Liceu OPERA+ begins a new stage with a visual revolution led by Igor Cortadellas, incorporating innovative techniques such as cablecam, frontal tracking, and on-stage cameras that place the Liceu at the audiovisual forefront. The platform offers an immersive digital experience with multi-camera, score tracking, and digital premieres of each opera, bringing the genre closer to new audiences and promoting internationalization with the support of Telefónica and Mediapro.
The Gran Teatre del Liceu presents the new stage of the digital platform Liceu OPERA+, which is being redefined under the artistic direction of Igor Cortadellas and incorporates an unprecedented cinematic perspective in the realm of platforms dedicated to opera and classical music. Liceu OPERA+ thus marks a turning point in the way opera is recorded and experienced in a digital environment: beyond a technical evolution, the project unfolds a new audiovisual language, a new way of storytelling, and a strengthened artistic ambition. Cortadellas has established himself as one of the most prominent audiovisual creators of today, recognized for crafting innovative visual narratives for internationally renowned institutions and artists.
With Igor Cortadellas’ proposal, Liceu OPERA+ takes a qualitative leap and expands the classical operatic recording approach toward a fully cinematic audiovisual language, much more immersive and narrative. This new visual grammar incorporates techniques from the seventh art, unprecedented so far in digital platforms for opera and classical music: a cablecam traversing the auditorium, frontal tracking, cameras integrated into the stage and orchestra pit, and a focus on movement and proximity that reinforces the stage narrative. The result is imagery of great sensitivity, more intimate, delicate, and artistic, comparable to the aesthetic of major contemporary cinematic productions.
Igor Studio uses a high-quality opera recording system at the Gran Teatre del Liceu based on 14 coordinated cameras, allowing the capture of both the stage production and the orchestra pit. The setup includes fixed cameras with anamorphic lenses and robotic cameras, also integrating a tracking system for fluid movements across the stage and a cablecam that flies over the stalls to obtain dynamic aerial shots. The entire system is controlled from a centralized production unit that ensures a rich, immersive visual narrative faithful to the live experience.
More than a catalogue: a living digital season
Liceu OPERA+ is not conceived as a repository of titles, but as a living digital season synchronized with the life of the theatre: each premiere at the Liceu continues on Liceu OPERA+, so that the auditorium and digital environment beat at the same rhythm, and the online viewer becomes part of the present of the Theatre. In this digital season, the platform places special emphasis on voices and the possibility of reliving the best moments in full detail.
In addition to transferring the season to the digital environment, Liceu OPERA+ expands the subscriber experience with a new way to enjoy each title: more immersive, closer, and with exclusive resources that only the online format can offer. The digital environment opens unique possibilities for the viewer: it allows selecting viewpoints (focusing solely on the orchestra, following the score, or watching the backstage) and accessing the opera as conceived by the director, with its own audiovisual interpretation. This makes it possible to enjoy nuances that often go unnoticed live and reinforces the immersive dimension of the project.
Liceu OPERA+ also promotes a community and cultural relationship: digital viewers are part of the theatre and participate in the collective digital premiere of each production on Sundays at 6:00 p.m., a new shared cultural ritual. As a novelty, thirty minutes before each premiere, the platform offers a pre-show educational piece led by various collaborators such as El Vomitorio, among others, introducing the work and providing keys for understanding it.
These digital premieres maintain and expand the functionalities already existing on the platform. The broadcast features a master of ceremonies: communicator Ramon Gener accompanies the experience by interviewing the protagonists during the performance and providing information and listening tips that enrich the reception of the work. Each title can be followed with subtitles in four languages —Catalan, Spanish, English, and the original language— and includes a moderated live chat that invites viewers to comment on the performance in real time, creating an international community of opera lovers. Multi-camera production and viewing are also maintained, allowing viewers to choose unique perspectives such as backstage or the conductor’s position, as well as score-following alongside the performance; in the published edition, the opera can be viewed by acts to facilitate consultation and review.
