The Liceu recovers 'Schiava e Regina', the forgotten opera by Lluïsa Casagemas, with a premiere in 2027

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”

Friedrich Nietzsche

With this awareness —and with a gratitude that transcends time— we prepare for the long-awaited premiere of Schiava e Regina, the opera by Lluïsa Casagemas i Coll (Barcelona, 1873–1942) which, after more than a century of oblivion, finds its definitive expression at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, finally scheduled for 2027. This work, composed by Casagemas when she was just over sixteen years old, stands as an incomparable testimony of this female creator in the history of operatic art in our country: it has been identified as the first opera composed by a woman and programmed by a major European opera house, although the anarchist attack that struck the Liceu in 1893 prevented its original premiere.

Schiava e Regina —a title that evokes both conditions, that of victim and sovereign— unfolds in a sonic and dramatic universe of great expressive breadth, influenced both by the Italianizing operatic language of the time and by a distinctive and determined vision. The recovery of the manuscript score (voice and piano), preserved in detail and with dedications that reveal the firm hand of a young creator, has allowed today’s musicologists and performers to place the work once again at the centre of the repertoire it deserves.

The 2027 premiere at the Liceu is not only an act of historical restitution, but also a celebration of Casagemas’s musical legacy and a tribute to all creative voices that have been silenced.