The Urgell canal is injected with opera to reclaim the present, past, and future.

LleidaOpera in the veins. This is the formula designed to create culture. Not only water culture (so necessary today), but also culture about the Urgell Canal, a structure that has shaped much of the Lleida district and represents not only a historical past of superhuman efforts to bring water to dry land, but also a future that necessarily requires its modernization.

Opera in the veins is the title of a multidisciplinary show that premiered last Sunday in its largest format on the stage of La Llotja in Lleida to begin a tour that will soon pass (in a smaller format) through the theaters of Juneda (May 4), Mollerussa (June 1), Bellpuig (June 7) and Ponts (June 8), and that next 8 to the Palau de la Música Catalana (April 20, 2026).

"This show aims to make known, not only to the people of the territory, but also to all of Catalonia, that the Urgell canal project is not a thing of the past, but is a living and future project," claimed the president of the Canals de Urgell Foundation, Maribel Pedrol, at La Llotja. "We need more food and we have less and less water, we need to be much more effective and efficient in our use of it," Pedrol added. "With a cultural show of these characteristics, we believe the message can penetrate more deeply."

More than 200 people (including singers, musicians and two dancers), 75 minutes of poetic and musical spectacle and a budget of around 200,000 euros. This is the presentation letter of this joint artistic project of the Orfeó Lleidatà and the Julià Carbonell Orchestra, under the musical direction of Xavier Pagès-Corella and the production of Pol Pastor.

The stage-musical show has as its starting point an adaptation of the book Water in the Veins. Chronicle of a Universal Catalan Miracle written by Francesc Canosa, with a script by Berta Lacruz, in a multidisciplinary staging that integrates elements of dance, theater and audiovisuals and with the participation of the Lleida mezzo-soprano Marta Infante.

Tour of the villages

Starting next Sunday, with the first performance at the Teatro Foment in Juneda, a tour begins that also aims to pay tribute to the Urgell Canal region. "These are places where people have also fought for this canal," says Pedrol. Opera in the veins This also requires a reduction in the show's size, but will allow for greater authenticity. The core will be smaller, and instead of an orchestra, the musical part will be performed by a piano. "The show will gain in craftsmanship; viewers will be able to appreciate the details much more closely," explains the show's stage director, Dani Coma.

And finally, again in its most grandiose version, next year the project will be moved to the Palau de la Música Catalana. Why bring it to Barcelona? Because that's where it all began. In the 19th century, the Urgell Canal became a reality because a Barcelona bourgeoisie paid for the construction of the infrastructure. "We must make it clear that the canal is a national project; it produces for the country," argues Maribel Pedrol.

High-flying debut

The Ricard Vinyes Hall (the largest of all) of the La Llotja Theatre in Lleida, with the presence of the Minister of Agriculture, Òscar Ordeig, was packed to the rafters (a thousand spectators) with Sunday's premiere. A soundtrack by composers contemporaneous with the construction of the Urgell Canal was combined with classical operas such as those by Verdi, Puccini, Saint-Saëns and Bizet. The highlights were the fragment of Song of Love and War and the premiere of an arrangement for heart and orchestra of the Joys to the Virgin of the Remedy.

With enlivening by dancers Santi Serratosa and Jana Garcia and narrator Begonya Ferrer and an audiovisual production by the production company Kionalia, the premiere marked the starting gun, according to the organizers, "of an opportunity to use art and culture as a vehicle and a platform to learn about what we've come to expect, to value the future as an innovative territory, capable of facing major global challenges."