Liceu, 1

We've walked past Barncelona's grand opera, The Liceu, dozens of times on La Rambla, always peeking in, looking at what's playing, even visiting the excellent shoppe, but never doing the tour. It's just another 19th century bourgeois monstrosity, indeed modeled on La Scala. I've seen the great ones, and then some. Vicki often has encouraged me to attend a performance, but, in general, I don't care that much for live performances (other people, actually...coughing, snorting, sneezing, clearing their nasal and other passages, talking, crinkling their candy wrappers, snoring, gathering their things to be in the aisle, on the way to the street, even before the music has ended). For the price of a decent seat, moreover, I could own every video of whatever opera was being performed. No thanks. But then we read that the adjunct rooms of The Liceu were done in Modernista, and that one in particular had stained glass depicting the Rhinemaidens. That got my interest--alas the Rhinemaidens are in a section that really is private and off limits--but, on our last day in Barcelona, exercising our wonderful jubilado privileges, we did the tour. It was great!

Foyer

Helpful model #13,449; actually, it shows pretty well how The
Liceu can have as many as four operas in the works...design,
construction, rehearsal, production, post-production...it's the
enormous 10-story back stage

Grand staircase

Inside, seven tiers of seats; no royal box; largest in Europe, in
terms of # of seats; only one with no royal box (the bourgeois
subscribers didn't like the royalty); indeed, looks pretty much
like La Scala, only bigger

Ceiling

Alas, no fotos of the stage...

Dragon chandelier thing

All works are performed in the original language, so all seats
have little monitors that translate (like La Scala, some years
back); the excellent guide noted that in the 19th century the
house lights were left on during performances (he failed to note
which composer changed this); something about ladies'
modesty, reputations, etc. And in English, too

Now we are in the grand hall outside the main hall; for mingling
during intermissions; also for weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs;
as Wagner said, the opera of his day, until he changed it, was
"merely an excuse for social gathering," "meretricious glitter,"
...yes, I do these lines whenever I'm in such a house

Very grand hall

Ceiling

Up closer

The room adorned with pix of the greatest stars of the 19th
century opera scene...here, Wagner's arch-rival, Meyerbeer; I
wonder whether there are a thousand people now who know
anything of Meyerbeer; Sic transit, Gloria

At the top of the staircase, the one Modernista
adornment in the house, proper

Now we are in the side rooms, the Club

Where the Modernistas ran gloriously amuck

All in the details, and all the details coordinated

In an anteroom, the first of a dozen paintings
by Ramon Casas; quite a new and different
pose for the late 19th

To be continued

Barcelona Food Scenes

Probably not what you're expecting...

The newly-renovated Santa Caterina market

Spiffed-up almost as much as Bilbao's, quite a different feel
from the Boqueria

The shop of greatest interest was this...four long counters of

Mostly unpackaged frozen foods of all sorts

Very wide selection

Reminiscent of France's Picard chain, only bigger, more variety,
mostly unpackaged

Did I mention unpackaged?

We were intrigued, then impressed, having done Picard several
years ago in Paris (we'll always have Paris)

Thus, Santa Caterina's

Next, the Jamon Experience, on La Rambla...we were
suspicious...it looks super-touristy; it is, but it gives you a
decent introduction to the Spanish jamon thing, plus a
quite decent tasting, and a glass of wine; all for not very
much money, especially if you're a jubilado

Tasting

In media res

Like Bordeaux, Spain has four regions of the really good stuff,
Iberico de Bellota (the pigs eat a lot of acorns); no, the jamons
are not color-coded; not exactly

Slicing some Iberico de Belotta Extremadura for Vicki;
interestingly, the tour/museum part quietly omitted the part
about the abattoir, the squealing, etc., jumping inexplicably
from happy, healthy, fat pigs roaming the forests...to jamons

Interesting name for a Modernista-looking place

Business opportunity, on the edge of the touristy zone

Needs work, some Modernista flair...

Headed now for Carrer de Blai ("Tapas Street")

Interesting buildings now many blocks from La Rambla and
the port

Block after block of traditional tapas joints, crowded, little
English spoken, great food and drink, little money...

It's been discovered

We detoured back by the London Bar, a famous
Modernista...but it looks like maybe it's closed
for good...sad...just a block down from the
Palau Guell