno, the Queen of Night’s bird-catcher, introduces himself and admits he would love to have a lady friend.
Season 2021— 2 022
Conductor musical
«Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen» Papageno, Pamina, act I. Papageno meets Pamina in Sarastro’s palace. He tells her that Tamino, who is in love with her, is coming to rescue her. They sing in praise of conjugal love.
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Drawing by William Kentridge.
FLAUTA MAGICA OPERA
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Drawing by William Kentridge.
Òpera
My brother ran away in 1978, rather than go to jail. He wandered in Europe and India, seeking something, and sent us postcards or a Christmas gift, no return address. He was travelling on a false passport and living under other people’s names. (Anne Carson: NOX - 2010)
Temporada 2021— 2 022
149
MAGDALENA KOZENÁ, SIR SIMON RATTLE & FRIENDS 29.06.22—
In the course of this cosy “Soirée”, a group of friends will get together to sing, recreating the informal atmosphere of music-making at home. Star singer Magdalena Kožená and her distinguished musician friends, with Sir Simon Rattle at the piano, will be offering us a highly personal assortment of songs.
“SOIRÉE”
E. Chausson I. Stravinsky M. Ravel R. Strauss
This miniature concert will give Kožená a chance to show off her versatility and her full panoply of colours, shades and pastel tones. Harsh outlines will be banned to the benefit of a wide spectrum of eye-catching tints.
J. Brahms J. Brahms L. Janacek A. Dvorak
Kožená will take us on a stroll through the German Lied, represented by Brahms and Strauss, the mélodie française of Chausson and Ravel, and the 20th century music of Stravinsky, revisiting her own musicalˇorigins on theˇ way with a selection of songs by Dvořák and Janáček. And to accompany this varied and original collection of songs, Simon Rattle will be making one of his very rare appearances as a pianist.
Mezzosoprano Piano Violin Violin Viola Cello Flute Clarinet
What pleasure could be greater than to welcome these pre-eminent artists to the Liceu and listen to them as though we were sitting on the sofa in their living room?
JUNE 2022 WEDNESDAY 29
7 pm
Turn
Price
B
De 10 a 137 €
Chanson perpétuelle, op. 37 Three songs from Shakespeare Chansons madécasses Three songs of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet Fünf Ophelia-Lieder 2 Gesänge, op. 91 Rikadla ˇ Six songs arranged by Duncan Ward Magdalena Kožená Sir Simon Rattle Giovanni Guzzo Rahel Rilling Amihai Grosz Dávid Adorján Kaspar Zehnder Andrew Marriner Paradise: the artist and his muse
Approximate running time: 1 h 35 min
150
Concert
Sir Simon Rattle i
Magdalena Kožená Temporada 2021— 2 022
151
(OH!)PERA (MICRO-OPERA PROJECT) From 09.07.22 to 10.07.22—
(Oh!)pera is a project launched by the Gran Teatre del Liceu to commission four small-format operas which will be performed on the same day. Teams of young people selected in cooperation with Barcelona design schools have worked for over a year to devise these energy-packed shows, each of which lasts approximately half an hour. The singers will share tales about their traumas, unconfessable secrets, impossible dreams and expectations with members of the audience as the latter tour the innermost recesses of the opera house, each show taking on added forcefulness by being acted at close quarters. Participants include composers with ties to Barcelona and their chosen librettists, young stage directors whose productions are made in collaboration with schools of drama, design and the applied arts, locally born singers, and chamber ensembles made up of musicians from the Liceu’s conservatory: for the creative artists of tomorrow, this will be a first opportunity to work at the Liceu.
«The Liceu’s partners in this undertaking, which seeks to promote learning through practice, are Barcelona City Council’s Department of Tourism and Creative Industries, the Disseny Hub Barcelona and the city’s design schools. Alex Ollé will be the mentor of the new project.» OPERA I
Composer Núria Giménez-Comas OPERA II
Composer Marc Migó OPERA III
Composer José Río-Pareja OPERA IV
Composer Fabià Santcovsky Paradise: discovery
JULY 2022 SATURDAY 9 SUNDAY 10
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5 pm
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35 €
20.30 h
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35 €
12 h
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35 €
5 pm
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35 €
Opera
Temporada 2021— 2 022 Drawing by William Kentridge.
153
NORMA Vincenzo Bellini From 16.07.22— to 31.07.22
TRAGEDIA LIRICA IN TWO ACTS
Libretto by Felice Romani, based on the play Norma ou L’infanticide by Alexandre Soumet World premiere: 26/12/1831 at the Teatre alla Scala, Milan Barcelona premiere: 4/6/1835 at the Teatre de la Santa Creu First Liceu performance: 16/10/1847 Last Liceu performance: 17/2/2015 Total number of Liceu performances: 155
Stage director Set design Costume design Lighting Assistant stage director Production
Àlex Ollé Alfons Flores Lluc Castells Marco Filibeck Valentina Carrasco Norma was produced in association with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. This production was seen for the first time in London at the Royal Opera House on 12 September 2016.
POLLIONE Paolo Fanale 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30 July Airam Hernández (16), 19, 22, 25, 26, 28 and 31 July OROVESO Nicolas Testé 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30 July Marko Mimica (16), 19, 22, 25, 26, 28 and 31 July NORMA Marina Rebeka 18, 21, 24, 27, 30 July Sonya Yoncheva 22, 25, 28, 31 July Marta Mathéu (16), 19 and 26 July ADALGISA Varduhi Abrahamian 18, 21, 24, 27 and 30 July Teresa Iervollino (16), 19, 22, 25, 26, 28 and 31 July CLOTILDE Núria Vilà FLAVIO Néstor Losán CHORUS OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
JULY 2022
Turn
Price
Conxita Garcia, directora SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
SATURDAY 16
7 pm
#LICEUNDER35
20 €
MONDAY 18
7 pm
A
From 15 to 295 €
TUESDAY 19
7 pm
PE
From 10 to 245 €
THURSDAY 21
7 pm
B
From 15 to 295 €
FRIDAY 22
7 pm
E
From 15 to 295 €
SUNDAY 24
5 pm
T
From 15 to 295 €
MONDAY 25
7 pm
PC
From 15 to 295 €
TUESDAY 26
7 pm
HOLA LICEU
From 10 to 245 €
WEDNESDAY 27
7 pm
P
From 15 to 295 €
THURSDAY 28*
7 pm
H
From 15 to 295 €
SATURDAY 30
7 pm
C
From 15 to 295 €
SUNDAY 31
6 pm
PD
From 15 to 295 €
Conductor Domingo Hindoyan PARADISE: faith, the love of Pollione and the community’s well-being
Approximate running time:3 h 10 min *Function with audio description
154
Opera
Marta Mathéu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
155
NORMA Vincenzo Bellini
“We should not be ashamed to weep from emotion as we listen to it”, Richard Wagner The high priestess Norma, the spiritual leader of the revolt against the Romans, is in love with Pollione, the leader of the forces which oppress her people, and has borne him two children. Her betrayal threatens her community’s survival. Her discovery that Pollione is now in love with her friend Adalgisa triggers off a series of reactions: after calling on her people to rise in arms she ultimately decides to kill herself. Paradise for her is the haven of religious faith, but also Pollione’s love and her people’s well-being. This outstanding production was made by Àlex Ollé for London’s Royal Opera House. It takes an up-to-date approach, setting the action against the background of an oppressive religion. While exploring the clash between individual desires and those of the community, Ollé depicts religion as a binding force and a way of making sense of the world, but also as a means for repressing anyone who violates the law. Torn between her own will and her people’s freedom, Norma is the captive of social mores, revered ancient symbols and beliefs. Her doubts and fragility take on present-day connotations in the face of a near-fanatical religion, the blind instrument of an inflexible law. Norma, an obedient daughter, betrayed lover and desperate mother, is stifled by norms. Left with no way out, she becomes a heroine who confesses her guilt and is willing to die. This tale of the purifying power of sacrifice features one of the most difficult and emblematic leading roles in opera. A masterpiece of bel canto, it was only the third opera staged at the Liceu in its very first season, in 1847, and is the perfect example of a tragedy in music.
156
Opera
«Casta diva», Norma, cor, act I.
MUSICAL HIGH LIGHTS
Soprano NORMA
Tenor POLLIONE
«Deh! Con te, con te li prendi», Norma, The priestess Norma reaches Adalgisa, act I.
«In mia man alfin tu sei», Norma, Pollione, act II.
a clearing in the forest where her people are assembled. Holding a sprig of mistletoe, she approaches the altar and prays to the moon.
Norma remains alone with Pollione in order to question him. She says she will release him but only if he gives up Adalgisa for ever.
Full of remorse at having planned to murder her children, Norma asks Adalgisa to care for them and take them to their father Pollione in the Roman camp.
Sonya Yoncheva
Marina Rebeka
After piano and singing studies in her native city of Plóvdiv (Bulgaria), Yoncheva has played leading roles in new productions of Tosca and Otello at the New York Metropolitan, in Norma at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and in Il pirata at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. She records exclusively for Sony Classical. This is her first appearance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Rebeka achieved international fame at the 2009 Salzburg Festival with Riccardo Muti conducting and since then has sung in opera houses and concerts halls the world over. Her latest engagements include Violetta (La traviata) in Milan, Desdemona (Otello) in Florence, Thaïs in Monte Carlo and Leonora (Il trovatore) in Paris. This will be her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Soprano NORMA
Paolo Fanale
Varduhi Abrahamian
Born in Palermo, Fanale made his professional debut in Padua as Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni). Since then he has sung at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Metropolitan Opera in New York, Royal Opera House in London, Opéra National de Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and elsewhere. He first came to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2011/12 for Il burbero di buon cuore.
Born into a family of musicians, Abrahamyan has sung all over the world: Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zurich, Atlanta Opera, Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and Hamburg Staatsoper. Her repertory includes titles such as: Carmen, Falstaff, Un ballo in maschera, Eugene Onegin and Norma. At the Gran Teatre del Liceu we first saw her in L’italiana in Algeri (2018/19).
Season 2021— 2 022
Mezzosoprano ADALGISA
157
You could take the entirety of the common sense of humans and put it in the palm of your hand and still have room for your dick.
NORMA OPERA
(Anne Carson: Red Doc> -2013)
158
Òpera
Temporada 2021— 2 022
Drawing by William Kentridge.
159
160
Òpera
Temporada 2021— 2 022
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CHAMBER CONCERTS Season 2021— 2022
Playing in an ensemble is like travelling into the very heart of classical music. For the audience, seeing the players’ gestures and synergy brings added pleasure and when the musicians resume their tasks in the orchestra, they interact with greater intensity. With all this in mind, we offer three concerts in which ensembles made up of players from the Liceu’s own Symphony Orchestra will team up with guest performers of acknowledged renown: Håkan Hardenberger, Daniel Espasa, Lina Tur Bonet and the Quatuor Mosaïques.
Amics del Liceu
162
Òpera
LICEU BRASS ENSEMBLE WITH CHRISTIAN LINDBERG Sala Foyer 03.11.21— Christian Lindberg is a Swedish composer, performer and conductor and one of the most fascinating trombonists in the world with a repertory extending from the Renaissance to contemporary music. He has contributed decisively to the composition of over 90 new trombone concertos and worked with such eminent composers as Alfred Schnittke, Iannis Xenakis, Arvo Pärt and Toru Takemitsu. It will be a privilege to hear the results of the collaboration between our brass section and this “Paganini of the trombone”.
