Barcelona Opera House Hosts Socially-Distanced Concert For Plants
The Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house in Barcelona, Spain hosted a socially-distanced concert for an audience of 2,292 plants on Monday amid the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Associated Press (AP), the concert — Giacomo Puccini’s I Crisantemi performed by the UceLi Quartet — was the opera house’s first since reopening following the coronavirus lockdown, and was also livestreamed to an audience of humans.
AP reported that at the end of the performance, “the sound of leaves and branches blowing in the wind resonated throughout the opera house like applause,” and that each plant will be given to a local health worker “as a thank you for their efforts during the pandemic.”
Barcelona’s Liceu Opera House reopened its doors for the first time in over three months to hold a concert for an audience of nearly 2,300 house plants https://t.co/oqFJjRF44g pic.twitter.com/U6ri9lyEzJ
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The concert’s conceptual artist, Eugenio Ampudia, said, “I watched what was going on with nature during all this time. I heard many more birds singing, and the plants in my garden and outside growing faster, and without a doubt I thought that maybe I could now relate in a much more intimate way with people and nature.”
“It has the characteristics of something so delightful and at the same time it has a melancholic touch, and I had the sensation I had to tell the plants something in particular,” he continued. “To tell them that we’d gone through during this time, in the shape of music, a language through which they can be influenced. It was obvious. It was almost like a requiem.”
