Exclusive performance for nature - 17th July 2020

Having been closed for a period of 3 months, El Liceo, Barcelona’s opera house, has thrust its doors open with an unexpected artistic flourish.

Rather than people filing into the rows, seats were allocated to an audience of shrubs, each armed with its own ticket ready for inspection.

The vegetation showed its appreciation with a rapturous rustle of leaves, basking in the quartet’s performance of Giacomo Puccini’s “Crisantemi”.

The production was an exploration by Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudia of the boundaries between humans and their natural counterparts and the significant disruption of lockdown constraints on communal spaces.

As a gesture of gratitude to the endurance shown by staff at the Clinic de Barcelona during the pandemic, the greenery was gifted to them once the exclusive performance was over.

The recording has been released for online streaming, with the aim of giving plants around the globe the same opportunity to delight in the music.