NOVEMBER 2021 WEDNESDAY 3
7 pm
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Price
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25 €
Season 2021— 2 022
W.A. Mozart 4 pieces from The Magic Flute (arranged by G. Boyd) C. Lindberg Condor Canyon for trombone and brass quintet M. Mussorgski Pictures at an Exhibition (selection) G. Bizet Suite from Carmen Trombonist and Christian Lindberg conductor LICEU BRASS Brass section of the ENSEMBLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF Gran Teatre del Liceu
163
LINA TUR AND DANI ESPASA, BAROQUE AS IT ORIGINALLY SOUNDED In the Foyer 13.02.22— The violinist Lina Tur Bonet and the harpsichordist and conductor Dani Espasa will lead the ancient music ensemble of the Liceu’s Symphony Orchestra on this interesting tour of Italian Baroque music. Composers famed for their exuberant creativity, such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Vivaldi and Handel, will provide the input to this brilliant concert by two of our country’s most outstanding musicians.
A. Scarlatti Overture to La donna ancora è fedele A. Scarlatti Concerto Grosso, in F major A. Vivaldi Overture to L’Olimpiade, RV 725 A. Vivaldi Concerto for strings, in G minor, RV 156 G. F. Händel Overture to Ariodante, HWV 33 G. F. Händel Dance suite from Terpsicore, HVW 8 G. F. Händel Concerto Grosso Op. 3 núm. 2 en Si b major, HWV 313 Conductor Daniel Espasa First violin Lina Tur LICEU BAROQUE Music professors from the ENSEMBLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF
Gran Teatre del Liceu
FEBRUARY 2022 SUNDAY 13
164
6 pm
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25 €
Concerts
THE QUARTET MOSAÏQUES AND VIENNESE CLASSICISM In the Foyer 06.07.22— The Quartet Mosaïques, founded in 1987 by four members of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus Wien, is a living legend. The name itself, and the sound of their music, put them in a category apart. They play period instruments and are constantly on the lookout for hidden meanings behind the notes. Each member of the quartet will lead the corresponding string section of the Liceu’s classical music ensemble to offer us this glittering programme of musical gems.
F.J. Haydn Symphony No. 64 in A major, “Tempora Mutantur” A. Kraft Cello concerto in C major, Op. 4 W.A. Mozart Symphony No. 38 in D major, “Prague”, KV 504
QUARTET MOSAÏQUES
Violin I Violin II Viola Violoncello
Erich Höbarth Andrea Bischof Anita Mitterer Christophe Coin
ENSEMBLE LICEU Music professors from the DO CLÀSSIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF
Gran Teatre del Liceu
JULY 2022 WEDNESDAY 6
7 pm
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Price
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25 €
Season 2021— 2 022
165
TALKS EXHIBITIONS LICEU LP SESSIONS
Season 2021— 2022
Talks
Our speakers have been invited to share their knowledge with the audience and elaborate upon various aspects of our season.
14/09/2021 Tuesday | starting at 9 am TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
Reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy Catalan translation by Josep Maria de Sagarra
Pelléas et Mélisande.
168
The Divine Comedy is one of the key works of European poetry. In a concatenation of tercets – a verse form of his own invention –, Dante recounts his journey through the realms of the Christian afterlife in 1300. The atmosphere of Hell is sombre and dramatic, that of Purgatory, pictorial and melancholy, and that of Paradise, luminous and musical. The Divine Comedy is a monument of western literature which left a deep imprint.
20/10/2021 Wednesday | at 7 pm TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
Josep Pons Conductor
Víctor Garcia de Gomar “The evolution of the orchestra before and after Wagner”.
Josep Pons.
Talks
28/10/2021
01/02/2022
09/05/2022
09/06/2022
Thursday | at 7 pm
Tuesday | 5 pm
Monday | at 7 pm
Thursday | at 7 pm
FOYER
TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
FOYER
TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
Ramón Andrés
Pol Avinyó
Talk about the myth of Orpheus.
Musical communicator
Ramón Ramón Andrés Andrés Conversation between Antonio Raquel García-Tomàs, López Joan Magrané, Héctor Víctor Garcia Parra, Fabià Santkovsky and Ramón Andrés. de Gomar
07/11/2021
Renata Tebaldi at the Liceu: on the centenary of her birth.
Sunday | at 5 pm FOYER
Rinaldo Alessandrini Harpsichordist and conductor Monteverdi: the birth of individuals and their passions.
23/02/2022 Wednesday | at 7 pm FOYER
Carlos Calderón
Conversation between Josep Pons and Víctor Garcia de Gomar about the evolution of the orchestra before and after Wagner.
Musicologist and doctor in the Humanities
Jaume Radigales Professor, music critic and communicator
Antoni Colomer Manager, music critic and communicator Rinaldo Alessandrini.
Workshop of Antonio López.
Date to be determined Wednesday | at 7 pm FOYER
Anne Carson Ramón Andrés Conversation between Anne Carson and Ramón Andrés involving an exchange of information and impressions about Carson’s poetry.
Uncovering the secrets of Pelléas et Mélisande
Season 2021— 2 022 Temporada 2021— 2 022
169
Exhibitions
The Gran Teatre del Liceu gave a particular slant to its last season in order to reflect on the topic of obsession, the mental distress we feel when some particular fixation assails us. For visual artists, obsession is a persistent impulse, the fascination of exploring previously untrodden paths, and is directly related to the emotion we feel when we interpret the world in the light of our own individual mindset. This series of exhibitions is devoted to this form of artistic anguish, this open wound that never heals, this torment which can only be alleviated by compulsive creativity.
Del 25/01 a l’11/02/22
From 12/05 to 19/06/22
MIRROR ROOM / FOYER GALLERY
FORMER “LA MODEL” PRISON
Renata Tebaldi
Antonio López
The centenary of La Voce d’Angelo
Painter and sculptor
On 1 February 2022 we commemorate the centenary of the birth of Renata Tebaldi, one of the greatest of 20th century sopranos and a firm favourite with Liceu audiences in the 1950s. The exhibition will review her artistic life and her career at the Liceu.
From 19/05 to 05/06/22 TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
William Kentridge Animated film.
From 28/02 to 13/04/22 From 22/09 to 10/11/21
From 22/09/21 to July 2022
MIRROR ROOM
MIRROR ROOM
Okuda San Miguel
Manuel Outumuro Photographer
170
MIRROR ROOM / FOYER GALLERY
From 20/06 to 31/07/22
Cristina de Middel
MIRROR ROOM / FOYER GALLERY
Photographer
Jordi Bernadó Photographer
Exhibitions
Liceu LP sessions n the course of these two sessions, Víctor Garcia de Gomar and Pol Avinyó will consider artistic, musical and technical features of the recorded works and the context in which the recordings were made. The idea is to challenge our preconceived ideas while revealing the artists’ personalities and rediscovering a few vintage operatic LPs. Entry free of charge. Limited number of participants.
15/06/2022
13/07/2022
Wednesday | at 7 pm
Wednesday | at 7 pm
TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
TENOR VIÑAS ROOM
La flauta Màgica
Norma
W.A. Mozart Wunderlich, Lear, Fischer-Dieskau, Hotter and Böhm vs. Blochwitz, Bonney, Scharinger, Salminen and Harnoncourt.
Recordings of Norma by star performers from Gina Cigna to Cecilia Bartoli, via the landmark versions by Callas, Caballé, Sutherland and Scotto.
Drawing by William Kentridge.
Liceu LP sessions
171
EL PETIT LICEU Season 2021— 2022
Temporada 2021— 2 022
173
LA PETITA FLAUTA MÀGICA At the Gran Teatre del Liceu October 2021— Papageno the bird-catcher tells us all about the wonderful adventures he had with his friend Prince Tamino when they set out together to rescue Princess Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of Night, from the clutches of the wicked Sarastro. A children’s version of Mozart’s Magic Flute by the Comediants company. The music, story and characters of Mozart’s last opera exert an irresistible attraction on young audiences and will leave no child indifferent. This dashing, eye-catching production is a regular feature of the Petit Liceu programme and has already been enjoyed by over 400,000 people.
«The adventures of Papageno as seen by Joan Font (of Comediants).» Música Stage director Set and costume design Production
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Joan Font (Comediants) Joan Guillén
PAPAGENO TAMINO PAMINA QUEEN OF NIGHT SARASTRO MONOSTATOS ACTOR ACTRESS PIANO FLUTE
Elias Benito - Joan G. Gomà Marc Sala Ximena Agurto - Maia Planas Rocío de la Luz Juan Carlos Esteve Marc Pujol Ricard Fernández Eva Arqués - Eva Vilamitjana Josep Garcia Patricia de No
Gran Teatre del Liceu
IIllustration by Sílvia Morilla. (*) “Friendly performance” for those with attention deficit disorder and/or autism, with the support of AENA
OCTOBER 2021
Turn
Price
SATURDAY 23
10.30 am
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15 €
SATURDAY 23
12.30 am
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15 €
SUNDAY 31*
11 am
–
15 €
Approximate running time: 1 h 10 min Recommended for ages 6 and up
174
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
175
THE JAZZ NUTCRACKER In the Foyer At the Gran teatre del Liceu November 2021— May 2022
Puppets and jazz. We’ve brought them together to tell you the fascinating story of The Nutcracker. This new present-day version takes a plural, inclusive view of the classic. To find the Karakatuk, the hardest nut in the world: that’s the challenge faced by Daniela and her mother, Mrs Drossel, in their bid to rescue Piri from the spell the Queen of the Mice has cast on him. The brave, determined Daniela finishes up turning into a wooden nutcracker, but she never stops being herself, or being who she wants to be. It will be no easy task. Dreams, fantasy and reality come together in this magical show, seen at close quarters, in which music from a jazz band blends with the delicate art of puppetry.
NOVEMBER 2021
Turn
Price
SATURDAY 27
11 am
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15 €
SUNDAY 28
11 am
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15 €
SATURDAY 28
11 am
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15 €
SUNDAY 29
11 am
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15 €
MAY 2022
«A musical fantasy for the whole family.» Stage director and Joan M. Segura dramaturgy Set design and Zipit Company puppets Performers Ensemble Conservatori Liceu Musical Estudiants i Alumni arrangements del Centre Superior de la Fundació Conservatori Liceu Direction Toni Vaquer and musical coordination Illustration by Alba Serrat.
Organized through cooperation between the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Fundació Ferrer-Salat and the Fundació Conservatori del Liceu, which aims to foster the participation of young musicians and creative artists from the Centre Superior de Música, Fundació Conservatori del Liceu.
Approximate running time: 1 h 10 min Recommended for ages 5 and up
176
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
177
ELS MÚSICS DE BREMEN At the Gran Teatre del Liceu December 2021—
This classical tale by the Grimm brothers tells the story of farm animals who rebel against their cruel owners and use sharp wits and teamwork to escape from their ordeal. A show featuring dancing and puppets, enhanced by friendship, movement and colour galore, which is performed by four dancers, a narrator and a clarinettist. Set to original music by Poire Valvé, it includes a scene in which the young audience joins in the song “Cap a Bremen” (“Off to Bremen”). This title is another firm favourite and has been seen by thousands of children and their families every season since it first appeared on the Petit Liceu bill in 2007.
