2,300 lucky plants got front row seats to the opera house’s reopening night and we’re green with envy.
On Monday, June 22, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu starred in what is perhaps one of the most peculiar and striking moments of Spain’s reopening. The opera house reopened its doors to the public with a concert for a rather peculiar group of spectators that seemed to have had no problem adhering to the rules of social distancing.
Looking to strengthen bonds between humans and nature, the theatre placed 2,300 plant brought in from local nurseries on the Liceu’s comfortable seats to act as public for the night. The plants enjoyed the Liceu’s “Concert for the Biocene” featuring the string quartet UceLi Quartet, who performed Puccini’s Crisantemi, a piece which must have certainly hit close to home for the audience members.
“By being close to the plants, the soil and the rest of beings I feel much closer to other people than before,” says Víctor García de Gomar, Liceu’s creative director, about this original initiative.
The concert came a day after Spain ended its three-month-long state of alarm caused by the coronavirus pandemic, making it the first performance at the Liceu since March this year. The country has been slowly making its way to the “new normal” and is expected to open its doors to tourists starting next month. Unfortunately for us, the U.S. won’t be one of the countries invited for traveling, and we’ll have to wait a little bit longer until we can travel over to the beautiful country. In the meantime, we can still enjoy the Liceu’s unbeleafable concert!
Organizers wanted to honor the heroic display of Spanish health workers and will also be donating all 2,300 plants to a select number of frontline workers with a certificate from the artist, in recognition for having served on “the toughest front in a battle unprecedented for our generations.”
See also: “Parc De La Distance” Is An All-New Park Concept That Encourages Social Distancing
[Featured image courtesy of Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona]