La sonnambula at Barcelona Opera House Gran Teatre Del Liceu

If there is one title that occupies a unique place in Barcelona's nearly two centuries of operatic history, it is unquestionably Bellini's La sonnambula. Its Barcelona premiere, at the Teatre de la Santa Creu, went down in history as veritable apotheosis, an unqualified success, which was repeated when it came to the Gran Teatre del Liceu. An opera season without this masterpiece of bel canto was virtually unthinkable. Its unwittingly Freudian fascination with the loss of consciousness and its implicit fondness for the dreamlike create a truly Romantic ecstasy comparable to the ballets blancs then fashionable in imperial courts: Amina's emotional fragility is on a par with Giselle's. Marco Arturo Marelli's production is perfectly in tune with the notion of semi-serious opera, striking a delicate balance between humour and Romantic pathos.