back to June 15
June 16, 2000:
The Sagrada Familia
In
the morning we went by metro to the Sagrada Familia. This building, which
had been started in 1882, got in 1891 one of the most impressive works
in the life of Antoni Gaudi. The building, which should become the new
cathedral of Barcelona one day, has not been finished yet, though we could
reassure that they are hard working on it.
They calculate to accomplish it
in the year 2070. I think, that it is quite good, that the old cathedral
of Barcelona seems to be still in quite a good condition.
You
can go the 370 steps up to the top of the towers by foot, or you can evade
them by using the elevator. However it is more impressive( in each aspect)
to choose the steps, because you can have different views over Barcelona
from several heights. On the way up you can change the towers several times,
but you can quickly lose your sense of direction, so that you don’t know
in which of the 8 towers you are currently. After managing 350 steps we
had to go back, because the way seemed to be blocked. We likely had missed
the right tower.
In the Poble Espanyol
In
the afternoon we visited the Poble Espanyol, which had been build because
of Barcelona’s second World Exhibition in 1929. In this project, which
looks like a real small town, are combined the different architecture styles
of the Spanish geography to a picturesque unit.
Our second "Sly" performance
For the evening we had tickets
for a second performance of „Sly“. This was the performance, for which
we had bought our first tickets and it was the only performance for which
we had tickets for quite a while. It was around christmas, when we got
the terrible message, that there would be a 3 Tenors Concert in Hamburg
one the same day and that, of course, José Carreras would not be
able to sing in Barcelona. We got tickets for June 13, though the performance
was almost sold out. Some months later, I think it was in April, the 3
Tenors Concert had been cancelled and so we were happy to own tickets for
two performances. Nethertheless, it wasn’t sure at any time if Carreras
would sing all the performances, there were even rumours that he would
sing in none of the performances.
We liked this performance even more
than that from June 13. The audience seemed to follow the performance with
a lot more of enthusiasm, too. I couldn’t do any usable photos on this
evening, we were sitting in row 16 and during the curtain calls, I was
not able to keep my hands steady.Somehow I had difficulties with applauding
and my bravi shouting wasn’t just helpful for getting photos, which were
not blurry.
Autographs
After
the performance was finished, we waited at the side door for the stars
of the performance. I was successful in getting autographs from Sherill
Milnes, Isabelle Kabatu and the conductor David Gimenez. José Carreras
left the opera through another side door, which he seemed to prefer. Well,
I knew, that I would sure get the opportunity to accomplish my program
book later. At least, I thought so.
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