El elixir amargo: la estética del amor imposible en la ópera

Thursday, May 21, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. Continuing lecture series alongside the Teatro Real's opera season Opera Romanticism found its most powerful driving force and clearest recurrence in the tragedy of forbidden love, transforming passion into a kind of metaphysics of desire that defies both human laws and established orders. In 19th-century France, Charles Gounod emerged as the spokesperson for a unique lyrical sensibility capable of distilling the essence of Shakespeare into a hymn to vulnerability and inevitable destiny. With him and his contemporaries—such as Verdi and Wagner—opera transcended mere sentimental drama to explore love as a private religion. His Roméo et Juliette (1867) is not only a story of young people at odds with their families but also the culmination of an aesthetic ideal where beauty and fate walk hand in hand. Presented by: Mario Muñoz Carrasco, cultural manager, musicologist, and music critic. Artistic director of the "Concerts at the Foundation" series at the Mediterranean Foundation. He directs the program "Correspondences" on Radio Clásica (RNE) and presents "Baroque Contexts" at the National Center for Musical Diffusion. More information at: https://www.comunidad.madrid/portal-l...