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 stake for allegedly bewitching him, and the charred body of a...

It tends to be the case, at least at Liceu, that in premiere nights musically the performances start off being a little wobbly and, sometimes, with luck they end well. Norma, the last opera for this season, wasn’t an exception. At the beginning there were many issues in all musical areas, but it ended reasonably well. The problem lies in the fact that in Norma the best musical numbers, the shiny ones, are located at the start of the piece and we couldn’t enjoy them...

Jules Massenet is one of the great representative of the French Grande Opera. He has left a remarkable heritage of operas but only few have made it continously into the calendar of the opera theaters. Thaïs premiered in 1894 as one of the rarely staged masterpieces which makes it from time to time into concert halls in concert version. The composition was originally arranged for the Opera comique in Paris but was first shown in the Opera Garnier, where it had been performed the most...