«A farmyard revolution carried out by puppets.» Music Stage Director Choreography Choreography assistant Production ACTRESS MUSICIAN DONKEY DOG CAT COCK
Poire Vallvé Joan-Andreu Vallvé Marta Almirall Anna Planas Gran Teatre del Liceu Anna Briansó/Marta Rosell Naüm Monterde/Dani Arias Ricard Fernández/Marc Lapuerta Mariona Camèlia/Marc Lapuerta Laura Ruiz/Cristina Miralles Cristina Miralles/Mariona Camèlia Illustration by Mercè Galí.
DECEMBER 2021
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Price
SATURDAY 4
11 am
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15 €
SUNDAY 5
11 am
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15 €
SUNDAY 12
11 am
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15 €
Approximate running time: 55 min Recommended for ages 3 and up
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El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
179
EL CONTE DE NADAL BY CHARLES DICKENS At the Gran Teatre del Liceu December 2021—
The children’s choir of Amics de la Unió join forces with the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu to offer us this very special concert, illustrated by the poetic beauty of sand art by Borja González (of Ytuquepintas).
«Dreams in sand by Albert Guinovart.» Music and piano Music director Adaptation of the text and stage coordination Soloists Sand art
Albert Guinovart Josep Vila Jover David Pintó Ana San Martín i Albert Mora Borja González (Cia. Ytuquepintas) SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU VOICES - COR INFANTIL DE LA UNIÓ Illustration by Borja González (Cia Ytuquepintas).
DECEMBER 2021
Turn
Price
SATURDAY 18
11 am
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From 10 to 29 €
SUNDAY 19
11 am
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From 10 to 29 €
Approximate running time: 1 h 10 min Recommended for ages 8 and up
180
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
181
LA BARCAROLA In the Foyer At the Gran teatre del Liceu january 2022— May 2022
Music, images and the art of illustration interact in this live show to immerse the audience of small children in a striking experience of the senses. Their imagination, feelings and development are stimulated by the interaction of different idioms, offering music that helps them to see and images that help them to listen. In the course of this voyage of discovery, two singers, two musicians and an illustrator present a selection of familiar operatic arias which have been carefully arranged to please small children. The proximity of the stage in the Liceu’s Foyer facilitates eye-to-eye communication between performers and audience.
«An immersive musical and visual experience for the youngest audiences.» Direction, Juan Pablo Mendiola dramaturgy and creative management Visual arts Patossa (Patrícia Barrachina) Music director Francesc Valldecabres Arrangements Isabel Latorre Set design Los Reyes del Mambo Costume design Maria Almudéver Motion Graphics Laura Cuello Soprano/violin Saray García Baritone/guitar Fran García Pianist David Barberá Instrumentalist Isabel Latorre Actress Patossa (Patrícia Barrachina) Illustration by Patossa.
JANUARY 2022
Turn
Price
SATURDAY 15
11 am
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15 €
SUNDAY 16
11 am
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15 €
SATURDAY 22
11 am
–
15 €
SUNDAY 23
11 am
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15 €
(*) “Friendly performance” for those with attention deficit disorder and/or autism, with the support of AENA
MAY 2022 SATURDAY 14
11 am
–
15 €
SUNDAY 15*
11 am
–
15 €
Approximate running time: 45 min Recommended for ages 2 and up
182
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
183
LA CUINA DE ROSSINI Gran teatre del Liceu February 2022— April 2022
La cuina de Rossini is about two young friends, Ros and Isabella, who embark on a journey of discovery and find themselves in a fascinating world where they get to know Rossini’s operas.
«A magical tale of contrasts.»
In this magical tale full of contrasts, the two friends come to realize that differences are a source of enrichment and modern and traditional things can merge, complementing one another and facilitating mutual understanding. They also discover the importance of the love of music, a healthy lifestyle, determination and respect.
Stage director Conductor and musical adaptation Dramaturgy Set design Director assistant Costume design Lightning Video artist Performers
Besides being a musical genius, Rossini was also an enthusiastic cook but the recipes this show teaches us are not only to do with food.
David Selvas Andreu Gallén Sergi Pompermayer Alejandro Andújar Norbert Martínez Maria Armengol Marc Salicrú Joan Rodón (dLux.pro) Liceu Conservatory Ensemble Illustration by Luis Tinoco.
FEBRUARY 2022
Turn
Price
SATURDAY 5
11 am
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From 15 to 25 €
SUNDAY 6
11 am
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From 15 to 25 €
SATURDAY 23
10.30 am
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From 15 to 25 €
SATURDAY 23
12.30 am
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From 15 to 25 €
11 am
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From 15 to 25 €
APRIL 2022
SUNDAY 24
Approximate running time: 1 h 15 min Recommended for ages 6 and up
184
Organized through cooperation between the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Fundació Ferrer-Salat and the Fundació Conservatori del Liceu, which aims to foster the participation of young musicians and creative artists from the Centre Superior de Música, Fundació Conservatori del Liceu.
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
185
EL MONSTRE AL LABERINT Of the Gran teatre del Liceu March 2022—
This contemporary re-reading of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur offers young people an initiation into culture and thought by means of an artistic experience which encourages them to reflect on their social environment. El monstre al laberint is a joint creation in which hundreds of young singers from schools and colleges share the stage with professional musicians and actors. With the stress on participation, it offers a chance for everyone – members of the audience and the cast alike – to find out more about opera.
«A participatory choral opera by Jonathan Dove.» Music Libretto Catalan traslation Conductor Stage director and set design Choreography Video Costume design TESEU MINOS MARE DÈDAL
Jonathan Dove Alasdair Middleton Marc Rosich Manel Valdivieso Paco Azorín Carlos Martos de la Vega Pedro Chamizo Anna Güell Roger Padullés Marc Pujol Gemma Coma-Alabert Elías Arranz
Production Gran Teatre del Liceu CHORUS OF 250 STUDENTS FROM DIFFERENT SCHOOLS
Buia Reixach i Feixas, chorus conductor ORCHESTRA OF THE LICEU CONSERVATORY
Illustration by Jesús Cisneros. MARCH 2022
Turn
Price
SATURDAY 5
7 pm
–
15 €
THURSDAY 10
7 pm
–
15 €
SUNDAY 13*
5 pm
–
15 €
(*) “Friendly performance” for those with attention deficit disorder and/or autism, with the support of AENA
Approximate running time: 1 h Recommended for ages 12 and up
186
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
187
MIRRORS In the Foyer At the Gran teatre del Liceu march 2022— April 2022
When we walk down the Rambla and into the Liceu, we leave the roar of the city behind us and enter a place that invites us to return to our beginnings. What did the world sound like from inside our mother’s womb? What were the first musical sounds we heard? How did sound and movement help us to comprehend the world about us? Mirrors is a chance to retrace our steps from the discovery of ourselves to that of the vast world. From when we were confronted with the difference of others to when we realized we are all part of the same world.
Original idea and director Stage director Set and costume design Production
Miquel Gené Quim Serra - Factoria Mascaró Pau Fernández Gran Teatre del Liceu Illustration by Jesús Aguado.
(*) “Friendly performance” for those with attention deficit disorder and/or autism, with the support of AENA
Mirrors uses music and dance to create a sensory experience, an experience with children involving connection and proximity which will take us farther than we could ever have dreamed. Mirrors, a touchstone experience with a title reminiscent of the Liceu’s emblematic Mirror Room.
MARCH 2022
Turn
Price
11 am
–
15 €
SATURDAY 2*
10.30 am
–
15 €
SATURDAY 2*
12.30 am
–
15 €
DIUMENGE 3
11 am
–
15 €
SATURDAY 26 APRIL 2022
Approximate running time: 45 min Recommended for ages 3 and up
188
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
189
IT DANSA At the Teatre auditori of Sant Cugat May 2022—
IT Dansa, the young dance company of Barcelona’s Institut del Teatre, is back at the Liceu this year with its characteristic energy and enthusiasm. It was formed in 1996 as the upshot of a teaching project and aims to help young dancers of both sexes to perfect their technique and become professionals. Its repertory includes Kaash by the much-acclaimed Akram Kahn and The Prom by Lorena Nogal, a former member of the troupe. The third work, Lo que no se ve by Gustavo Ramírez, was created exclusively for IT Dansa in 2021. This pleasing, varied programme with an attractive, up-to-date style would turn anyone into a dance-lover.
Artistic director Catherine Allard THE PROM
Choreography Lorena Nogal Music One more kiss, dear, by Vangelis; Tensions, by Lindstom, and Can’t help falling in love, by Perfume Genius Set design Lorena Nogal Costume design Manuel Rodríguez i Lorena Nogal Lighting Víctor Cuenca LO QUE NO SE VE
Choreography Gustavo Ramírez Sansano Music Franz Schubert (Andante con moto from the Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major, D 929, Op. 100, and Adagio from the Nocturn in E flat major for piano trio, D 897, Op. 148, both played by the Stuttgart Piano Trio). Set design and Luis Crespo Portero and lightning Gustavo Ramírez Sansano Costume design Gustavo Ramírez Sansano KAASH
MAY 2022 SATURDAY 7
6 pm
Turn
Price
–
15 €
Choreography Music Set design Costume design Lighting
Akram Khan Nitin Sawhney Anish Kapoor Kimie Nakano Aideen Malone Illustration by Ignasi Blanch.
Approximate running time: 1 h 15 min Recomanat a partir de 10 anys
190
El Petit Liceu
Temporada 2021— 2 022
191
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND TICKETS Season 2021— 2022
192
Òpera
Much more than an subscription Being a subscriber is a way of becoming part of the strength of the Liceu, a way of loving culture, music, opera, the city and the country as a whole. It’s a vital, emotion-packed experience to enjoy with others. Being a subscriber means making a commitment and feeling the thrill from the very day the new season is announced. We want to reward you for trusting us, for wanting to be part of the season right from the start, by offering flexibility (you can switch performance dates and titles) and very attractive prices (discounts of up to 30%, depending on the number of shows in your subscription). And throughout the season you can purchase extra tickets at a 20% discount as well.
down their passion for opera to coming generations. Dance lovers will at last be able to opt for a Liceu Dance subscription, the first subscription devoted 100% to dance and including all four dance performances. As with other subscriptions, they will be able to keep the same seat from one year to the next And finally we announce the Hola Liceu subscription comprising 3 operas at a 50% discount. Holders of this particular subscription must renew it every year and cannot keep their previous seat, the reason being that we want other newcomers to have the same chance to acquire this exceptionally attractively priced subscription.