Finally, the project also advocates cultural democratization through pricing: with a rate of €45 for subscribers and €90 for non-subscribers per season, Liceu OPERA+ guarantees universal access to all digital productions. In the virtual space, there are no differences in location, only the desire to discover and experience opera, with an equalizing experience that broadens the Theatre’s cultural reach. This combination of layers —exclusive content, collective digital premiere, and advanced viewing tools— establishes Liceu OPERA+ as a unique and reference platform for opera and classical music streaming on an international scale.
In addition to the six titles from last season (Lady Macbeth de Mtsensk, Madama Butterfly, La traviata, Lohengrin, La sonnambula, and Rusalka), and La guineueta astuta from this season, subscribers will also be able to enjoy digitally, with Igor Studio recordings, the following:
L’elisir d’amore (Donizetti), with Javier Camarena and Pretty Yende. Stage direction by Mario Gas and musical direction by Diego Matheuz. Digital premiere: 14/12
Tristan und Isolde (Wagner), with Lise Davidsen and Clay Hilley. Stage direction by Bárbara Lluch and musical direction by Susanna Mälkki. Digital premiere: 15/02
La gioconda (Ponchielli), with Saioa Hernández and Michael Fabiano. Stage direction by Romain Gilbert and musical direction by Daniel Oren. Digital premiere: 08/03
Manon Lescaut (Puccini), with Asmik Grigorian, Joshua Guerrero, and Iurii Samoilov. Stage direction by Àlex Ollé and musical direction by Josep Pons. Digital premiere: 12/04
Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart), with Sara Blanch and Konstantin Krimmel. Stage direction by Marta Pazos and musical direction by Giovanni Antonini. Digital premiere: 21/06
In addition to all available titles, subscribers can also access extra content, such as the Clàssica a la platja concert from Mar i Cel by Dagoll Dagom or the concert at Montserrat Del dolor a la esperança conducted by Josep Pons, along with other content to be announced soon.
Igor Cortadellas
After receiving his musical training and graduating as an oboist from the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (Switzerland), Igor Cortadellas began a professional career as a performer and teacher of this instrument.
In 2008, he founded Igor Studio, a creative space designed to explore and develop comprehensive projects in the audiovisual and cultural communication fields, and at the same time a meeting point for his passions: music and photography. From the beginning, Igor Studio has been focused on aesthetic experimentation, the search for new languages, and the creation of visual narratives capable of engaging with contemporary sensibilities, establishing itself as a laboratory where imagination, technique, and music share common ground.
Together with his team, Cortadellas explores beauty and surprise as means to connect people through their capacity to feel emotion. He creates visually powerful concepts that combine mastery of technology and narrative techniques with deep artistic and humanistic sensitivity, giving each project a truly unique character.
This artistic and humanistic vocation is reflected in a wide variety of projects: from the creation and direction of a virtual reality film to global campaigns, and numerous productions in all types of formats, always realized collaboratively and adapted to the needs of the institutions and artists he works with. Among others: Gustavo Dudamel, Cecilia Bartoli, Martha Argerich, Valeri Gergiev, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Dallas, Camerata Salzburg, Gran Teatre del Liceu, l’Auditori de Barcelona, Òpera de Tenerife, ADDA Simfònica, Fundació La Caixa, Deutsche Grammophon, Harmonia Mundi, Sony, Decca, Warner, Universal, Telefónica, etc.
The authenticity of his proposals and his way of connecting institutions with audiences have positioned Igor Cortadellas as one of the most sought-after creatives in Spain and one of the leading audiovisual artists of his generation. In recent years, he has been recognized with numerous awards, including selection at the Festival de Cannes, the VIFF–Vancouver International Film Festival, and the prestigious THEA AWARDS for the project Symphony. He has also received the LUX 2023 awards in the Advertising category for the campaigns Sinfonía de luz for Camerata Salzburg (LUX Gold) and Nuevos clásicos for ADDA Simfònica (LUX Bronze). This year he is again nominated for the LUX Photography Awards.