Taste Bayreuth on La Rambla in 2012

3 operas from the Festival in Bayreuth will travel to Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona to open their 2012-2013 season, namely from September 1 to 6th 2012.

Lohengrin [Sept. 1 & 4] and The Flying Dutchman [Sept. 2 & 5] will be conducted by Sebastian Weigle, while maestro Peter Schneider will be in charge of Tristan und Isolde [Sept. 6]. All opera will be given in concert (thanks to Mei for this precision).
Note that The Flying Dutchman will be premiered in Bayreuth in July 2012, in a new production directed by Sebastian Nübling.

For the Liceu subscribers the ticket sales will begin on May 30  2011, and on September 19  2011, for us - ordinary folks.

Props are due to the Liceu artistic director, Mr. Joan Matabosch.

This article also states that the trip to Barcelona will be the third time the Bayreuth Festival travels outside Germany: 1st time it was to Liceu in 1955, and 2nd to Osaka-Expo in 1970.

Carmen in Barcelona

Carmen, Gran Teatre del Liceu - Barcelona, September 30 2010

Director ..... Calixto Bieito

Conductor ..... Marc Piollet

Carmen ..... Jossie Pérez

Don José ..... Brandon Jovanovich

Micaela ..... Maria Bayo

Escamillo ..... Jean-François Lapointe

Frasquita ..... Eliana Bayón

Mercédès ..... Itxaro Mentxaka

Le Dancaire ..... Marc Canturri

Le Remendado ..... Francisco Vas

Moralès ..... Alex Sanmarti

Zuñiga ..... Josep Ribot

Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu

Werther, I Capuleti, Gergiev, Tristan - for your eyes only...

The live broadcast of Werther from the Paris Opera last night was OK, although I must say that you lose quite a bit of atmosphere and musical quality wrt what you experience in the theater. If you missed it last night, you can still see it on Arte Live Web, where the video recording will be available for 60 days, and it's free.
On the same site you can also find the video of the last week concert of Prazák --a brilliant Czech string quartet-- recorded in Cité de la Musique.

3 more infos...

Liceu teaser for 2010-2011

I very much like the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona [in spite of the famously bad wine served there ;)]. Their clever PR staff made a teaser-announcement of their season 2010-2011 and it looks great.

Sept: Iphigénie en Tauride - Pina Bausch production
Sept/Oct: Carmen
Nov: Lulu
Dec: Falstaff
Jan/Feb: Anna Bolena
Feb/Mar: Parsifal
Apr: Cav Pag
Apr: El retablo de Maese Pedro (de Falla)
May: Der Freischütz
Jun/Jul: Ariane et Barbe-Bleu 

[Eva-Maria Westbroek will sing Dukas' Ariane - I'm already drooling ;)]  

+ 3 operas in concert version: Cosi fan tutte,Tamerlano, and Daphne

There're of course no details on the directors, conductors or casts; they only posted a promotional video on their YT channel which gives you some hints





And NOW when the detailed  program of the season 2010-2011 @ Liceu is available, all we can say WOWZA!

What's on in Europa-Europa?

Apart from the sensational and jaw-dropping production of The Fairy Queen, as well as that excellent Norma, both premiered in Paris this month, the major European operatic event in January 2010 is undoubtedly the new production of Rienzi which was premiered last night at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. The German newspapers are already loaded with comments and critiques, reactions and simple articles about this apparently opulent and highly polarizing show. It's cut in half to last only 150 mins, in which Philipp Stolzl squeezed the elaborated parallel between Rienzi and Hitler --with all what this may entail-- pushing the boundaries far enough to spur some strong emotions, both positive and negative ones. Apparently during the show, as the new scenes unveiled, a good fraction of the audience openly booed, only to end the show with an unanimous outburst of applauses. That's what you get in Opera houses in Germany. :)

Pic lifted from the DOB web-site