For an opera production, 25 years is an almost venerable age. Few manage to reach it. On the eve of the year in which the centenary of Puccini's death will be commemorated on the one hand, and on the other, the 25th anniversary of the reopening of the theatre after the fire that destroyed it in 1994, the Liceu has once again revived the production of Turandot with which it reopened in 1999 and which had already been remade in 2005 and 2009. Ezio Frigerio (deceased in 2022) designed...

The chorus sings its last phrase, the mysterious and enigmatic "Erlösung dem Erlöser" (Redemption to the redeemer) while greeting a Parsifal dressed more or less like a fascist dictator. Kundry, the Jewess, does not expire placidly after being baptized but, alarmed by what she sees and, above all, by what she foresees, she packs her bags and goes into exile, the curtain falls. The question is obvious: And now who will redeem us from Parsifal? Thus ends the Parsifal...

Christmas is coming and Liceu, like many other theatres, has decided once again to offer an attractive programme for the non-specialised audiences, who on these festive dates decide, perhaps for the only time in the season, to go for one night at the opera. On this occasion, the offer has consisted in the traditional double act integrated by Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, the famous pair of short verismo operas, which tradition has transformed into an unbreakable matrimony. In...

There was a lot to see and somehow nothing. Romeo Castellucci is the Italian director of this new and highly expected production of Tannhäuser at the Munich Nationaltheater, whose history is strongly linked with the oeuvre of Richard Wagner. Romeo Castellucci showcases strong and intense pictures in a continuous but nonetheless uneasy and unclear to follow flow of symbolic acts, and in a way absorbed in the story plot. Laureate in set design and painting in Bologna, he founded the...