This year its 21/22 season invites us to seek the ideal for a sound, visual and aesthetic universe. Paradise will be the “leimotiv” that combines artistic programming, with the aim of delving into the human condition and its concerns.

The titles include a series of characters who want a better destiny in their own paradise: from Ariadna (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Pelléas and Mélisande who seek true love, through Wozzeck who finds serenity with Marie, to Rigoletto, who defines his Eden with her daughter Gilda. Also the ideal of a world without wars, embodied in Britten’s or Norma’s War Requiem, which finds its heaven in Pollione’s faith and love. In the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy, the game of seduction and pain ends up leading to the investigation of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Check the full press release below

---

THE SEASON OF THE 175TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LICEU DISCOVER PARADISE, THE BEGINNING OF A CELEBRATION WITH UNIQUE MOMENTS TO GO INTO HISTORY

The beginning of this great event consolidates the change of cycle that began with the 20th anniversary, which highlights “La Fuerza del Liceu”

 

The paradise will be the leimotiv that backbones the artistic programming of the season 21/22 of the Liceu, which aims to deepen on the human condition and its concerns. The titles include a series of characters who wish for a better destiny in their own paradise

 

Great singers, musical and stage directors will take the Liceu in the 175 years of its history: Anna Netrebko, Gustavo Dudamel, Javier Camarena, Piotr Beczała, Marc Minkovski, Matthias Goerne, Sondra Radvanovsky, Simon Rattle, Katie Mitchell, Àlex Ollé, Josep Pons , Sonya Yoncheva, Marina Rebeka, Varduhi Arbahamyan, Xavier Sabata, Olga Peretyatko, Mark Padmore, Christopher Maltman, Julie Fuchs and many more …

 

 

Also the presence of great voices that debut in main roles: Sara Blanch (Zerbinetta), Marta Mathéu (Norma), Núria Rial (Pamina), Elena Sancho Pereg (Zerbinetta), Airam Hernández (Pollione) and Xavier Sabata (Pierrot Lunaire)

 

The 175th anniversary will be the context and the reason to experience unique moments during the season. Anna Netrebko returns with an unprecedented concert designed to celebrate the anniversary, where she will star in three full acts of the operas Macbeth, La bohème and Turandot

 

Another distinctive project of the season of 175 is the twinning with the Opéra de Paris and the exchange of Orchestras. Gustavo Dudamel will conduct the Orquesta de l’Opéra de Paris with Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastic at the Liceu, while Josep Pons with the formations at the Teatre, in Paris, will offer Bartok’s Bluebeard Castle with Sir Bryn Terfel.

 

Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos will open the season with a new Liceu corporation with a luxury cast: Iréne Theorin, Nikolai Schukoff, Samantha Hankey, Elena Sancho Pereg, Sara Blanch and Benjamin Appl, among others, under the scenic vision of Katie Mitchell

 

Josep Pons, titular musical director of the Teatre, will take the lead at the beginning of the season with Ariadne auf Naxos, and also with War Requiem, Wozzeck and Pelléas et Melisande, four of the season’s highlights

 

War Requiem and Wozzeck are two of the great productions with the participation of the Arts on stage through the photographer William Tillmans and the visual artist William Kentridge, respectively. The Liceu de las Artes takes shape

 

Another exceptional event will be the staged representation of the Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, directed musically by Marc Minkowski: Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte will alternate with the stage direction of Ivan Alexandre.

 

Dudamel will perform for the second time during the season to debut the score of The Magic Flute by Mozart with the production of Simon McBurney with Javier Camarena, Núria Rial, Matthias Goerne, among others, on stage

 

Two major productions of the Liceu are back, Rigoletto by Verdi with the vision of Monique Wagemakers and The Queen of Spades by Txaikovski by Gilberto Deflo

 

The resident artist, Àlex Ollé, will direct two productions of the new season, Pelléas et Mélisande and Norma, and will be in charge of the stage monitoring of the new micro-operas project with young composers and students from design schools: (Oh!) pear

 

René Jacobs will make his debut at the Liceu with Orpheus (v.c.) by Telemann, a work that can be heard for the first time at the Teatre, and with which a three-year project with the director begins around the myth of Orpheus.

 

It premieres at the Liceu Partenope (v.c) in Händel with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, a project with young singers, winners of the 2021 of Le Jardin du Voix

 

Great voices also for the concerts and recitals of the 175: Piotr Beczała, Javier Camarena, Sonya Yoncheva and Magdalena Kožená with Simon Rattle

 

The Liceu bets on dance with 4 great shows: the English National Ballet is rescheduled with Giselle d’Akram Khan and Maria Pagés arrives with her revision De Scheherazade a Yo, Carmen. In addition, The Nutcracker with the Toulouse Ballet and Winterreise with the contemporary ballet Preljocaj

 

The Foyer is set up as a space to also host small-format dance shows where you can see The Night of San Juan by Robert Gerhard with Antonio Ruz, co-produced with the Juan March Foundation

 

On a symphonic level, the maestro Pons will conduct Myth and Tragedy of Oedipus and Electra with Straussky’s Suite of Elektra and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, and The Other Pelléas, a concert in the context of Debussy’s opera with compositions by Fauré, Sibelius and Schönberg

 

After its cancellation due to the pandemic, Jordi Savall arrives with Beethoven’s 8th and 9th symphony with Le Concert des Nations and La Capella Nacional de Catalunya

 

The Liceu starts a project with Rinaldo Alessandrini and his Italian Concerto, which will show the entirety of the Monteverdi Madrigals in the Foyer

 

Cambra music is consolidated with three concerts with formations from the Liceu Orchestra with guest artists: Christian Lindberg, Daniel Espasa, Lina Tur Bonet and the Quartet Mosaïques

 

The season will feature six guest voices: William Kentridge (visual artist), Antonio López (painter and sculptor), Anne Carson (poet and writer), Ramon Andrés (essayist and thinker), Jordi Bernadó (photographer) and Cristina de Middel (photographer)

 

This year it will be the painter, sculptor and engraver Antonio López who will present his first stage proposal where he will discuss his work with Winterreise de Schubert at La Modelo

 

The renowned photographer Manuel Outumuro has been in charge of producing the photos of each opera, many of them featuring the singers of the productions themselves.

 

The Petit Liceu presents three new productions: La cuina by Rossini, a proposal to immerse yourself in the composer’s music; Trencanous-Jazz, puppets and jazz to explain a classic; and Miralls, a sensory experience for the little ones

 

After the great success, La Barcarola and the participatory opera El monstre al laberint return, two recent proposals that renew the educational project of the LiceuAprèn

 

The new season 21/22 has a total of 46 shows with 232 functions, an increase in titles and functions compared to previous seasons. As a novelty, the functions will start regularly at 7:00 p.m.