Barcelona's opera house, opened in 1847, and twice burnt down (1861 and 1994), is a building you might miss as you walk down the Ramblas. But despite its unimposing façade (and the post-1994 extension, which is a particularly hideous eyesore), inside it's a pretty impressive place, even virtually empty on a Saturday morning.
Built in a horseshoe shape that provides superb acoustics but some dreadful blindspots as far as visibility is concerned, with a 2,292 seat capacity, it is around the biggest you can possibly get for unamplified voices - even for opera singers, that is. ("Opera is singing as loud as you can, is it?" a rather perplexed Isabel Walton (7), who accompanied us on the trip, wanted to know.)

The Liceu: ornate decoration
in the first circle

If you decided to get cheap seats for the Liceu* (they start at €5 and go up to €142 for the current season) you'll be up at the top, watching it on a TV monitor, as the stage is invisible. The Liceu is now all high-tech and if you really don't know your Don Giovanni, the press of a button brings up the subtitles (English, Spanish or Catalan) on the display on the back of the seat in front of you.

Alternatively, you could just gawk at your fellow socialites, which they say is what opera-going was (at least originally) all about. Our tour guide explained that until 1904 performances were given with all the lights on in the auditorium so that you could get a better view of who had come with who, wearing what... That is, until Richard Wagner put his foot down and insisted that if you came, you came to watch the opera. Eating and talking were also forbidden ("No, sorry sir, you cannot bring your take-away in with you!").

The tour guide told us some of curious stories in the Liceu's history. There is no royal box, for example. Seats were originally sold to private members, and as the Queen didn't show any interest in producing the cash, she didn't get one. The royals did get two second chances (considering the Liceu has burnt down twice), but presumably now have to log on like ordinary mortals if they want seats. The bust of Isabel II got dragged out of the Liceu foyer during the 1868 Revolution, hauled down the Ramblas and dumped into the harbour. There's no love lost between the Catalans and the Royals, as you can see!