This season, as we celebrate the Liceu’s 175th anniversary, we offer our subscribers the chance to enjoy a special performance —Liceu down the generations —to which they can bring their grandchildren, nephews and nieces, godchildren, etc., so as to hand
Temporada 2021— 2 022
193
12
SHOW REGULAR
PERFORMANCES TURNS A, B, C and T
SEAT SUBSCRIPTIONS
Turn A
25% off
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Tuesday
28/09/2021
7 pm
WAR REQUIEM
Monday
25/10/2021
7 pm
WINTERREISE (BALLET PRELJOCAJ)
Monday
08/11/2021
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
Tuesday
14/12/2021
7 pm
PIOTR BECZAŁA RECITAL
Thursday
03/02/2022
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Tuesday
08/02/2022
7 pm
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Monday
28/02/2022
7 pm
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO GISELLE BY AKRAM KHAN WOZZECK
Monday
11/04/2022
7 pm
Wednesday
04/05/2022
7 pm
Monday
30/05/2022
7 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Tuesday
21/06/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Monday
18/07/2022
7 pm
Price Price of subscription (25% off) Price of non-subscription tickets Saving
Z1
Z2
Z3
1.756 1.549 1.283 2.342 2.065 1.706 586
516
423
Turn B
Z4
Z5
965 722 1.287
959
322 237
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
485 343 126 2.390 641
457
164
3.185
156 114
38
795
25% off
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Wednesday
WAR REQUIEM
29/09/2021
7 pm
Thursday
21/10/2021
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
Wednesday
01/12/2021
7 pm
THE NUTCRACKER (BALLET OF TOULOUSE)
Wednesday
29/12/2021
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Wednesday
26/01/2022
7 pm
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Thursday
03/03/2022
7 pm
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Thursday
07/04/2022
7 pm
GISELLE BY AKRAM KHAN
Friday
06/05/2022
7 pm
WOZZECK
Wednesday
25/05/2022
7 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Wednesday
22/06/2022
7 pm
MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ, SIR SIMON RATTLE & FRIENDS
Wednesday
29/06/2022
7 pm
Thursday
21/07/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Price Price of subscription (25% off) Price of non-subscription tickets Saving
194
Z1
Z2
Z3
1.710 1.510 1.248 2.280 2.013 1.659 570
503
411
Z4
Z5
938 703 1.251
933
313 230
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
481 343 126 2.358 636
457
164
3.142
155 114
38
784
Subscriptions and tickets
12
PERFORMANCES TURNS A, B, C and T
SHOW REGULAR SEAT SUBSCRIPTIONS
Turn C
25% off
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Saturday
02/10/2021
7 pm
WAR REQUIEM
Saturday
23/10/2021
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
Saturday
18/12/2021
7 pm
PARTENOPE (C.V.)
Saturday
29/01/2022
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Saturday
05/02/2022
7 pm
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
Saturday
09/04/2022
7 pm
SONYA YONCHEVA SINGS PUCCINI
Saturday
30/04/2022
7 pm
GISELLE BY AKRAM KHAN
Saturday
07/05/2022
21.30h
Friday
27/05/2022
7 pm
WOZZECK
Saturday
04/06/2022
7 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Saturday
25/06/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Saturday
30/07/2022
7 pm
DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN
Price Price of subscription (25% off) Price of non-subscription tickets
Z1
Z2
Z3
1.733 1.528 1.263 2.312 2.037 1.680
Saving
579
509
Turn T
417
Z4
Z5
953 713 1.270
947
317 234
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
478 339 126 2.363 632
450
164
3.150
154 111
38
787
25% off
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Sunday
26/09/2021
17h
WAR REQUIEM
Sunday
31/10/2021
6 pm
DUDAMEL CONDUCTS THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE BY BERLIOZ
Sunday
21/11/2021
17h
RIGOLETTO
Sunday
28/11/2021
17h
THE NUTCRACKER (BALLET OF TOULOUSE)
Sunday
02/01/2022
17h
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Sunday
06/02/2022
17h
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Sunday
06/03/2022
17h
DON GIOVANNI
Sunday
24/04/2022
17h
WOZZECK
Sunday
22/05/2022
17h
DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN
Sunday
29/05/2022
17h
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Sunday
26/06/2022
17h
NORMA
Sunday
24/07/2022
17h
Price Price of subscription (25% off) Price of non-subscription tickets Saving
Z1
Z2
Z3
1.735 1.534 1.264 2.314 2.045 1.682 579
511
Season 2021— 2 022
418
Z4
Z5
952 719 1.270
954
318 235
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
486 349 129 2.386 643
465
167
3.180
157 116
38
794
195
9
Subscriptions
PERFORMANCES TURNS D, E i H
25% off
Turn D ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Monday
27/09/2021
7 pm
Wednesday
27/10/2021
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
Sunday
12/12/2021
6 pm
THE NUTCRACKER (BALLET OF TOULOUSE)
Tuesday
04/01/2022
7 pm
Pikovaya DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Tuesday
01/02/2022
7 pm
ELS ALTRES PELLÉAS
Monday
07/03/2022
7 pm
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Tuesday
15/03/2022
7 pm
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Tuesday
19/04/2022
7 pm
WOZZECK
Thursday
02/06/2022
7 pm
WAR REQUIEM
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
Price of subscription (25% off)
1.270
1.122
933
701
530
349
250
93
1.735
Price of non-subscription tickets
1.695
1.497
1.240
935
703
460
334
120
2.312
425
375
307
234
173
111
84
27
577
Saving
25% off
Turn E WAR REQUIEM
Friday
29/10/2021
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
Friday
10/12/2021
7 pm
RECITAL JAVIER CAMARENA
Friday
07/01/2022
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Friday
11/02/2022
7 pm
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Friday
11/03/2022
7 pm
DON GIOVANNI
Friday
08/04/2022
7 pm
DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN
Friday
03/06/2022
7 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Friday
01/07/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Friday
22/07/2022
7 pm
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
Price of subscription (25% off)
1.340
1.179
976
736
548
366
266
96
1.790
Price of non-subscription tickets
1.788
1.572
1.298
982
727
485
353
126
2.386
448
393
322
246
179
119
87
30
596
Saving
25% off
Turn H ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Monday
04/10/2021
7 pm
WINTERREISE (BALLET PRELJOCAJ)
Tuesday
09/11/2021
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
Monday
13/12/2021
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Thursday
10/02/2022
7 pm
Friday
18/03/2022
7 pm
Monday
25/04/2022
7 pm
Wednesday
01/06/2022
7 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Monday
20/06/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Thursday
28/07/2022
7 pm
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE COSÌ FAN TUTTE DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
Price of subscription (25% off)
1.311
1.155
950
714
536
365
263
96
1.783
Price of non-subscription tickets
1.747
1.539
1.265
953
711
484
351
124
2.376
436
384
315
239
175
119
88
28
593
Saving
196
Subscriptions and tickets
6
Subscriptions
PERFORMANCES TURNS F, G i P
20% off
Turn F ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Sunday
03/10/2021
6 pm
WINTERREISE (BALLET PRELJOCAJ)
Saturday
06/11/2021
6 pm
MYTH AND TRAGEDY OF ELECTRA AND OEDIPUS
Saturday
13/11/2021
6 pm
RIGOLETTO
Sunday
05/12/2021
6 pm
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
Saturday
23/04/2022
6 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Saturday
02/07/2022
6 pm
Price Price of subscription (20% off) Price of non-subscription tickets
Z1
Z2
Z3
936
827
685
517 375
246 175
65 1.234
1.169 1.034
856
644
468
308
219
82
1.543
171
127
93
62
44
17
309
Saving
233
207
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
20% off
Turn G
Friday
03/12/2021
7 pm
SAVALL:BEETHOVEN’S 8th AND 9th
Wednesday
15/12/2021
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Wednesday
02/02/2022
7 pm
Tuesday
08/03/2022
7 pm
Wednesday
20/04/2022
7 pm
Monday
27/06/2022
7 pm
RIGOLETTO
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE DON GIOVANNI DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
Price Price of subscription (20% off) Price of non-subscription tickets
Z1
Z2
Z3
940
829
682
517 379
259 188
68 1.269
1.175 1.037
852
644
473
324
236
86
1.587
170
127
94
65
48
18
318
Saving
235
208
Turn P
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
30% off
WINTERREISE (BALLET PRELJOCAJ)
Wednesday
10/11/2021
RIGOLETTO
Thursday
09/12/2021
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Thursday
27/01/2022
7 pm
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
Thursday
21/04/2022
7 pm
Thursday
30/06/2022
7 pm
Wednesday
27/07/2022
7 pm
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE) NORMA
Price Price of subscription (30% off) Price of non-subscription tickets Saving
Z1
Z2
Z3
866
761
622
469 348
240 174
61 1.164
1.238 1.085
888
671
498
342
248
86
1.662
266
202 150
102
74
25
498
372
324
Season 2021— 2 022
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
7 pm
Z8
ZA
197
3
Subscriptions
PERFORMANCES TURNS PB, PC, PD i PE
Turn PB
30% off
RIGOLETTO
Friday
17/12/2021
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Friday
04/02/2022
7 pm
Saturday
28/05/2022
7 pm
WOZZECK
Price Price of subscription (30% off)
Z1
Z2
Z3
428
374
305
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
231 177
120
89
30
586
Price of non-subscription tickets
611
533
436
331
254
172
127
42
837
Saving
183
159
131
100
77
52
38
12
251
Turn pc
30% off
RIGOLETTO
Tuesday
30/11/2021
7 pm
DON GIOVANNI
Tuesday
12/04/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Monday
25/07/2022
7 pm
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
Price of subscription (30% off)
434
379
309
235 179
Z4
122
90
31
594
Price of non-subscription tickets
620
540
442
336
257
174
129
43
848
Saving
186
161
133
101
78
52
39
12
254
30% off
Turn PD ORPHEUS (C.V.)
Saturday
30/10/2021
6 pm
RIGOLETTO
Sunday
19/12/2021
6 pm
NORMA
Sunday
31/07/2022
6 pm
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
Price of subscription (30% off)
423
369
299
229 175
118
87
31
585
Price of non-subscription tickets
605
526
427
327
251
169
124
43
834
Saving
182
157
128
98
76
51
37
12
249
30% off
Turn PE
Thursday
02/12/2021
7 pm
Wednesday
13/04/2022
7 pm
Tuesday
19/07/2022
7 pm
RIGOLETTO COSÌ FAN TUTTE NORMA
Price
Z4
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
Price of subscription (30% off)
394
346
285
215 164
113
78
27
559
Price of non-subscription tickets
563
494
407
307
235
162
112
38
798
Saving
169
148
122
92
71
49
34
11
239
198
Z4
Subscriptions and tickets
Liceu Dance Subscription
30%
NEW!
DISCOUNT
The Liceu has a commitment to all the performing arts and this year we reinforce our support to dance by offering 4 shows in the Main Auditorium and another in the Foyer (La nit de Sant Joan / Soirées de Barcelone by Robert Gerhard). Moreover, in response to a long-standing request from ballet-lovers in the audience, we are consolidating our dance season by creating the Liceu Dance subscription: • All 4 shows in the Auditorium are included, at a 30% discount. • Subscribers can keep the same seat throughout the season. • The subscription is automatically renewed from year to year. • It offers all the benefits of other Liceu subscriptions. These subscriptions will be available from 27 May 2021 onwards.
Dance Friday
05/11/2021
7 pm
THE NUTCRACKER
Thursday
30/12/2021
7 pm
GISELLE
Thursday
05/05/2022
7 pm
DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN
Tuesday
31/05/2022
7 pm
WINTERREISE
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Price of subscription (30% off) Price of non-subscription tickets
400
353
573
Saving
173
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
294
216 159
112
76
28
571
506
419
308
226
159
108
40
815
153
125
92
67
47
32
12
244
Flexible subscription
Z4
10% DISCOUNT
3 OR MORE SHOWS These totally made-to-measure subscriptions allow you to make your own choice of shows at a 10% discount. The minimum number of shows is 3 and you can select a different area and seat for each. Flexible Subscriptions are not automatically renewed. A new application must be made each year.
