Overview

The Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona's most important theatre was built in an eclectic style by J.O. Mestres and M. Garriga i Rocato to house the city's Operatic Society. Regular opera seasons began here in 1847 and the venue soon overshadowed its main rival, the Teatro Principal. It became a potent symbol of the power and wealth of Catalunya's 19th-century middle-classes, the same people who commissioned all the city's impressive modernist buildings towards the end of that century. There was a devastating fire in the theatre during 1861, an anarchist bomb-attack in 1893, and then it was completely burned down in 1994. The new building stages an exciting programme of operas, concerts and ballets by the world's best performing companies and houses its own symphony orchestra and choir that perform all year round.