The use of a narrative, discursive or argumentative strategy based upon making animals speak is almost as ancient as culture itself. From Aesop to Disney, passing through La Fontaine and Orwell, the device of granting human language to animals has been employed in various ways and for various purposes, yet almost always with an educational aim - education meant in its broadest sense. In one way or another, we are all children of Disney. How many childhood tears, crucial to our emotional...

Fairy tales and witches are often – sugar-coated in disguise – terrible narratives full of anguish, loneliness, and fear. Beneath the barely concealed veneer of culture, they pulse with our “dark sides”, our most disorderly desires, alien to any moral framework. This is why it is so educational and necessary to tell these stories to our children from an early age, so they can name and shape their fears to grow up healthy. We must give a name and face to our fears...

In the program booklet, Calixto Bieito stated regarding his work as stage director of Giulio Cesare in Egitto at the Liceu that “the best lie is the truth,” referring to the fact that he does not judge but merely presents the grotesque absurdities of the real world with clarity, and does so through opera—if anyone is to learn something from it, let them do so. Applied to Giulio Cesare, this means presenting the characters as an extravagant tribe of super-millionaires...

The success that Nadine Sierra achieved last January with La Traviata was already enormous, but what she has achieved now with La Sonnambula is even greater and consecrates her as the new undisputed queen of the Liceu. Sierra has it all: her voice is beautiful, warm and lyrical in the centre, brilliant and sharp at the top, her breath control is exceptional, and her projection is optimal. She has an easy stratospheric treble, regulates the dynamics exquisitely in any area of the...

Thomas Mann, in one of the most famous cases of audio-visual synaesthesia, stated in a letter to visual artist Emil Pretorius that Lohengrin’s sound is ‘silvery blue’. It may be so. Josep Pons, the great triumph of the premiere night achieved Lohengrin’s beautiful silvery blue sound. Pons, the principal conductor at Liceu’s Orchestra since 2012, achieved with this Lohengrin one of the best performances of the orchestra in the last few seasons. The ensemble...

Legend has it (and se non è vero è ben trovato) that there is not a single day of the year when La Traviata is not performed somewhere or other on the planet. It may be an exaggeration, but it is true that this masterpiece is also extremely popular. This makes it especially dangerous for several reasons: on one hand, all the great sopranos have tackled the role and the history of excellent performances of this title is endless, La Traviata has its own collection of...