The heir to the Spanish throne, Prince Felipe, and his wife Leticia were booed by the audience at the Liceu in Barcelona last night as they sat down to watch Rolando Villazon in L'elisir d'amore. Cries of "foteu el camp" (eff off, in Catalan) were also heard.
Of course most opera audiences reserve their boos for the end of the show, but following a series of royal scandals and PR disasters, this sort of protest has become increasingly common in Spain.
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Facing a 7 million euro cut in its budget, the Liceu has been forced to shorten its 2013-14 season, which will now begin in November instead of September. Just eight operas will be presented, and two of these are one-acters.
Where it has not stinted is in vocal quality. Juan Diego Florez, Diana Damrau and Joyce DiDonato are just some of the big names recruited, and recitals are scheduled from Philippe Jaroussky, Edita Gruberova, Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme, Angela Gheorghiu and Anja Harteros (bona sort on the last two, chaps).
Some of the productions will be familiar to London operagoers. David McVicar's ENO Agrippina features Danielle De Niese, Sarah Connolly and David Daniels. Laurent Pelly's ROH Cendrillon comes complete with the Covent Garden casting of Joyce DiDonato, Alice Coote and Ewa Podles, but the ROH Marelli La Sonnambula should be improved by the addition of Juan Diego Florez and Diana Damrau. Dmitri Tcherniakov's The Invisible City of Kitezh, much admired on its Amsterdam debut, and a double bill consisting of Il Prigioniero and Suor Angelica complete the list of productions new to Barcelona.
That leaves room for only two revivals: Tosca and the Carsen Die Walküre (with Irene Theorin, Anja Kampe and Klaus Florian Vogt).
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The Liceu is this week hosting a rare series of tour dates from the Bayreuth Festival, on its first visit to Barcelona since 1955.
El holandés errante, Lohengrin and Tristán e Isolda (as they're known locally) are being presented in concert version, featuring broadly the same personnel as they did in Bayreuth last month. The most notable exception is that the former Liceu music director Sebastian Weigle replaces Christian Thielemann and Andris Nelsons in the pit.
Despite massive public funding cuts this season, the Liceu will finance the venture without digging into its precious subsidies. Instead the 1.5m euro cost is expected to be covered by a mixture of box office income and private backing. 92% should come from the sale of around 11,000 tickets at higher-than-usual prices of 28 to 282 euros per seat. Sponsorship from Siemens, Agbar and Banesto should take care of the balance.
Early reports like this one from local blog In fernem land suggest the Barcelona audience think it was worth the 57 year wait.
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The combination of a 15% cut in its public subsidy for 2012, a similar cut in 2011 and a drop in ticket sales are expected to create a shortfall that management estimate at 10 million euros.
Various shows including two opera programmes (A Florentine Tragedy/Der Zwerg and Pelleas et Méllisande) will disappear from the schedules as a result.
While it's currently expected that the 2012-13 season will go ahead, there will be a reduction in the number of performances, and there will be no alternations of repertoire, to reduce the costs of dismantling and assembling the scenery.
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Barcelona's El Liceu has announced a 2011-12 season which bears the scars of recent arts cuts in Spain.
The budget for next season will be 48.4 million euros, 11% less than the current season, and the lowest figure since 2001. Public subsidies currently account for half the theatre's budget. However the Government will reduce its contribution by 15% for this season and next, while the Ministry of Culture aims to reduce aid by 30% over three years.
One of management's cost-cutting ideas is to defer the start of the season to October instead of the usual September. To boost ticket revenue, programming will be more commercial, with a greater emphasis on popular titles like La Bohème and Aida. Ticket prices for these will by up to 10%. The new season will also have fewer opera performances and more concerts, with the first opera of the season, Gounod's Faust, shown in concert version. Half the productions are revivals, and there's an emphasis on longer runs of fewer operas.
In a somewhat unexciting season overall, one of the more interesting items is the pairing of Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg and Eine florentinische Tragödie. There's also a curiosity in the form of Il burbero di buon cuore - an opera buffa by Vicente Martin y Soler, with musical direction by Jordi Savall. Linda di Chamounix with Juan Diego Flórez and Diana Damrau gets a long run, as does the David McVicar Adriana Lecouvreur first seen at Covent Garden, this time with Barbara Frittoli, Dolora Zajick, Roberto Alagna and Joan Pons.
A special concert celebrating 50 years of Montserrat Caballé and three nights of opera from Bayreuth, in concert version, may prove more enticing than 18 nights of La Bohème.
The full listing is here; booking opens on 14 June for subscribers.
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