The micro-operations occupy Fabra i Coats

BarcelonaThe ship is sailing with a fair wind. The Òh!pera project by Liceu and DHub reaches its fifth edition with the premiere of three new micro-operas at Fabra i Coats in the Sant Andreu neighborhood of Barcelona on July 2, 3, 4, and 5, as part of the Festival Grec program. The original idea was to ""create a new pool of creators who attract new audiences", as Àlex Ollé, artistic director of Òh!pera, stated in 2022. The purpose remains the same, and year after year, well-established composers, stage directors, and librettists have passed through. One of the three works in 2026 is Jo, núvol, by the composer Sergi Puig Serna from Badalona (who last year premiered I tot caminant em va semblar que el temps reculava in Austria), with stage direction by Lucia del Greco (who also directed the opening show of the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic) and libretto by Alicia Kopf (the publication of the novel Memòria d'Eco, on which the micro-opera is based, is still recent). Another is La vida por los cuernos, a flamenco-opera by Anna Colom from Barcelona (who participated in the tour of Rosalía's El mal querer), with staging by Alexandre Rodríguez Fons (author of Los hijos perdidos de Dios, premiered at Fundació Brossa) and libretto by Pablo Macho Otero (founder of the company La Bella Otero). And the third micro-opera of the year is Opereta, by the composer Arnau Brichs from Barcelona (who premiered Graus de presència in Paris in 2024), which features stage direction by Marc Salicrú (with experience at Liceu as a set designer and lighting designer) and libretto by Pol Guasch (who this year published Relíquia).

In the Òh!pera project, coordinated by Anna Ponces, Anna Llopart, and Ariana Fernández, students from different institutions also collaborate; this year from LaSalle-URL, Escola de la Dona, IDEP Barcelona, and UPC School/CCCB. The performances at Fabra i Coats are at 6 PM and 7:30 PM, and the ticket price is 25 euros.

As Àlex Ollé argues, micro-operas involve various artistic disciplines that "explain the multidisciplinary character of opera as a genre and its transversality with other forms of artistic expression". Those of this fifth edition also show the musical and scenic diversity of the country's new creation. Jo, núvol is a story of heartbreak marked by artificial intelligence, a supposed plot that affects both the music by Sergi Puig Serna and the staging by Lucia del Greco. Flamenco, fundamental in Anna Colom's career, is structural to La vida por los cuernos, a work that uses humor to revisit the myth of Phaedra, Theseus, and Hippolytus and which features the singer cantaor Pere Martínez in the cast. Regarding Opereta, its composer, Arnau Brichs, moves naturally between classical and modern music and has been composer-in-residence at IRCAM-Centre Pompidou. Brichs' alliance with Pol Guasch and Marc Salicrú creates a work that, as the program indicates, "turns everyday life into a matter of transcendence and brings tragedy to the fore amidst ambulances, paramedics, firefighters, and a fatal accident". In other words, elements that have surely stimulated the scenic imagination of Salicrú, responsible for the shows Interferència.

Since 2022, the Òh!pera project has produced seventeen thirty-minute works, by composers such as Ferran Cruixent, Montserrat Lladó, Marian Márquez, Marc Migó, and Carles Prat; with stage directors such as Nau Albet, Marta Gil Polo, Bàrbara Mestanza, Oriol Pla, and Berta Prieto; and with librettists such as Carlota Gurt, Pau Miró, Anna Pazos, Jordi Prat i Coll, and Martí Sales, among others. As with other initiatives that promote new creation, it is not easy for a premiere to have continuity. This time, however, a premiere from last year, Estètica i massacre, by Carles Prat (and libretto by Carlota Gurt) will be performed in a 60-minute version at the Teatre Auditori de San Lorenzo de El Escorial on July 10 (in the cycle Ópera a quemarropa), at the Perelada Festival on July 25, and at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia on September 17 and 18.