Gran Teatre del Liceu

On La Rambla, the Liceu opened in 1847 and grew into one of Europe's great opera houses. Fire took it twice — in 1861, and catastrophically in January 1994, when work on the stage left little standing beyond the facade and the foyer. The company played on in temporary quarters and returned in 1999 to a reconstructed horseshoe auditorium, faithful in shape and colour to the one Barcelona had lost but fitted with modern stage machinery beneath it. Singers and conductors of successive generations have passed through the house, which remains Catalonia's principal home for opera.