The Liceu begins a new journey in which a newly created community opera will be presented every three years. A challenge of collaborative work and expansion of the Liceu community.
During the autumn of 2018, the institution underwent a process of defining what was later called OPERA PRIMA, a community operatic production line of the Gran Teatre del Liceu with the revision of the institution’s ideology, contrasting with the Departments, workers and workers and with already existing international projects.
Opera Prima begins with an opera about and with the residents of the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona, being intimately marked by the people and groups involved, by the socio-political and educational context and the characteristic cultural diversity of the neighborhood.
Neighbors and entities are involved in the sung and musical interpretation of “La gata perduda” with 11 neighborhood choirs and students from the Liceu Superior Conservatory of Music.
Seeking to diversify the languages, commitments and accessibility of participation, Liceu-artists-neighbors collaboration spaces are also activated in the technical areas: interviews in the script writing process; image creation (Escola Massana and Sinia Occupational Center); costume making (Top Manta and Dona Kolors) and faces printed on the costume; scenographic elements (Escola Massana, Impulsem, Street Art Barcelona); plot summary in easy reading (IES Miquel Tarradell, Easy Reading As.).
OPERA PRIMA I-Raval is part of the European project TRACTION together with projects in Ireland and Portugal. Through this collaborative R&D project, it will be investigated how new technologies can contribute to accessibility to European cultural heritage.
TRACTION -Opera co-creation for a social transform-, is a project born from the understanding between different European partners grouped in a consortium with the mission of bringing opera closer, through technological innovation, to people who, due to a context vulnerable, sirens have the possibilities of accessing this European cultural heritage. With this common objective and under the leadership of the Basque foundation Center for Visual Interaction and Communications Technologies Vicomtech (VICOM), the Liceu and eight partners from five European countries have set to work to make this headquarters a reality: Dublin City University (DCU), François Matarasso, Vicomtech Visual Interaction and Communications Technology Center Foundation (VICOM), Irish Opera Transformations clg (INO), Sociedade Artística Musical dos Pousos (SAMP), Stichting Nederlandse Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Institten (CWI), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Virtual Reality Ireland Media Ltd (VRI)
For more information, you can request the OP monthly information bulletin at
Photos “La gata perduda” A. Bofill // Costumes Montse Amenós // Set design Adrià Pinar.