February 3, 2005: Il Corsaro in Barcelona

2005-02-03 Il Corsaro (Verdi), Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona

Corrado = José Cura
Medora = Marina Mescheryakova
Gulnara = Susan Neves
Seid = Carlo Guelfi
Giovanni = Josep Ribot
Selimo / Un Eunuco Negro / Schiavo
= José Manuel Zapata

Marco Guidarini, conductor






First I took the night bus to Oslo as usual. Luckily my bus was not affected by the bad weather, real snowy conditions that had closed som montain roads. So I came in Oslo in good time for my flight. And then I was in Barcelona after almost 3 hours on the plane. All one had to look forward to was untasty plane food. So bad
that only the cola light and Pringles tasted good. At last, Barcelona airport and my first encounter with the Catalan way of queuing. Very polite and nice queu for taxi. And there were many taxis and many people, and it was quick and polite. So then I was at my hotel. Nice hotel but my room was very cold. Then I went to Placa
Catalunya to get used to going to the centre and to have some nice food (and get my tickets). Then soon it was time to get to the Liceu for a concert version of Verdi´s Corsaro.

The orchestra was onstage. It was chairs and note-stative for the singers. I was on front row. It was a wonderful sung and "acted" Corsaro, Medora was wonderful, Gulnara even more wonderful, & Corrado, the Corsair, Jose Cura was splendid. After a long wait Jose Cura came out at the stage door. He was photographed, and after signing and talking to his fans, at proximo midnight it was truely
over.

Today, Friday 4th, I have been suffering headaches, after my first try out, I had to stop before I came to Placa Catalunya, I stopped at Provinca and sat down at a small cafe, unfortunately It was heavily music'ed. So I had to get to Muntaner and my hotel. After more tablets and eating, and laying in my bed. I was ready to go out again. Placa Catalunya and down la Ramblas to Liceu and down to the harbour (almost) and the up again. At Placa Catalunya I visited Fnac, at Liceu I visited the Shop and then Placido Domingo came, he is singing Parsifal day, and I got one good photo of him, when I came up from the harbour, I was hijacked into a restaurant, ate great ensalada and had a bite of pollo, then back to Muntaner, and
my hotel.

OD Travel + Photos