The Gran Teatre del Liceu (Catalan: [ˈɡɾan teˈatɾə ðəl liˈsɛw]; Spanish: Gran Teatro del Liceo [ˈɡɾan teˈatɾo ðel liˈθeo]; English: "Great Lyceum Theater"), or simply Liceu, is a theater in Barcelona, Spain.

[3] Lack of space and pressure from the nuns who formerly owned the convent and had the right to return motivated the Liceu to leave its location in 1844.

Shareholders of the building society obtained the permanent right of use of some theater boxes and seats in exchange for their economic contributions.

Auxiliary-building-society shareholders contributed the rest of the money necessary in exchange for rights to other spaces in the building, including some shops and the private Círculo del Liceo club.

On 7 November 1893, during the season's opening night and the second act of Rossin's opera Guillaume Tell, two Orsini bombs were thrown into the Liceu's stalls.

The 1920s were prosperous; the Liceu became established, welcoming leading singers, conductors and companies such as Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed in 1931, political instability triggered a financial crisis for the Liceu which was overcome with subsidies from the Barcelona City Council and the regional Catalonia government.

They performed Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre, with innovative sets by Wieland Wagner and were enthusiastically received.

An economic crisis affected the theater during the 1970s; the privately-based organization could not afford the increasing cost of modern opera productions, and overall quality declined.

The death of Joan Antoni Pàmias [es] in 1980 revealed the need for the intervention of official bodies if the Liceu was to remain a leading opera house.

This included a more complete and up-to-date perspective of the nature of an opera performance, improvements to the choir and orchestra, careful casting, and attracting public interest to aspects of productions other than the leading roles.

The consortium maintained high standards in casting, production and public loyalty (measured by attendance) until a 31 January 1994 fire which destroyed the building, caused by a spark that fell on the curtain during a routine repair during the run of Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler.

The rebuilt, improved and expanded theater opened on 7 October 1999[3] with Puccini's Turandot, the next opera in the season at the time of the 1994 fire.

An electronic libretto system provides translations (into English, Spanish or Catalan) on small, individual monitors for most seats.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Liceu marked Spain's lockdown end with a performance for an audience of 2,292 house plants which was livestreamed on social media.

It has a seating capacity of 2,292 (making the Liceu one of Europe's largest opera houses), and is a typical Italian horseshoe-shaped theater with a maximum length and width of 33 and 27 metres (108 and 89 feet).

The amfiteatre ubicare is a projection of the first balcony with a less-pronounced horseshoe shape accommodating three rows of seats, considered the best in the theater.

The auditorium ornamentation reproduces that of 1909: sumptuous, with the golden and polychrome plaster moldings usual in 19th-century European theaters.

Most of the operas performed are from 19th-century Italy and Germany: Verdi, Wagner, bel canto composers and, more recently, Puccini, Richard Strauss and Mozart.

The first operas by non-Italian composers which were put on at the Liceu were Ferdinand Hérold's Zampa (1848), Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz (1849), Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le diable, Auber's La muette de Portici (1852) and Fra Diavolo (1853).

The first performances of Il trovatore (1854) and La traviata (1855) led to the crowning of Giuseppe Verdi as the king of opera.

Mestres also was associated, beginning in 1917, with the success of Diaghilev's ballets with Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Lydia Lopokova, Chernicheva and other dancers.

Revivals featured Donizetti's Anna Bolena, which had first been staged at the Liceu one hundred years earlier.

For 33 years, Pàmias led Liceu activity when it seemed impossible to maintain the opera house without official aid.

The Liceu's repertory has included the world's most-performed titles since the 1950s, including nearly all the great 20th-century composers (Bartók, Honegger, Gershwin, Berg, Janáček, Weill, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten, Schönberg, and Hindemith) and the baroque and classical composers Monteverdi, Handel and Gluck.

From the 1900s to the 1930s, the school was represented by scenery painters who included Maurici Vilomara, Fèlix Urgellés, Salvador Alarma and Oleguer Junyent.

The Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu, a music college founded in 1837, is linked to the theater.

Four large windows in the low foyer attest the influence of Wagnerism in Catalan culture at the beginning of the 20th century.

In addition to its furniture and decor, the club has a collection of sculptures, marquetry, enamels, engravings, etchings and paintings by Catalan artists who include Alexandre de Riquer, Santiago Rusiñol, Modest Urgell Inglada and Francesc Miralles.

The club's most notable art is a set of twelve oils on fabric, commissioned to Ramon Casas and installed in its rotunda.