The Liceu gains strength and confidently invests in its own label: the allocation of 15 million euros out of the budgeted 54.8 million for the upcoming season will give rise to, among other things, ten opera productions. Only one is rented. The rest are new productions led by the theater (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Lohengrin, and the new commission by Antoni Ros Marbà Benjamin a Portbou), new co-productions (Rusalka, La sonnambula, Giulio Cesare), or revivals of major repertoire titles in its wardrobe (La Traviata, La forza del destino, and Madama Butterfly).
Even in its brief dance section, Liceu has wanted to co-produce a title… it is about Don Juan and Semiramis by Gluck, the father of modern opera, to whom Jordi Saval pays tribute alongside the Orquestra Le Concert des Nations and the artists of the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse.
The 2024-2025 season of the Liceu de les Arts will also be marked by three interesting collaborations with visual artists: Sebastiao Salgado, with 200 of his mythical photos of the Amazon merged with the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Philip Glass; the proposal of an animated film by William Kentridge that spans from the Russian revolution to the death of Stalin accompanied by Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, and the dialogue between Schumann’s A Poet’s Love interpreted by baritone Gerald Finley and the work of Gerhard Richter (an artist who crosses the season’s libretto).
Pursuing a Dream is the concept under which Víctor García de Gomar, artistic director of the institution, wants to structure this programming. “A dream based on knowledge, art, and opera, a pursuit that gives meaning to our lives,” he warns. And he uses as examples the aspirations of the characters: Katarina and Serguei (Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk), Violetta and Alfredo (La Traviata), Cio-Cio-San; Walter Benjamin fleeing from Nazism.
The season will open on September 25th with the promised Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Shostakovich’s opera that Stalin ended up censoring and that Àlex Ollé, artist in residence at the Liceu for two more years, longed to bring to the stage. Along with his set designer, Alfons Flores, they have conceived a pool that occupies the entire stage, its waters swallowing the light, engulfing the scene in the darkness in which the protagonist lives buried. For the Russian composer, it was meant to be the first of a trilogy dedicated to strong women with a tragic end, but the project ended here, with that lady suffocated by a misogynistic environment and annihilated by her husband. Josep Pons will assume the musical direction, with the voices of Sara Jakubiak (Ángeles Blancas in the three performances of the alternative cast) and Pavel Cernoch.
The lockdown of 2020 thwarted the then imminent premiere of Lohengrin signed by none other than Richard Wagner’s great-granddaughter, Katharina Wagner, artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival. The upcoming season will thus see the artistic team overcoming the vicissitudes they experienced at the Barcelona opera house on those dates, with tenor Klaus Florian Vogt bringing to life, as planned, the mysterious swan knight. However, it will be Elisabeth Teige, a Bayreuth diva who had not yet appeared at the Liceu, who will assume the role of Duchess Elsa, while the cunning Ortrud will be portrayed by the acclaimed Iréne Theorin.
Aside from Wagner and the initial Shostakovich, Josep Pons will conduct from the pit Rusalka by Antonin Dvorák. This is the production by Christof Loy (the one with the protagonist on crutches) that premiered last season at the Teatro Real, although in Barcelona it will be the tenor Piotr Beczala – eagerly awaited for his return to staged opera in Barcelona – who will sing alongside the award-winning soprano Asmik Grigorian. It should be noted that, as co-producers, the Teatro Real and the Liceu took turns presenting this Loy production and Onegin, with which the German stage director inaugurated the current season at the theater on the Rambla and which will now be seen in Madrid.
It will also be seen in the Royal La Sonnambula by Bellini, which bears the stamp of Bárbara Lluch and shines in the voices of Nadine Sierra and Xabier Anduaga, although in Barcelona Lorenzo Paserini, a specialist in bel canto and in Verdi’s youth works, will take the podium, a young conductor from Lombardy who is making a name for himself in the orbit of La Scala in Milan or the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Neither Rusalka nor La Sonnambula will have an alternative cast beyond a couple of performances, as both lead pairs are the ones the audience wants to see, assures De Gomar, who has designed a season of great voices, “as befits the tradition of this theater.” Maria Agresta and Saioa Hernández will portray the role of Leonora in La forza del destino by Verdi, a co-production with the Paris Opera signed by Jean-Claude Avray, marking the debut of maestro Nicola Luisotti at the Liceu.