Season 2021— 2 022
“Choose whatever shows you fancy at a 10% discount”. These subscriptions will be available from 1 July 2021 onwards.
199
Hola Liceu subscription
50%
NEW!
To satisfy the curiosity of anyone intrigued by opera, we offer a selection of 3 operas at a 50% discount. Subscribers can keep the same seat at all performances. The Liceu has launched its new Hola Liceu subscription to make it easier for everyone to sample its opera season. • A selection of 3 operas at a 50% discount. • Subscribers retain their chosen seat at all 3 performances.
DISCOUNT
basic additional information so that they can get ready for the show and enjoy it as more experienced subscribers do. • To give everyone access to this subscription and attract new operagoers every year, it will not be automatically renewed and must be purchased again the following season. That way everyone interested has an equal opportunity to enjoy it each season. These subscriptions will go on sale on 13 September 2021 at 10 am.
• The Liceu will provide subscribers with The following shows are included:
Hola Liceu WAR REQUIEM
Tuesday
02/11/2021
7 pm
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES)
Monday
31/01/2022
7 pm
NORMA
Tuesday
26/07/2022
7 pm
Price
Z1
Z2
Z3
Price of subscription (50% off) Price of non-subscription tickets
282
248
563
Saving
281
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Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
204
154 118
82
57
19
400
494
407
307
235
162
112
38
798
246
203
153 117
80
55
19
398
Liceu down the generations Come to the Liceu with those dearest to you and give them a chance to experience live opera: this is the aim of “Liceu down the generations”, a performance tailor-made for subscribers who want to hand down their love for opera to coming generations. A gift of cultural enrichment that goes beyond entertainment. This year’s performance is Rigoletto on Saturday 4 December 2021 at 7 pm.
200
Z4
NEW! Subscribers can be accompanied by 3 people to whom they want to transmit their passion for opera (2 of whom must be between 14 and 28 years of age). Flat-rate price: 35 €. Limited number of tickets available Minimum age: 14 years Tickets go on sale on 4 October at 10 am. More information from liceu.cat
Subscriptions and tickets
Why should I become a Liceu subscriber? FLEXIBILITY. Switch dates if you can’t come on the specified day
PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT. Liceu subscribers are the centre of attention
• Changes of performance, title or seat. All subscribers can switch to performances on a different date. Holders of 12- or 9-performance subscriptions can also exchange two titles for different ones, and those with 6-performance subscriptions can exchange one. Changes available through the Personal Zone up to 24 hours before the show.
• Personalized attention from the subscriber attention service, by phone and email, and at the box office and in the Auditorium during performances.
• Vacant Seat Service. This service enables subscribers who are unable to use their tickets to offer them for sale at whatever price they decide, provided it does not exceed the standard price for the zone and performance. Service available up to 24 hours before the show. If the seat is sold, the Liceu will refund 50% of the sale price, minus VAT and a handling charge. If the seat is not sold, the subscriber can recover it up to 1 hour before the start of the performance.
• Access to the digital publication La veu del Liceu containing full information about shows.
• Payment in four instalments at no extra cost (due dates: 01/07/21, 01/09/21, 01/11/21 and 01/01/22).
• Priority purchase of tickets to the season’s shows before they are available to the general public. No handling charge during the priority sales period.
UNIQUE AND EXCLUSIVE EXPERIENCES. The intangible benefits are the most precious. Exclusive access to shows and events that are part of the season (a limited number of attendants, selected at random). • Attendance at the official presentation of the new season.
Saving. The most economical subscription: discounts on shows, activities and services
• NEW! Attendance at dress rehearsals of the season’s operas. 100 seats will be reserved for subscribers, who will be informed in due time about arrangements for entry.
• Discounts of 20%, 25% or 30% (depending on the series) and 10% (Flexible subscriptions).
• NEW! Exclusive Petit Liceu performances which subscribers can attend with younger members of the family.
• 20% discount on extra tickets bought any time during the season.
• Liceu Club subscribers (over 20 years’ tenure) will be issued with a special card giving priority access to activities and shows.
• Discount on restaurant service during the interval. • 50% discount on all tours. • Discounts at various car parks near the Liceu.
Season 2021— 2 022
Detailed updated information about how to take part in these different activities will be posted on liceu.cat and sent regularly to subscribers by email.
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Suscribers’ calendar FROM 27 MAY TO 15 JUNE • Changing subscriptions to a different series and/or seat*. • Changing from a Flexible to a Regular Seat subscription*. • Cancellations.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR SUBSCRIBERS
FROM 27 MAY AND THROUGHOUT THE SEASON • New Regular Seat subscriptions on. sale (including the new Liceu Dance subscription).
• Subscriptions will be renewed for the same seat as previously. Last season it was impossible for subscribers to occupy their chosen seat. This season, if the health situation permits, they will be able to keep same seat while complying with all safety measures.
1 JULY • Flexible subscriptions go on sale. • Payment falls due (full price or first instalment, if paid by instalments).
• Change of performance and title and Vacant Seat service. The date at which these services commence will be announced in September.
FROM 13 SEPTEMBER • New Hola Liceu subscriptions go on sale FROM 4 OCTOBER • Tickets for “Liceu down the generations” go on sale. * Changes to subscriptions can be made through the Personal Zone on the website (liceu.cat) or by phone. They cannot be made at the box office. Changes of performance, title or seat can be made through the Personal Zone.
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Our top priority is to offer the best possible service and ensure that subscriptions can be securely renewed, complete with all the rights and benefits. In order to achieve this:
• Priority sale of extra tickets for subscribers. This service will be available from five weeks before the first performance of each title (except the first opera, Ariadne auf Naxos, for which sales will begin on 1 September). All these dates are subject to change in the light of the health situation. Complete updated information will be posted on liceu.cat and queries will be answered in the usual ways: by phone or email, at the box office, and in the Auditorium during performances.
Subscriptions and tickets
Special offers and conditions GIFT VOUCHER These vouchers can be exchanged for tickets worth 20 € or more. They are valid for 2 years. Give someone a memorable outing to one of the country’s most emblematic venues.
UNDER35 COMMUNITY: a plethora of advantages for those under 35 (p. 206). LICEU APROPA: the Liceu’s social programme, which aims at accessibility and inclusiveness for those in vulnerable situations. (pp. 210-213).
El PETIT LICEU
All information at liceu.cat
Discounts are also available on family shows: 20% off the purchase of 4 or more tickets to the same Petit Liceu show.
LICEU SALES OUTLETS
CHRISTMAS BOX Liceu shows make a splendid Christmas gift. We offer Christmas boxes containing a choice of different operas at special rates. On sale in December through the web site or at the box office. THE LICEU REACHES OUT Associations and other groups have a chance to discover opera and the Liceu in a special way by taking part in the free talks about the titles on the bill which are organized all over the country. For more information and conditions: territori@liceubarcelona.cat TRAVEL AGENCIES AND GROUPS The Liceu offers travel agencies and groups special conditions for purchasing tickets and making priority advance bookings. Més informació i condicions a info@liceubarcelona.cat HOLA LICEU: for those wanting a first taste of the world of opera (p. 200).
Tickets can be bought online from liceu.cat • By phone: 902 787 397* / 934 859 913 (Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm). • At the box office: la Rambla, 51-59. 08002, Barcelona, at the following times: – Monday to Friday, 10 am to 7 pm. – Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm (open till the show starts on performance days). – Sundays and holidays, closed (except on performance days: open till 2 hours before the show starts or till 1 hour before in the case of Petit Liceu shows). CUSTOMER HELP LINE Telephone: 902 787 397* / 934 859 913 (Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm). E-mail: info@liceubarcelona.cat *Special rates apply to calls
LICEU DOWN THE GENERATIONS: a way of handing down the passion for opera to coming generations (p. 200).
The Liceu guarantees the authenticity of tickets bought through official sales channels. Tickets are available from liceu.cat, from the Liceu box office and through the following authorized outlets: Entradas.com, Entradas de Vanguardia, Teatre Barcelona and TRESC
Season 2021— 2 022
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Tickets To ensure that restrictions to the maximum seating capacity does not affect tickets already issued, tickets will be put on sale as they were last season, starting one month before the first performance of each title, except the first opera, Ariadne auf Naxos, for which tickets will be available from 1 September.
MAIN AUDITORIUM
NEW! Starting this season, shows which formerly began at 8 pm will start at 7 pm.
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (#LICEUNDER35)
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
WAR REQUIEM (#LICEUNDER35) WAR REQUIEM CABALLÉ CONTEST FINAL ROUND
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
27
24
20
16
11
10
10
10
29
ORPHEUS (C.V.)
176
157
127
98
76
49
34
14
255
WINTERREISE (BALLET PRELJOCAJ)
142
126
104
76
55
38
27
10
197
MYTH AND TRAGEDY OF ELECTRA AND OEDIPUS (#LICEUNDER35)
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
MYTH AND TRAGEDY OF ELECTRA AND OEDIPUS
160
140
120
90
60
30
20
10
180
DUDAMEL CONDUCTS THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE BY BERLIOZ
176
157
127
98
76
49
34
14
255
RIGOLETTO (28/11 - 1, 3, 5, 10, 12, 14 I 18/12/2021)
219
188
153
117
89
61
46
15
295
RIGOLETTO (30/11 - 2, 9, 13, 17 I 19/12/2021)
210
181
147
112
86
59
44
14
284
RIGOLETTO (LICEU DOWN THE GENERATIONS)
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
35
JORDI SAVALL: BEETHOVEN’S 8th AND 9th
98
88
73
54
34
25
20
10
137
THE NUTCRACKER (BALLET OF TOULOUSE)
142
126
104
76
55
38
27
10
197
JAVIER CAMARENA RECITAL
165
145
125
95
65
35
25
10
185
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES) (26/1 - 1, 5, 8 I 11/2/2022)
219
188
153
117
89
61
46
15
295
PIKOVAYA DAMA (THE QUEEN OF SPADES) (27 I 31/1 - 2, 4, 6 I 10/2/2022)
210
181
147
112
86
59
44
14
284
VIÑAS CONTEST FINAL ROUND
15
15
15
15
15
10
10
10
15
PRIZE-WINNERS CONCERT, VIÑAS CONTEST
27
24
20
16
11
10
10
10
29
176
157
127
98
76
49
34
14
255
PARTENOPE (C.V.)
