Liceu

The Liceu is one of the most important opera houses in Europe, and IES Barcelona is opening its doors to our students! Some of them will have the chance to attend operas, recitals or ballets.

Barcelona’s opera house, opened in 1847, and twice burnt down (1861 and 1994), is a building you might miss as you walk down the Ramblas. But despite its unimposing façade, inside it’s a pretty impressive place, even virtually empty on a Saturday morning. Built in a horseshoe shape that provides superb acoustics, with a 2,292-seat capacity, it is around the biggest you can possibly get for unamplified voices – even for opera singers.

The Liceu complex is currently three times bigger, at around 35,000m2, than it was before the 1994 fire. Now the high-tech scenery changing apparatus is massive, enabling different operas to be put on in the same week. The whole is now protected by a 28-ton steel fire curtain.