Salvador Alemany: "The Liceu generates good vibes in politics"

BarcelonaSalvador Alemany (Barcelona, 1944) concludes a ten-year period as president of the Board of Trustees of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The relay will be taken up by Helena Guardans, once she is ratified by the board on Friday. It will be the same day as the inauguration of the 2026-2027 season with the opera Aida, and with the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko as the star.

What things has he discovered at the Liceu in these ten years?

— Well, look: everything. Everything, because I entered as quite a novice in the field. I did have the perception that the reality of the Liceu was complex, because there is the public, the administrations, the patronage... There are many variables that you have to have very well identified to manage it well. And I already knew that would be a bit complicated. But when I arrived there, I saw that the people of the Liceu love the Liceu. That is to say, if I was calm about anything, it was because they were not as aggressive as in other business environments.

Did you have to dedicate more hours than you thought?

— Well, I am quite a structuralist. I mean, I respect structures. Therefore, my fundamental dedication has been to the top of the organizational chart. Sometimes I have gone down to the arena, as they say in bullfighting, to meetings I did not have to attend, but above all, I have moved at the top. We created a strategic-artistic committee, but I have not gotten involved in artistic matters. If there was something I did not quite like, it did not seem to me that I was the unit of measurement either. I was more interested in seeing what our recurring audience thought, what the president of Friends of the Liceu said, and then, perhaps after listening to the artistic director and the general manager, I would say: "I don't think we can abuse this because we will be scraping by a bit at the edges." But I have never thought that we shouldn't take risks. The Liceu must take into account its history and what has worked historically here and everywhere else, but it must also innovate, it must take risks, in short.

At the end of the day, controversy and risk are natural in opera. And here we have had some controversial examples, such as the one by Katharina Wagner turning the story of Lohengrin, or Rafael R. Villalobos grafting Pasolini onto Tosca.

— Productions that have also had defenders who risked it, in a certain way, because I know what the sentiment of the classics was. And, on the other hand, there were people who wrote and spoke out, saying that this must happen, that it must be done, that we cannot remain anchored... Experimenting also educates.

Moving on to management. The Liceu's budget has gone from 46.4 million euros in the 2016-2017 season to 56.5 million in 2025-2026, with public funding always accounting for around 50%. And a financial debt of 20 million has also been cancelled.

— Some things are clearly less expensive now, and others are more expensive. When we say that we are the Liceu of Great Voices it is because we believe it, but the price difference between a prima donna and a good soprano is very high. It depends on how you manage it that you can get more or less profit from it. But now I ask you: in the world of cultural media is Anna Netrebko important, are Jonas Kaufmann and Lise Davidsen important? Is it demanding that the super prima donnas have to come to the Liceu?

It must be both demanding and sustainable. A specific expense cannot condition the level of the rest of the season.

— It is evident that it is much more expensive, and that it puts more strain on the economy. We have an agreement according to which the Liceu will always contribute one euro more than the public administrations. Before it was not like that, but now we have this 50% commitment, and it has strengthened us. Before we lived with the precarious discourse that we had a recurring deficit, and we have gone from managing precariousness to looking to the future with excitement and being sure of what we do. This has allowed us to go from 46 to 56 million, and we are providing a better cultural offer. The Liceu must continue to grow. And when it has the dream of the Liceu Mar, it is to have an intellectual, sentimental and even patriotic growth, to do everything we can for the country and for culture.

Regarding Liceu Mar, what economic impact could it have on the Gran Teatre del Liceu?

— Liceu Mar cannot count on money from La Rambla. To begin with, Liceu Mar must be a facility of the consortium. Why? Because the buildings belong to the consortium. But Liceu Mar must have the same balance rules that the Liceu on La Rambla has, and theoretically, it will achieve that. But not by having a hose that goes from La Rambla to the port. The management principle must be that. Does it mean it will have a management team independent of the management team of La Rambla? I do not know how to answer that. But it will have to have a manager who is not dependent on the meetings at La Rambla. Obviously, Liceu Mar will have to fend for itself to find its own sources of income. If companies then donate there and subtract from here, well, we will have to ensure that this does not happen. We do not want it to be like that. And I hope it will not be like that. Liceu Mar must have an independent budget and independent work.

