Liceu, Barcelona

I love operas 🙂  So  when my friend told me ‘ he does not wanna go inside , but I  can go and see by myself and even handed over  his camera (omg, he supposedly love it like his baby)  I grabbed the opportunity to step inside the grand opera Liceu  -Gran taetre del Liceu, without any delay.

 

I wanted to book a ticket for the night show at 8, but all 2292 seats over all 6 levels  were booked (can you believe it 😦 ] . So I had to satisfy myself with a tour inside which is available for a ticket of 6 euro. The opera is located in Les Rembles,  with metro station at stone throw distance, bearing the same name Liceu.

  

The lady guide took us to the mirror room first,The foyer”.This is the only part saved during repeated fire the opera has gone through. It has many frescoes with round paintings of musicians, singers and dancers from that time of Pasta, Rubini, Donizetti, Bellini, Gluck, Marie Taglioni. The roof painting, with the Parnassus, is from 1877 .( Above)

 

  

Liceu did not have the privilege of being pampered by the Monarchy as happened with other European operas. Rather the private shareholders took care of it. It has suffered from fire in 1861, bombing in 1893 and again fire on 1994. So most of the auditorium had to be rebuilt.

  

After the foyer , we went to the main auditorium, and I loved it instantly. It is huge with 2,292 seats, a platea (main floor) and five balconies. It is a typical Italian horseshoe-shaped theatre, and 2nd largest opera of Europe. Another peculiarity is in the first gallery where the amfiteatre ubicare is located. This is a projecting part of this gallery, with a less pronounced horseshoe shape, that allows three ranks of seats to be located there and are considered the best in the theatre.

   

The theatre has had its own orchestra, the Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu . You can sit there for some time, and click the whole auditorium, except the main stage which is copyrighted and photography-prohibited. Ornamentation with golden and polychromed plaster moldings, lamps with brass and glass, armchairs made of strained iron and red velvet gave the theatre ” a royal look”.

  

Lastly they showed us the new foyer, containing the bar and bistro, for the guests while attending the concerts.

I would say though my experience is not comparable to a live concert , but still going inside the opera was worth it. A lady guided us throughout the tour , but as I was the only one speaking english , she sometimes skipped telling me what she was telling other tourists of the group in Spanish. So try to go with a group where more than one guests speak English.

 

 

[Originally posted 29th March, 2015, Reposted in 2nd April, 2016]

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