204
Subscriptions and tickets
PIOTR BECZAŁA RECITAL
160
140
120
90
60
30
20
10
180
THE OTHER PELLÉAS
160
140
120
90
60
30
20
10
180
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
175th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT: ANNA NETREBKO
266
238
195
147
100
71
48
19
333
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
DON GIOVANNI
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
SONYA YONCHEVA SINGS PUCCINI
160
140
120
90
60
30
20
10
180
GISELLE BY AKRAM KHAN
162
142
118
88
67
49
29
10
245
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
191
171
142
107
82
54
39
14
269
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN
127
112
93
68
49
34
25
10
176
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (THE MAGIC FLUTE)
266
238
195
147
100
71
48
19
333
MAGDALENA KOŽENÁ, SIR SIMON RATTLE & FRIENDS
98
88
73
54
34
25
20
10
137
NORMA (#LICEUNDER35)
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
NORMA (18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30 I 31/7/2022)
219
188
153
117
89
61
46
15
295
NORMA (19 I 26/7/2022)
162
142
118
88
67
49
29
10
245
El petit Liceu
Z1
Z2
Z3
Z4
Z5
Z6
Z7
Z8
ZA
LA NIT DE SANT JOAN DE ROBERT GERHARD (SALA FOYER)
18
LA PETITA FLAUTA MÀGICA
15
15
15
15
15
15
TRENCANOUS-JAZZ (SALA FOYER)
15
ELS MÚSICS DE BREMEN
15
15
15
15
15
15
EL CONTE DE NADAL DE CHARLES DICKENS
27
24
20
16
11
LA BARCAROLA (SALA FOYER)
15
LA CUINA DE ROSSINI
25
20
20
15
15
25
EL MONSTRE AL LABERINT
15
15
15
15
15
15
MIRALLS (SALA FOYER)
15
IT DANSA (TEATRE-AUDITORI SANT CUGAT)
15
WOZZECK (#LICEUNDER35) WOZZECK DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN (#LICEUNDER35)
Foyer
Price
ROBERT GERHARD’S LA NIT DE SANT JOAN
35
CHAMBER MUSIC
25
MADRIGALS
35
PIERROT LUNAIRE
35
(ÒH!)PERA! MICRO-OPERA PROJECT
35
Season 2021— 2 022
10
10
Other Areas WINTERREISE AT THE ‘LA MODEL’ PRISON
10
29
Price 35
* Seat prices will rise when sales for a particular zone exceed 70% of its capacity.
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LICEUNDER 35
UNDER35COMMUNITY If you’re under 35 we make it easy for you to come to the opera. Join the Under35 Community and enjoy the very attractive conditions: • Preferential ticket purchase from one hour before sales to the public commence. • The exclusive chance to buy tickets for 30 € starting two weeks before each premiere. • Exclusive activities and other special discounts. Register on our website. Available from 1 September 2021.
SPECIALLICEUUNDER35
20
EUROS
Advance premieres for young audiences for just 20 €. Every year six* of these unique experiences, featuring an operatic DJ, food stands, etc., are held in the Foyer for the under-35s. They include one dance performance and one concert by the Liceu Symphony Orchestra: • Opera. ARIADNE AUF NAXOS. 23/09/2021. On sale from 02/09/21 • Opera. WAR REQUIEM. 19/10/2021. On sale from 20/09/21 • Concert. “MITE I TRAGÈDIA D’ELÈCTRA I ÈDIP”. 12/11/2021. On sale from 13/10/21 • Opera. WOZZECK. 20/05/2022. On sale from 21/04/22 • Dance. DE SCHEHERAZADE A YO, CARMEN. 26/05/2022. On sale from 27/04/22 • Opera. NORMA. 16/07/2022. On sale from 16/06/22
UNDER35PRICES
30
EUROS
The Liceu offers you tickets at a flat rate of 30 € from 2 weeks before each premiere (availability subject to seating capacity restrictions imposed for health reasons). Buy them online at liceu.cat or at the box office. Maximum 2 tickets per person and performance (the second person must also be below 35). STUDENTS BELOW THE AGE OF 30 Tickets to any of the season’s shows at the special price of 30 €. Maximum 1 ticket per student. On sale at the box office only from 3 hours before the start of the performance (Sundays and holidays from 2 hours before).
ACTIVITIESUNDER35 The Liceu offers new exclusive activities for the Under35 Community this season. Check the website and become part of the act! At all activities, evidence of age must be shown whenever required by the Liceu. *Subject to health regulations in force at the time.
WWW.LICEU.CAT
Services at performances
ADVANCE BRIEFING SESSIONS
LOST PROPERTY
An advance briefing session is held in the Foyer 45 minutes before each opera performance. Free attendance for audience members. In Catalan.
Tel. 93 485 99 00 (Public Relations Service).
CATERING SERVICE DURING PERFORMANCES This service has been reorganized: advance booking is required and specific tables are allocated. Bar service on performance days will be in the Mirror Room, the Foyer and on the 4th floor, from one hour before the start of the performance to the end of the last interval. Full information on the website before the start of the season.
MEDICAL SERVICE Available to the audience during all performances. PARKING The Liceu has agreements with the car parks nearest to the opera house: Saba, La Gardunya and Carrer Hospital. Special rates are available on performance days. ACCESSIBILITY See Liceu Apropa, the social programme (pp. 210-213).
Subscribers and members of the patronage and sponsorship programme are entitled to discounts. SURTITLES Surtitles are provided in Catalan, Spanish and English at all operas to enable the audience to follow the plot. CLOAKROOM This service is suspended until authorized by the health regulations in force. When available it will be free of charge. At Petit Liceu performances, prams and pushchairs can be left there.
Season 2021— 2 022
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General regulations
PUNCTUALITY AND ADMISSION
CLOAKROOM
Once the performance has begun, admission to the Auditorium, including boxes and anterooms, will not be permitted.
Members of the audience who do not have tickets to boxes with anterooms must leave all bulky items such as bags, rucksacks, umbrellas, helmets, coats etc. in the cloakroom. Articles left in the cloakroom may be inspected for security reasons.
MINORS Children below 14 must be accompanied by an adult. In the case of Under35 performances, the accompanying person must also be under 35. At opera performances, symphony concerts and recitals, only children over 5 will be admitted to the Auditorium. At other daytime performances (ballets, Christmas concert, etc.), children aged 3 and over will be admitted, provided the show starts no later than 7 pm. Free tickets to Petit Liceu performances can be obtained for children aged 2 or less. Ticket must be purchased for those aged 3 and over.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, cloakroom service will not be available until the regulations in force permit. LICEU ESPAI SEGUR We are making every effort to make the Liceu a place in which artistic activities may be enjoyed in complete safety. Official health regulations will be strictly enforced and this may affect the Liceu’s ability to abide by some of its own regulations. Safety protocols may be consulted on the Liceu website.
SEAT ALLOCATION Members of the audience must occupy the seat specified on their ticket. They may not remain standing or change seats during performances. By virtue of its right of admission, the Liceu may require anyone occupying a different seat from the one specified on their ticket to leave the premises.
The Gran Teatre del Liceu is a holder of the Bureau Veritas certificate
FOOD AND DRINK No food or drink may be brought into the building. Eating and drinking are permitted only in the bars.
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#HealthAndSafetyMeasures The overall conditions applying to tickets bought through the website liceu.cat are specified in the course of the purchase process.
Regulations
Temporada 2021— 2 022
209
LICEU APROPA Because of our commitment to accessibility and social inclusion and our belief that music can make people’s lives better, we have developed Liceu Apropa (“Liceu proximity”), a project inspired by equality and excellence which offers programmes, services and other benefits to those in a vulnerable situation. Feel part of the Liceu. Experience the Liceu.
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The Programme
Toca Liceu (“Touch the Liceu”) Òpera a l’abast (“Opera within reach”) Just stay where you are and let us tell you all about opera in a novel way: by means of specially adapted, easily understandable talks with music played live by musicians from our Orchestra. And to round it off, enjoy a rehearsal at the opera house. Activity for social organizations. No charge. Numbers limited. Register by email and we’ll contact you immediately: liceuapropa@liceubarcelona.cat
Entra dins el Liceu (“Come inside the Liceu”) Would you like to see how and where the Liceu’s Chorus and Orchestra rehearse and take a guided tour of the opera house? Then sign up for Entra dins el Liceu. Activity for social organizations. Price: 3€ per person. Maximum 12 persons per group. Let your group discover the unknown side of the Liceu by visiting apropacultura.cat and making a booking.
Music workshops for children suffering from TEA and their families These special workshops are a way of introducing children with TEA to singing and opera. They are followed by attendance at a “friendly performance” of La petita flauta màgica or Miralls for up to 4 family members. Numbers limited. For information about prices and bookings, send an email to apropaliceu@liceubarcelona.cat specifying the name of the activity.
Season 2021— 2 022
If you are visually impaired and plan to attend a performance with audio description, why not enrol for Toca Liceu too and discover even more. Enjoy an exclusive tour of the dressmaking and costume design department with staff members as your guides. Touch the costumes and wigs and feel the fabrics, shapes and textures. Groups of up to 12. Price: 3€. Visit apropacultura.cat to book.
Funcions amigues (“Friendly performance”) Just imagine: at this show the Auditorium isn’t in darkness, there are areas for resting, and the signs have pictograms! If you have attention deficit disorder and/or autism and would like to enjoy a Petit Liceu show, come to one of our “friendly performances”: La Petita Flauta Màgica (31 October), El Monstre al laberint (13 March), Miralls (2 April at 10.30 and 11.30) or La Barcarola (15 May). You’ll watch the show from the stalls or dress circle. Numbers limited. Book on apropacultura.cat (“funció amiga Liceu”).
Come to the Liceu through ApropaCultura We want to make sure that the disabled and those in a situation of vulnerability really do have access to opera. How? By offering social organizations in the ApropaCultura programme 4000 tickets to all the season’s shows . The seats are in the stalls or dress circle and cost just 3 € each. See the calendar for bookings on apropacultura.cat. If you have a query you can also email us at liceuapropa@liceubarcelona. cat indicating the name of the activity.
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Community Creation
Opera prima Opera Prima, our new line in community opera, will give rise to a new opera every three years by means of a co-creation process in which local communities will team up with artists and professionals from the field. The aim is to guarantee access to culture for persons in a vulnerable situation or who have little contact with opera and to forge tools of social transformation and integration. The first title to arise from this new project, La gata perduda (The Lost Cat), will be premiered in October 2022. The music will be by Arnau Tordera, Victoria Szpunberg will write the libretto, Ricard Soler will be the stage director, and the music director will be Alfons Reverté. This season will be devoted to finding future partners in the Raval district and encouraging citizen involvement. Thus local resident participation will be part of a wider artistic process designed to reinforce social cohesion through the creation of an art work and to bring new talent to light.
International partner of the project and technological innovation support.
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Liceu Apropa
Services
Benefits Disabled persons
• Surtitles in Catalan above the proscenium arch at all operas. • Catalan, Spanish and English surtitles on the individual screens in the Auditorium. • Monitors showing a static camera shot of the stage at all seats with limited or no visibility. Seats in the front row of the upper tiers are not equipped with individual screens.
DISCOUNTS
80% DISCOUNT
50% DISCOUNT
• Special areas set aside for persons in wheelchairs at discount prices. • Wheelchairs at the disposal of members of the audience.
30% DISCOUNT
• Zero-step access to lifts in the lobby at the Carrer Sant Pau entrance.
30% DISCOUNT
• Braille layout map and tactile surface indicators in the Main Lobby.
– Aged 18 or over: 30% discount, also applicable to 1 accompanying person.
30% discount on the day of the performance, available from the Box Office 3 hours before the show. Accreditation must be shown (on Sundays and holidays, from 2 hours in advance).
Single-parent families, large families and foster families
• Braille guides to areas of the opera house open to the public.
• Plot synopses prepared in accordance with international easy-to-read guidelines (for those with reading difficulties, aphasia, or intellectual and other disabilities). Available in both Catalan and Spanish for all dramatized operas on www.liceubarcelona.cat
– Below 18 years of age: 30% discount, also applicable to 3 accompanying persons from the same family.
Unemployed persons
• Disabled toilets at the stalls, dress circle and second tier levels and in the Foyer.