Patronage is one of the things that concerned him in 2016, because it barely reached 6 million euros, less than ten years earlier. Now, after the pandemic and the crises derived from the wars in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf, it is 9.2 million.

— Patronage is going very well. Although these are not very monstrous figures, we are growing in benefactors, both qualitatively and quantitatively. And corporate patronage will follow the economic curve. When times are tough, and I have also seen this as president of an IBEX company, contributions are adjusted. In any case, we are growing.

Has the reform of the Spanish patronage law helped, or is it insufficient?

— Well, I must confess that I still find myself very confused. There is disorientation. There is something I explain, and I am not managing to explain it to you now. Why were the bourgeois of the 18th and 19th centuries so generous with culture and those of the 21st century are not? The bourgeois of the 18th and 19th centuries did not pay direct taxes. And the sentiment they had, because they were well-off, was that they had to do it. I mean, they were selling the idea themselves. The difference is that now they pay taxes.

Taxes that also serve to finance the Liceu.

— Yes, yes. There is a phrase I use when we greet a sponsor: "You have to ensure that the return is profitable, because you are not coming here to do charity". The association with us must be positive, so that they can invite people to come and be treated in a very respectful way due to their status as a sponsor. That is their return.

In these ten years at the Liceu, he has coincided with four presidents of the Generalitat from three different political parties, two mayors from two parties, two Spanish presidents from two parties, and six Ministers of Culture from three parties. And the relationship with the Liceu has always been fluid. There hasn't been any political problem, has there?

— It is a paradise, this. I have highlighted it many times. It is to the credit of the Liceu, because the Liceu generates a presumption of goodness, and people come with good will. Eh, with some exception from time to time. In general, the relationship of all of them was better with the Liceu than among themselves. Well, sometimes, the conjunction of political party also helps. When everything belonged to Convergència or when everything is socialist, it probably also makes there be a bit more generosity and good vibes. But, in reality, I believe that the Liceu generates good vibes in politics.

Even to the far right, if it were to govern?

— We don't have that. We don't have that. When there have been Partit Popular governments, we have not noticed any national punishment, to understand each other, nor have we noticed an ideological punishment with the left, which we might think that this elitism, et cetera. In reality, the Liceu has done its best to avoid it, because the idea of the Liceu for everyone has not been a slogan. And, therefore, to those who came with a sense of elitism, it seems to me that we have shown them that access to this type of culture has expanded among the lower middle classes and the people of the Raval. The Liceu has done the homework it felt it had to do, no one dictated it to us, but we thought that the future would be fairer and better if we did it that way.

There is a recurring complaint about the price of tickets, which is at the high end of ticket prices in Europe, when in reality the country is not at that same level.

— It is true. And also that, depending on which contracts you want to close and depending on which productions you want to represent, the prices cannot be lower. This area of culture is expensive.

To be fair, it must be said that the price to see an opera like Aida with the soprano Anna Netrebko (about 300 euros) is similar to what a ticket cost to see Sting, in a trio, at the Nits de Barcelona Festival.

— They have a different product, and the productions are not being performed for several days. Therefore, the setup has a cost. Well, I don't know if they make money, if they get rich or not. I suppose some do, but others don't. You can see it when they appear on TV, how happy they are. 50% of our budget comes from the administrations, and that means that that ticket is 50% subsidized. People might end up understanding that it cannot be done cheaper. The cost is the cost. And if in the end you end up subsidizing culture more, pensions, healthcare, and education will end up suffering more... The blanket is always short. If you pull it up, you uncover your feet. The price cannot be lower. If it is too expensive, then, well, we could reduce the artists' fees and we would make a different product.

As a spectator, which operas have you enjoyed the most in these ten years?

— I think that the repertoire with good artists has been more generally liked. However, a new opera like Alexina B. had a brutal resonance, it made us feel very proud. And Werther moved me, and it was not the best known. Aida, for example, yes, on one hand it has Anna Netrebko, but on the other hand it has appeal as a repertoire opera.