Philip Glass’s Akhnaten has at last reached the Gran Teatre del Liceu, in what was also its Spanish premiere. Composed in 1983 by the Baltimore-born composer, the opera centres on the figure of the pharaoh - husband of the celebrated and photogenic Nefertiti - who sought to establish monotheism in fourteenth-century BCE Egypt, only to fail in the face of fierce opposition from the priestly caste whose privileges his reforms threatened. Structured in three acts charting the...

The stage is a space where life – or its simulation – is presented in an intense, concentrated way, where emotions and feelings guide the characters and their actions. In theatre, especially in opera, and in general in all scenic arts, the aim is always to achieve something intense. Life is tepid, the stage is always hot. If one cannot achieve an extraordinary success one must at least achieve an extraordinary failure that grabs the attention. Anything but an anodyne,...