• Hearing loop system in the Auditorium, the box office and the Rambla and Foyer cloakrooms for those with cochlear implants and/or hearing aids.
• Persons not in wheelchairs*:
IA Catalan government disabled person’s card and official identity card must be shown. Available from the Box Office only.
• Platform lift in the Main Lobby.
• Audio description provided at one performance of each dramatized opera (for dates see the foot of the relevant page).
• Persons in wheelchairs: 80% discount for the wheelchair occupant and 50% for 1 accompanying person.
30% DISCOUNT
30% discount on Petit Liceu shows. Apply to the box office at time of purchase. For more information about Liceu Apropa: liceuapropa@liceubarcelona.cat
• Special anticipation guides with pictograms illustrating access to the opera house and Petit Liceu shows (for those with autism spectrum disorder). Available on the Liceu web site.
Season 2021— 2 022
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Directory of artists A Abrahamian, Varduhi 154 Albano, Miriam 122 Alegret, David 72, 90 Alessandrini, Rinaldo 19, 43, 47, 70, 71, 142, 169 Alexandre, Ivan 27, 43, 46, 116, 118, 120, 122 Alford, Joseph W. 48 Andrés Ramón 1, 19, 29, 32, 34, 36, 42, 47, 169 Appl, Benjamin 42, 47, 48, 132 Armiliato, Marco 112 Atxalandabaso, Mikeldi 134
B Baillieu, James 132 Balfour, Charles 56 Bañeras, Sara 78 Beczała, Piotr 43, 46, 102, 103 Behr, Julien 144 Belarbi, Kader 43, 86 Belkina, Lena 90 Bernad, Leonard 120 Bernheim, Benjamin 47, 78 Blanch, Sara 42, 46, 48, 49, 144 Blenkinsop, Sarah 48 Borth, Michael 134 Bros, Josep 78 Brower, Angela 118, 122 Brück, Markus 78
C Callegari, Daniele 78 Calleja, Joseph 47, 112, 114 Camarena, Javier 10, 19, 42, 46, 88, 89, 96, 144, 145 Carrasco, Valentina 32, 112, 132, 154 Carson, Anne 19, 29, 34, 47, 52, 60, 67, 83, 94, 97, 101, 108, 111, 126, 139, 149, 158, 169 Casals, Albert 144 Castells, Lluc 104, 154 Charlston, Helen 98 Christie, William 19, 42, 47, 98, 99, 100, 128 Ciampa, Francesc 128 Coma-Alabert, Gemma 90, 144, 186 Connolly, Dame Sarah 104
214
Crimp, Martin 48 Crowe, Lucy 144 Cutting, Hugh 98
D Daxter, Josie 144 de Barbeyrac, Stanislas 104, 107 Deflo, Gilbert 27, 43, 46, 90, 92 de Middel, Cristina 19, 29, 40, 42, 47 de Munck, Sonia 48 Denti, Mattia 78 Desandre, Lea 118 de Wit, Luc 134 Dohmen, Albert 72 Dolié, Thomas 118 Dove, Jonathan 186 Dudamel, Gustavo 19, 42, 47, 76, 77, 144, 146 Duhamel, Alexandre 120, 121, 122
E El Harti, El Arbi 140 Espasa, Daniel 162, 164 Esteve, Vicenç 48 Eyvazov, Yusif 43, 81, 90, 114
F Fadó, Josep 48 Fanale, Paolo 43, 154 Farncombe, James 48 Faura, Albert 90 Faus, Cristina 90 Federici, Christian 118 Filibeck, Marco 104, 154 Fischer, David 64 Fischer, Laila Salome 84 Flores, Alfons 104, 154, 222 Fontaine, Antoine 86, 118, 120, 122 Fry, Gareth 144 Fuchs, Julie 42, 47, 104
G Gancedo, Mercedes 118 Garcia, Conxita 24, 56, 72,78, 90, 104, 112, 120, 122, 134, 144, 154 García, Paco 118 Gillibrand, Nicky 144 Giménez-Comas, Núria 152 Gleadow, Robert 118, 120, 122
Goerne, Matthias 19, 47, 56, 57, 134, 135, 136, 144 Goiris, Greta 134 ´ Golinski, Łukasz 90 Gómez, Susana 104 Gouzy, Sara 84 Gubanova, Ekaterina 72 Guinovart, Albert 180 Gunning, Kim 134
H Hagen, Mirella 64 Hagström Ståhl, Tobias 118, 120, 122 Hakobyan, Gevorg 90 Haller, Salomé 64 Hankey, Samantha 48 Haroutounian, Lianna 90 Henric, Julien 120 Hernández, Airam 154 Hindoyan, Domingo 154
I Iervollino, Teresa 154 Immler, Christian 64 Infante, Marta 144
J Jacobs, René 42, 46, 64, 65 Joosten, Luc 56 Jovanovich, Brandon 48 Jurowski, Dmitry 90
K Kalman, Jean 144 Kasper, Kateryna 64 Keenlyside, Simon 42, 47, 104 Kentridge, William 19, 28, 29, 30, 46, 53, 55, 61, 67, 75, 82, 95, 97, 101, 105, 111, 115, 127, 134, 136, 138, 143, 148, 153, 159, 171, 222 Kerl, Torsten 134 Khan, Akram 11, 42, 130, 190 Khismatullin, Aigul 78 Kožená, Magdalena 11, 43, 150, 151 Kramer, Daniel 56
L Labin, Anna-Maria 118, 122, 123 Lagares, David 48, 144 Lamford, Chloe 48 Lawrence, Jacob 98 Lei, Mingjie 84 Levine, Michael 78, 144 Lewek, Kathryn 144 Ley, James 122 Li, Liang 78 Lindberg, Christian 162, 163 López, Antonio 19, 29, 32, 36, 42, 47, 132, 133, 169 López, José Antonio 48, 72 Losán, Néstor 154 Loujine, Nadejda L. 90 Lozano, Antonio 90, 134
Ollé, Àlex 19, 26, 32, 42, 47, 104, 107, 132, 152, 154, 156 Orlandi, William 90
P
Padmore, Mark 42, 47, 56 Padullés, Roger 48, 144, 186 Pagés, María 42, 140 Palatchi, Stefano 78, 104 Partyka, Michał 78 Pavlovskaya, Tatiana 56 Peretyatko, Olga 42, 78 Perles, Berna 144 Pintó, Mireia 90 Pirgu, Saimir 78 Pogossov, Rodion 90 Pons, Josep 19, 21, 22, 42, 47, 48, 56, 72, 73, 76, 104, 110, 134, 136, 168, 216 M Maltman, Christopher 42, 46, 78, 114 Powell, Sandy 78 Prat, Francesc 74 Maria Dan, Iulia 120 Preljocaj, Angelin 42, 68 Marín, Moisés 78 Marino, Megan 118, 120 R Martín-Royo, Joan 144 Radvanovsky, Sondra 19, 42, 46, 90 Masllorens, Anaïs 48 Rattle, Simon 11, 19, 43, 47, 147, Mathéu, Marta 43, 46, 154, 155 150, 151 Mazhar, Nasir 56 Rebeka, Marina 47, 154 McBurney, Simon 27, 43, 144, 146 Relyea, John 144 Meyburgh, Catherine 134 Rial, Núria 144 Migó, Marc 152 Río-Pareja, José 152 Miguélez Rouco, Alberto 98 Rodríguez, Àngel 88 Milling, Stephen 144 Rodríguez Norton, Jorge 48 Rojo, Tamara 130 Mimica, Marko 154 Minkowski, Marc 19, 43, 46, 116, 118, Rosen, Alex 48 Rose, Peter 134 120, 122, 125 Mitchell, Katie 19, 27, 42, 47, 48, 50, 222 Ross, Finn 144 Ruz, Antonio 42, 54 Muehle, Martin 90 Murrihy, Paula 48
S
N
Sabata, Xavier 19, 74 Sáenz, Serena 90, 144 Sala, Marc 90, 174 San Miguel, Okuda, 170 Sancho Pereg, Elena 48 Santcovsky, Fabià 152 Savall, Jordi 84, 204 Schachtner, Benno 64 Schönebaum, Urs 134
Nardella, Justin 56 Netrebko, Anna 11, 15, 19, 43, 47, 81, 112, 113, 114 Noval Moro, Juan 48
O Òdena, Àngel 112 Oliemans, Thomas 144
Season 2021— 2 022
Schukoff, Nikolai 48 Selig, Franz-Josef 104 Shahan, Rinat 78 Shkarupa, Grigory 78 Solbach, Maik 48 Spyres, Michael 42, 72 Stanchev, Ivo 90 Stighorst, Marius 86 Stražanac, Krešimir 64, 66 ˙ Aušrine ˙ 76 Stundyte, Sugurladze, Nino 78
T Tantsits, Peter 134 Terfel, Sir Bryn 76 Testé, Nicolas 154 Theorin, Iréne 43, 46, 48 Theunissen, Sabine 134 Tillmans, Wolfgang 19, 27, 46, 56, 58 Tweebeeke, Reinier 78 Tyler-Hall, Elaine 56
V van den Brink, Cor 78 van Oostrum, Johanni 48 van Parys, Nathalie 118, 120 Venditelli, Arianna 120 Vieira Leita, Ana 98 Vila, Laura 78 Vilà, Núria 48, 154
W Wagemakers, Monique 27, 43, 46, 78, 80 Walendzik, Matthieu 98 Walser, Manuel 84 Wilde, Scott 134
Y Yee, Ann 56 Yoncheva, Sonya 11, 43, 47, 128, 129, 154
Z Zaremba, Elena 90 Zhidkova, Elena 134 Zhilikhovsky, Andrey 90
215
Staff list of the Gran Teatre del Liceu GENERAL MANAGER
Valentí Oviedo Executive Secretary Ariadna Pedrola Chief legal officers Elionor Villén Anna Ferrando Natàlia Sanz ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND PRODUCTION
Víctor Garcia de Gomar Leticia Martín Planning Yolanda Blaya Maria Subirana Contract administration and extras Albert Castells Meritxell Penas M. Carme Ventura Executive production Silvia Garcia Joan Rimbau Special event production Muntsa Inglada Deborah Tarridas Surtitles Glòria Nogué Anabel Alenda MUSICAL DIRECTION
Josep Pons Antoni Pallès Josep M. Armengol Núria Piquer Music archives Josep Carreras Elena Rosales Répétiteurs Rodrigo de Vera Vanessa García David-Huy Nguyen-Phung Jaume Tribó Véronique Werklé Orchestra and Chorus management Lluís Alsius Luca Ceruti
216
Micky Galindo Sebastián Popescu Orchestra Klai Gleusteen Òscar Alabau Olga Aleshinki César Altur Joaquín Arrabal Sandra Luisa Batista Joan Andreu Bella Lluís Bellver Francesc Benítez Jordi Berbegal Josep M. Bernabeu Claire Bobij Kostadin Bogdanoski Bettina Brandkamp Esther Braun Mercè Brotons Pablo Cadenas Javier Cantos Josep Anton Casado Andrea Ceruti J. Carles Chordà Carles Chordà Francesc Colomina Albert Coronado Charles Courant Savio de la Corte Birgit Euler Juan Pedro Fuentes Alejandro Garrido Juan González Moreno Ródica Mónica Harda Piotr Jeczmyk Aleksandar Krapovski Magdalena Kostrzewszka Émilie Langlais Francesc Lozano Jing Liu Kalina Macuta Sergii Maiboroda Darío Mariño Varela Enric Martínez Jorge Martínez Campos Manuel Martínez Juanjo Mercadal Jordi Mestres Aleksandra Miletic Albert Mora David Morales Liviu Morna Mihai Morna
Emili Pascual M. Dolors Paya Enric Pellicer Raúl Pérez Cristoforo Pestalozzi Ionut Podgoreanu Alexandre Polonski Sergi Puente Annick Puig Ewa Pyrek Joan Renart M. José Rielo Artur Sala Guillermo Salcedo Fulgencio Sandoval Cristian Sandu Oleg Shport Oksana Solovieva Juan M. Stacey Barbara Stegemann Raul Suárez Renata Tanellari Guillaume Terrail Franck Tollini Yana Tsanova Marie Vanier Bernardo Verde Jorge Vilalta Matthias Weinmann Chorus Conxita Garcia Alejandra M. Aguilar Josep M. Bosch Margarita Buendía José L. Casanova Alexandra Codina Xavier Comorera Miguel Ángel Curras Dimitar Darlev Gabriel Antonio Diap Mariel Fontes María Genís Ricart Elisabeth Gillming Ignasi Gomar Oihane González de Viñaspre Olatz Gorrotxategi Ramon Grau Lucas Groppo Gema Hernández Andrés Omar Jara M. Carmen Jiménez Sung Min Kang Hortènsia Larrabeiti
Yordanka León Graham Lister Glòria López Pérez M. Dolors Llonch Raquel Lucena Mónica Luezas Elisabet Maldonado Aina Martín Encarnació Martínez Xavier Martínez Ivo Mischev Raquel Momblant Daniel Muñoz M. Àngles Padró Plamen G. Papazikov Eun Kyung Park Natàlia Perelló Marta Polo Joan Prados Joan Josep Ramos Miquel Rosales Maria Such Olga Szabo Llorenç Valero Ingrid Venter Elisabet Vilaplana Helena Zaborowska Guisela Zannerini Educational service and Social project Jordina Oriols Irene Calvís Julia Getino Carles Gibert Josep Maria Sabench Pilar Villanueva COMMUNICATION AND PUBLICATIONS DEPT.
