Demon, the opera by Anton Rubinstein with libretto by Pavel Alexandrovich Viskovatov based on the homonymous poem by Mikhail Lermontov, was premiered in 1875 and was performed often in Russia towards the end of the 19th century, but today is an opera outside the repertoire, almost a rarity. The fact that Liceu decided to participate in a co-production of the title alongside the Helikon Opera from Moscow, the Staatstheater from Nürnberg and the Opéra National de Bordeaux,...

Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore of 1853 is based on Antonio García Gutiérrez’s play El trovador. Set in fifteenth century Spain it tells of the noble lady Leonora who is in love with the troubadour Manrico, but is herself loved by the Count di Luna, a nobleman in the service of the Prince of Aragon. The Count’s younger brother Garzia supposedly died in infancy when a gypsy was burnt at the stakefor allegedly bewitching him, and the charred body of a baby was...

Turandot started its world-wide successful career from the stage of La Scala in Spring 1926, one and half year after the death of its author. The staging of Puccini’s last and unfinished masterpiece – hailed by a renowned study as “The End of the Great Tradition” of Italian opera – under Toscanini’s baton was a major event. La Scala’s choice to open its special season for Expo 2015 (running non-stop from May 1rst to October 31rst) strikes us...