Gran Teatre del Liceu: Rising from the Ashes

Abstract

On October 7, 1999 the Gran Teatre del Liceu’s new home was inaugurated by the King of Spain. Puccini’s Turandot, which had been on the program when the 1994 fire erupted, was the opera selected for the grand reopening of one of Europe’s most prestigious opera houses

On the occult front, it turned out that the Liceu had been built in 1847 on the site of a convent torn down in 1832. Mother Rafols, a nun, responded rather uncharitably by predicting that the opera house would be struck first by fire, then by a bomb and finally by a collapse.

The fire arrived in 1861, burning out the interior in exactly the same way as this year’s fire; etchings from 1861 and photographs from 1994 look eerily alike. The theater in those simpler days was rebuilt within a year, but in 1893 a terrorist bomb killed 14 people. Now the roof has collapsed, although it also collapsed in 1861. Actually, the entire theater didn’t collapse at either time, and that, along with a pre-fire modernization plan, is Barcelona’s biggest advantage when it comes to a prompt rebuilding of this city landmark.

New York Times, May 31, 1994

If the destruction of the Gran Teatre del Liceu by fire on the morning of Jan. 31, 1994, was a nightmare, the reopening of the legendary opera house was like awakening to find that nothing has changed. The red-and-gold auditorium looked much as it did when the Liceu was inaugurated in 1847 and when it was rebuilt after the last fire in 1861.

New York Times, October 12, 1999