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...

Don Pasquale by Donizetti. Lorenzo Regazzo, bass-baritone. Valentina Naforniţa, soprano, Juan Francisco Gatell, tenor. Marius Kwiecień, baritone. Orquestra Simfònica of Gran Teatre del Liceu. Choir of Gran Teatre del Liceu. Diego Matheuz, conductor. Laurent Pelly, stage director. Joint production of Gran Teatre del Liceu, The Santa Fe Opera and San Francisco Opera. Gran Teatre del Liceu. Barcelona, 16th June. *** Don Pasquale isn’t maybe a master piece, but...

Mozart described his Così fan tutte as a dramma giocoso. The Venetian stage director, Damiano Michieletto, who debuted at Liceu with this production created for La Fenice in 2013, is interested a lot more in the dramatic or even tragic side of it, than in the giocoso element. It starts with a distorted take on Don Alfonso’s character, who turns from a “vecchio filosofo” to a cynical, embittered alcoholic who manipulates and mistreats the characters. From...