David McVicar’s production of Die Zauberflöte commissioned by London’s Covent Garden was premiered almost 20 years ago and it has now reached Liceu after touring the world and becoming a reference amongst the many stagings of Mozart’s Singspiel in the last decades. This wasn’t Liceu’s first choice, however, as when the season – now almost over – was first announced it featured a production form the Dutch National Opera signed by Simon...

To inspire his production of Handel’s Ariodante for the Salzburg Festival, director Christof Loy turned to a novel that shares a name with the opera’s source material (Ariosto’s Orlando furioso): Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. He makes no secret of this source, as quotes from Orlando (in Italian, for the sake of linguistic continuity) interrupt the overture and precede the third act. The concept is both consistent and effective. A mishmash of costume time periods from...

Three artists who integrated the “excess” in their art or in their lives, together with the renaissance goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, providing the character and the subject, the composer Hector Berlioz bringing the music, and Terry Gilliam, film and stage director, on the staging are the parents of the spectacular and captivating production that is taking place at Liceu and which most probably will be the big event of the season. The vigorous start with a...