Aida - Gran Teatre del Liceu (2026/27) - Aida - Gran Teatre del Liceu (2026/27), Shirin Neshat

Description

A co-production by the Salzburg Festival, the Paris National Opera, and the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu revives Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida in a production that unfolds as a profound meditation on the conflict between love and duty, and between the splendor of power and the intimate fragility of the human spirit. Originally created for the Salzburg Festival, and presented here as a co-production with the Paris National Opera and the Liceu, this production bears the signature of Shirin Neshat; her staging eschews mere monumentality in favor of a symbolic, almost ritualistic power.

In this interpretation, Verdi’s Egypt ceases to be a backdrop of static grandeur and becomes a space resonating with contemporary echoes. Neshat seeks to bring themes of our time to the fore (identity, exile, oppression, and the precariousness of power) transforming the drama into a political and poetic mirror. Beauty here is never merely decorative; it engages in a dialogue with violence, historical tension, and the dizzying complexities of belonging. The production thus takes on the air of a ceremony of signs, where every image seems to question the human cost of passions and empires.

To open the season, the Liceu has assembled an exceptional cast, featuring Anna Netrebko and Anna Pirozzi alternating in the title role, alongside Piotr Beczała and Arsen Soghomonyan as Radamès (replacing the originally announced Yusif Eyvazov). Surrounding them, Verdi’s expansive and impassioned score unfolds over nearly three and a half hours, punctuated by soaring lyrical passages, moments of suspension, inner conflicts, and tragic silences.

Thanks in particular to its cast, this Aida promises to be a major operatic event. The production also promises to be an experience that blends theatre and intellectual inquiry, where Verdi’s music meets Shirin Neshat’s visual world to create a deeply resonant work, one that speaks to the enduring nature of human passions and the urgent relevance of the rifts dividing our world.

Further information is available on the Opera’s official website.

free translation of our article originally published in French