An opera does not have to apologise for not being a Shakespearean tragedy. Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi shares its protagonists and tragic ending with the English playwright’s drama, but belongs to an earlier Italian tradition that had already shaped the story of the two lovers. It is not an adaptation of Shakespeare that should be judged by its fidelity to the original, but another way of telling a story that has taken many forms. To compare the two as though...

Aida, the opera performed more often than any other at the Liceu, was chosen to open the present season. In that respect, then, there was nothing particularly new. The attraction of this opening-night Aida lay, on the one hand, in Anna Netrebko’s Liceu debut in a staged role and, on the other, in the new production, directed by the Iranian artist Shirin Neshat. This production wasoriginally created for the Salzburg Festival in 2017 and substantially revised by the director herself...

Few works are at once as light-hearted and as profound as Falstaff. Giuseppe Verdi chose to end his operatic career with a comedy when everyone was expecting another tragedy. Yet beneath the laughter lies a lucid reflection on old age, the passing of time, appearances and the human condition. The laughter in Falstaff is never superficial. Shakespeare, who created the character, had already mastered the art of blending the sublime with the grotesque, humour with melancholy, and Arrigo...

Even before the curtain rises, the overture to Le Nozze di Figaro begins, and at once the audience starts to experience a surge of happiness. There are very few pieces of music that so clearly and reliably promise to usher the spirit into a state of happiness; perhaps only the opening Allegro of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony could be compared with it. Mendelssohn, like Mozart, was one of those composers who came into the world to make it a little more habitable and...

Xabier Anduaga, who in the coming years will almost certainly emerge as a major interpreter of Werther, is not quite there yet. The young tenor from San Sebastián’s debut in the title role was the principal draw of the current run of Werther at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, where the work had not been staged for nearly a decade. The result was an undeniable success, though there remains ground to cover. Anduaga possesses what matters most for a role that ranks among the most...

Saioa Hernández has found in the character of Gioconda the role upon which she is building a significant part of her career. She was the most eagerly awaited singer in this new production of La Gioconda, which has just opened at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and this marks the sixth different staging of Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera in which the Madrid-born soprano has taken part. That is no small achievement, given that the work, though not a rarity, is performed relatively...