Things are getting back to normal in Spain, where the opera has returned to theatres in Barcelona in front of packed live audiences. Well, kinda. The whole crowd at the first gig in the city’s beautiful Gran Teatre del Liceu since mid-march were definitely alive, but they were all indoor plants. Honestly, the pictures from the show this week are gorgeous, I’m about it.
Donated by local nurseries in Barcelona, a whopping 2292 plants filled out all of the seats inside the theatre for the “Concierto para el bioceno” (Concert for Biocene), which saw a string quartet of humans take to the stage and serenade the greenery with Puccini‘s ‘Crisantemi’. The performance was streamed online, and it’s actually really lovely and calming to watch.
There’s literally a whole floor of stalls and five levels of circle seating at the Gran Teatre del Liceu so just think about how good the air quality must have been in there that day.
The performance in Barcelona for plants was as true to form as it should be, with an alert sounding before the show was set to begin, and a voiceover asking in Spanish and English that concertgoers switch off their mobile phones before the show began. It’s truly not the theatre unless you’re given a mildly stern warning about putting your phone on silent.
Oh and at the end of the performance, the plants are rustled so they somehow look and sound like they’re applauding, which is some real David Lynch weird shit if you ask me.
The audience of plants will now be donated to frontline healthcare workers across Barcelona, in recognition of their hard work in the city over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
If I was gifted one of these plants I’d absolutely be playing classical music to it on the daily, now that it’s absorbed the works of Puccini. The bar’s been set, and it’s all symphonies and ‘Plantasia‘ from now on.
Check out the video of the Barcelona concert for plants below, it’s wonderfully blissful and utterly weird.