Nora Farrés Press Joana Lladó Digital Christian Machío Publications Sònia Cañas Archives Helena Escobar Enric Escofet Audiovisual production Clara Bernardo Santi Gila
Design Lluís Palomar ECONOMY AND FINANCE DEPT.
Ana Serrano Cristina Esteve Núria Ribes Financial control M. Jesús Fèlix Gemma Rodríguez Carme Aguilar Accounting Jesús Arias M. José García Treasury and insurance Jordi Cabrero Roser Pausas Purchasing M. Isabel Aguilar Javier Amorós Eva Grijalba Anna Zurdo MARKETING AND COMMERCIAL DEPT.
Mireia Martínez Pol Avinyó Montse Cardona Jesús García Teresa Lleal Gemma Pujol Judith Ruiz Subscriptions and tickets Diana Diaz Josefa Padros Sonia Puig-Gros Marta Ribas Gemma Sanchez PATRONAGE, SPONSORSHIP AND SPECIAL EVENTS DEPT
Helena Roca Sandra Modrego Sandra Oliva Mireia Ventura Special events Isabel Ramón Marcos Romero Paulina Soucheiron HUMAN RESOURCES AND GENERAL SERVICES DEPT.
Jordi Tarragó
Personnel office Jordi Aymar Mercè Siles Training and occupational safety and health Rosa Barreda Reception Cristina Ferraz Medical services Mireia Gay Security Ferran Torres Computer services Pilar Foixench Raúl López Sara Martín Xavier Massotti Albert Sust Installation and maintenance Susana Expósito Helena Ferré Domingo García Isaac Martín INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS DEPT.
Public Relations Estefania Sort Yolanda Bonilla Laura Prat Main Auditorium Marian Casals Xavier Pérez TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT
Xavier Sagrera Technical office Marc Comas Guillermo Fabra Natàlia Paradela Eduard Torrents Stage service coordination Maria de Frutos Miguel Ángel Garcia Txema Orriols Staff administration Cristina Viñas Judit Villalmanzo
Season 2021— 2 022
Logistics and transport José Jorge González Blai Munuera Lluís Suárez Machinery Albert Anguera Ricard Anguera Joan A. Antich Natàlia Barot Albert Brignardelli Raúl Cabello Ricard Delgado Yolanda Escoda Sebastià Escutia Emili Fontanals Angel Hidalgo Ramon Llinàs Eduard López Francesc X. López Begoña Marcos Aduino J. Martínez Manuel Martínez Roger Martínez Eduard Melich Bautista V. Molina Esther Obrador Albert Peña Esteban Quífer Carlos Rojo Salvador Pozo Jordi Segarra Lighting technology Susana Abella Ferran Capella Sergi Escoda Oriol Franquesa Jordi Gallues J. Pere Gil Anna Junquera Antonio Larios Joaquim Macià Francesc Macip Antoni Magriña Vicente Miguel Enric Miquel Alfonso Ochoa Carles A. Pascua Robert Pinies José C. Pita Ferran Pratdesaba Josué Sampere
Audiovisual technology Jordi Amate Antoni Arrufat Amadeo Pabó Carles Rabassa Josep Sala Antoni Ujeda Àngel Vílchez Properties shop Javier Andrés Stefano Armani José Luis Encinas Emma García Miguel Guillén Antoni Lebrón Ana Pérez Lluís Rabassa Jaume Roig Josep Roses Mariano Sánchez Vicente Santos Stage management Llorenç Ametller Immaculada Faura Xesca Llabrés Jordi Soler Costumes Rui Alves Alejandro Curcó Rafael Espada David Farré Cristina Fortuny Carme González Esther Linuesa Jaime Martínez Dolors Rodríguez Glòria Royo Javier Sanz Montserrat Vergara Ana Sabina Vergara Alba Viader Patrícia Viguer Eva Vílchez Character design Susana Ben Hassan Monica Núñez Liliana Pereña Miriam Pintado Núria Valero
217
SEATING PLAN ZONE A Central dress circle boxes
Season 2021— 2022
ZONE 1 Orchestra stalls, Dress circle ZONE 2 Orchestra stalls, Orchestra boxes, Orchestra proscenium boxes, Dress circle, Dress circle boxes, Dress circle proscenium boxes, 2nd tier centre, 3rd tier centre ZONE 3 Orchestra stalls, Orchestra boxes, Dress circle, Dress circle boxes, 2nd tier centre and sides, 3rd tier centre ZONE 4 Orchestra boxes, Orchestra proscenium boxes, Dress circle proscenium boxes, 2nd tier centre and sides, 2nd tier proscenium boxes, 3rd tier centre and sides, 4th tier centre ZONE 5 Orchestra boxes, 2nd tier sides, 3rd tier sides, 4th tier centre, 5th tier centre ZONE 6 2nd tier sides, 2nd tier proscenium boxes, 3rd tier sides, 3rd tier proscenium boxes, 4th tier centre and sides, 5th tier centre ZONE 7 3rd tier sides, 4th tier sides, 5th tier centre and sides ZONE 8 3rd tier proscenium boxes, 4th tier sides, 4th tier proscenium boxes, 5th tier sides
218
HOW TO GET THERE Theatre and tour entrance AU
P NT SA C.
Tour tickets
LA RAMBLA
Theatre entrance
METRO
CAR PARKS
Líne 3 (Liceus station) Operates: Monday to Thursday, Sunday and holidays until midnight. Friday night until 2 am. Saturday all-night service
– Plaza de Catalunya – La Rambla, 88-94 (Rambla de Sant Josep) – La Rambla (opposite pl. J. Xirau) – Av. Catedral – C. Hospital
BUSES
“BICING” BICYCLE RENTAL
Línes V13 and 59
PHONE FOR SPECIAL ATTENTION
Stations: – 55 and 57 · La Rambla – 379 · Pl. Sant Miquel – 415 · La Rambla del Raval, 13
902 787 397 NIÓ C. U
GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU
La Rambla, 51-59 08002 Barcelona Telephone: 93 485 99 00 info@liceubarcelona.cat liceubarcelona.cat BOX OFFICE
Telephone: 902 787 397* / 934 859 913 *special price info@liceubarcelona.cat FOYER
Sant Pau, 7 08002 Barcelona TEATRE-AUDITORI DE SANT CUGAT
Plaça de Victòria dels Àngels, 1 08172 Sant Cugat del Vallès
The Gran Teatre del Liceu has obtained the following certifications: EMAS (Ecomanagement and Audit Scheme) ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) ISO 50001 (Energy Management System) Emblem of Guarantee of Environmental Quality
Published by: Liceu Department of Communication and Publications Design and layout: Huygens Editorial Contents: Víctor Garcia de Gomar (Artistic director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu), Alex Ross, Albert Galceran. Correction and traslation: textosBCN, Francesc X. Navarro. Illustrations: Jesús Aguado, 189; Ignasi Blanch, 191; Jesús Cisneros, 187; Mercè Galí, 179; Borja González, 181; Sílvia Morilla, 175; Patossa, 183; Alba Serrat, 177; Luis Tinoco, 185. Cover photograph and illustrations inside: William Kentridge Cover lettering: Pol Montserrat © of this edition: Fundació Gran Teatre del Liceu © of the texts and photographs: the respective authors Photo credits: Darío Acosta, 157; Paco Amate, 14, 20, 22, 24, 85, 206; Ariane à Naxos de Strauss, mise en scène Katie Mitchell – Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2018 Pascal Victor/ ArtComPress, 50; Jérôme Bellocq, 107; Antoni Bofill, 12, 16, 18, 73, 80, 92; Marco Borggreve, 59, 124, 147; Sarah Bouasse, 107; Victoria Cadisch, 147; Andrew Borg Carabott, 114; Jean-Claude Carbonne, 69; Pia Clodi, 81; Ronan Collett, 66; Michael Cooper, 93; Igor Cortadellas, 59, 137, 168; Caroline de Bon, 59; Decca Classics, 89; Javier del Real, 129, 157; Tim Dunk, 125; Dutch National Opera/Michel Schnater, 146; Daniel Escalé, 26; J. Henry Fair, 157; Famous, 51; Alfons Flores, 106, 168; Julian Hargreaves, 93, 113, 114; Katharina Harris, 93; David Herrero. Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse, 87; Richard Hubert Smith, court esy of ENO, 58; Karpati&Zarewick, 93; Andreas Kasper, 66; Christoph Koestlin, 81; Laurent Liotardo, 131; María López, 133, 169; Photo Philippe Matsas, 65, 66; Oscar Ortega, 99; Manuel Outomuro, 49, 57, 79, 91, 105, 119, 121, 123, 135, 145, 155, 170; Pérez de Rozas/Arxiu Fotogràfic de Barcelona, 160, 161; Christopher Pledger, 107; Daniil Rabovsky, 81; Royal Opera House. Bill Cooper, 156; David Ruano, 141; Salzburger Festspiele / Ruth Walz, 136; Paul Scala, 81; Sandro Scalia, 157; Smallz+Raskind, 77, 147; Marie Staggat, 137; Bettina Stöss, 137; Julia Lesely, 103, 151; Hugh Wesley, 124; Robert Wockman, 107.