Saioa Hernández will also be Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, a role she shares with Sony Yoncheva and Ailyn Pérez. And as for La Traviata, which will be seen in January 2025 – the one from the David McVicar production that the pandemic allowed to be shown to very few people – it will feature a luxury cast: Nadine Sierra and Ruth Iniesta as Violetta and Javier Camarena and (again) Xabier Anduaga as Alfredo. In fact, the Liceu has focused on Nadine Sierra that season: the American soprano will also star in the already announced concert version of West Side Story conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, in addition to a recital with Pretty Yende.
Returning to the premieres, the love story between Caesar and Cleopatra returns to the Gran Teatre, this time under the title of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, directed by none other than William Christie. Starring in the opera are Xavier Sabata -finally a Handel done right for the Catalan countertenor at the Liceu- and soprano Julie Fuchs, the same one with whom he recently performed Poppea. In fact, both singers will reunite with Calixto Bieito, who is responsible for transforming that parable of Baroque opera into a universal and modern piece.
Regarding the only scenic installation rental that the season contains, it is none other than the celebrated staging of Mozart’s Requiem signed by Romeo Castellucci for the 2019 Aix-en-Provence Festival, marking the Italian theater director’s debut at the Liceu with a special philosophical outlook, a preview before his arrival with the Wagnerian Tetralogy. Giovanni Antonini conducts the Liceu Orchestra in this bold and unsettling theatrical version of the score, which, to the envy of the boomers, will have a concert version exclusively for the Under35 community of the Liceu (which already includes 25,000 young people) at the Sagrada Familia.
As for the world premiere of Ros-Marbà, the Catalan maestro (the only one who has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic) will conduct his own score on the final chapter of the life of philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin in July 2025. An opera in two acts based on the libretto by Anthony Carrol Madigan, with a semi-staged proposal signed by Anna Ponces, and set design by the Girona-based audiovisual research studio Playmodes.
The rest of the new operatic creation will have to be sought in the micro-opera project Oh!pera, mentored by Àlex Ollé. And in this new initiative promoted by the CCCB, the Macba, and the Liceu: Microòperes d’avui (art, música i pensament), a project that proposes a musical itinerary through the Raval neighborhood and represents a first major opportunity at the Liceu for future creators.
The dance will also feature the Barcelona premiere in October of Afanador, a venture by Marcos Morau with the Ballet Nacional de España in which the director of La Veronal explores the nature of flamenco, inspired by the work of photographer Ruvén Afanador. Additionally, Hammer by Alexander Ekman, performed by the Gothenburg Ballet, will be showcased. This dynamic and introspective show captures the transition from the generosity of the hippie community to modern individuality.
In the concert version, you will see up to three operas, in addition to Bernstein’s West Side Story. René Jacobs continues his exploration of Mozart’s works and will present Idomeneo with the Freiburg Barockorchester, featuring Emiliano González Toro in the leading role. Marc Minkowski and his Musiciens du Louvre will perform the Viennese operetta Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss (on the 150th anniversary of his death) just before Christmas, and Francesco Corti will conduct the Liceu premiere of La Merope by Terradellas, the Catalan Handel.
Among the recitals, it is worth mentioning the presence of Lise Davidsen alongside Matthias Goerne. The Wagnerian soprano will gift the Liceu audience with her first Liebestod. The duo Sondra Radvanovsky-Piotr Beczala will return to close out the Puccini year, while Ermonela Jaho will make her solo debut at the Rambla theater and will also be heard in an intimate recital by Elina Garanca. The theater will feature a lyrical gala bringing together Marina Rebeka, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Martin Muehle, and Ludovic Tézier, a quartet of stars to review the Verdi and verismo catalog.
