Barcelona venue to reopen…with concert for plants

The Liceu Grand Theatre, the historic 2,292-seat concert hall on la Rambla in Barcelona, will reopen its doors next week – but not to humans.

Although venues in Spain have been allowed to hold events at a third their usual capacity since 8 June, the Liceu is taking a different tack when it holds its first post-lockdown event on Monday (22 June), eschewing an audience of homo sapiens in favour of one comprised of simpler lifeforms.

For Concierto para el Bioceno (Concert for the Biocene), which takes place at 5pm local time, all seats in the Liceu are reserved for plant life, for which the UceLi Quartet will perform Puccini’s ‘Crisantemi’ (‘Chrysanthemums’).

With “the participation of the vegetable kingdom”, the concert will see man become “a spectator of their own social chronicle”, explains Víctor García de Gomar, the Liceu’s artistic director. After the concert, the plants will be donated to 2,292 healthcare staff.

While no humans (other than the orchestra) will be physically present, those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be members of the vegetable kingdom will be able to watch the performance live on YouTube.

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