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Presentation of the Historical Archive of the Societat del Gran Teatre del Liceu |
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Modern techniques of scanning, digital identification and data search allow us to relate all the varied and complex documentation generated by an opera house, as never before. Thanks to the agreement signed in 2011 between the Societat del Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the entire research community and Internet users have access to the catalogue and the digitized documents of the Historical Archive of the Societat del Gran Teatre del Liceu. The project includes cataloguing more than 50.000 documents generated from 1837 to the present day. You will find the most substantial documentation until 1981, when the theatre management was transferred to the Consorci, responsibility of the Gran Teatre del Liceu Foundation since 1994. It is not usual to keep all the documentation generated by an opera house for almost150 years. In the case of the Liceu, there are more singularitaties. Besides the complexity of the origins (with educational projects and the construction of a new theatre), there is the activity of the private society which owned the site and the theatre. The society was in charge of running the season while the theatre was operated by impresarios who took out a lease.
Online access documents are a key tool for understanding the complexity and diversity of aspects involved in an opera house: In cataloging it, the continuity of the documentary series has been maintained. Therefore, documents are organized according to typology and format. On the first level, documents are classified into the following sections, which will be completed as the project grows:
The continuity of the activity of the theatre, which was maintained even during the civil war, allows to relate the materials. The distinctive goal of the project is to allow a dialogue between documents: scenographies, plans, programs, photographs, letters, sheet music and administrative documents. At the same time, the functioning of an opera house cannot be explained as an isolated entity, but as the result of an intense flow of artistic, commercial and technical exchanges. Whenever possible, we have enriched the framework of relations between the materials of the Liceu and the international musical activity of the period. This project is possible thanks to the involvement of different members of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB): from the Library Service to research groups in different fields, thus making sense to the archive and its interdisciplinarity. Above all, we must thank the financial support for the project and its continuity, which allows to open the door to one of the most emblematic places in Barcelona and its history.
Francesc Cortès i Mir |
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