While the walls remain
Columns, walls and a small pit make up the Liceu stage for I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Allex Aguilera uses this arrangement as palace, bedroom and crypt across both acts. In the final scene the pit fills with water. The staging announced for Barcelona’s 30 October–11 November run places these separate locations inside the same architecture. The families’ shared world contains both the lovers’ room and the crypt of their final encounter.[1]
That continuity offers a concrete way to read the family conflict: even Giulietta’s private room remains within the palace’s architectural vocabulary. The persistent set can suggest an order the characters cannot escape. It also has a practical reading, keeping scene changes within one adaptable space. The balance between those readings depends on how light, movement and performers articulate the walls.[1]
The house describes video projected onto the set and contrasts of light and shadow that give the space different uses. Aguilera also moves the action to around 1830, Bellini’s own period. These choices allow the stage to change through means beyond replacing scenery. His stated intention to leave singers room for concentration accompanies that economy. These are announced choices for a production opening on 30 October; its performance has yet to be judged.[1]
The same set, a different night
Lisette Oropesa and Marina Monzó share Giulietta across the seven performances; Raffaella Lupinacci and Caterina Piva share Romeo. Iván Ayón-Rivas and Antoni Lliteres alternate as Tebaldo. This company introduces another variable alongside the set’s continuity. Two interpreters of a role may shape different encounters within the same walls; the announced design cannot establish that those encounters will be identical.[1]
Riccardo Frizza takes musical direction, while Rodrigo de Vera conducts on 10 November. This distinction in the Liceu calendar matters directly to an audience choosing an evening: that performance has a named conductor. How its pace and exchanges on stage take shape under that direction remains uncertain ahead of the performance.[1]
The run asks us to hold two scales together: the shared space transforming across both acts, and the company using it that evening. The first establishes continuity in the families’ world; the second determines who plays each encounter. As the Liceu walls extend from palace to crypt, the audience’s concrete choice is which of the seven performances’ companies to meet.[1]