The essential trip in Barcelona’s Thursday-to-Sunday run of October 22–25 comes on Friday, October 23, when Les Arts Florissants and Paul Agnew bring Handel’s Riccardo Primo to Palau de la Musica Catalana. This is a concert performance of an opera that sits away from Handel’s permanent handful of familiar titles, presented at 19:00 in the Concert Hall as part of the venue’s Palau Opera series. The scale matters: the Palau lists an approximate running time of 170 minutes, including an interval, giving the evening the shape of a full operatic occasion instead of a compact Baroque sampler.[1][2]

Riccardo Primo gives the week its particular pull because its musical demands and dramatic design arrive together. Handel wrote it for the 1726–27 Royal Academy of Music season, building a score around elaborate vocal writing and sharp theatrical shifts. Its story takes Richard the Lionheart’s conquest of Cyprus as its starting point, setting love, political rivalry and royal authority into motion after Costanza is shipwrecked on the island. That framework makes the work a useful entry point for listeners curious about opera seria: individual voices carry the action, while ornament, line and timing become part of the drama.[1][3][4]

Agnew is introducing the work into Les Arts Florissants’ repertoire, and the Barcelona date falls near the end of a short October itinerary that also reaches Dijon, Paris, Madrid and Valencia. The title role belongs to countertenor Hugh Cutting, with Mélissa Petit as Costanza, Juliette Mey as Pulcheria, Andreas Wolf as Isaccio, Paul Figuier as Oronte and Alex Rosen as Berardo. The casting gives the evening a coherent reason for attention: the ensemble’s own presentation identifies several singers as alumni of its Le Jardin des Voix academy, while the Palau frames Les Arts Florissants as a key historically informed Baroque ensemble. The group has pursued Baroque repertory since 1979.[1][3][4]

A full evening inside the Concert Hall

Palau de la Musica Catalana is an especially apt room for this kind of visit because the event is being treated as opera, complete with Catalan surtitles, instead of an excerpted concert. The Palau programme specifies the full Handel score and places the performance in its main Concert Hall. For the audience, that means committing to the arc of the piece: the entrance of the singers, the paced sequence of arias and ensembles, and the interval that divides the evening in two. Friday’s 19:00 start also leaves the night anchored in concert time, before Barcelona’s later club schedules take over.[1][2]

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Plan for Friday, October 23

Arrive with enough margin for a 19:00 start at Palau de la Musica Catalana, C/ Palau de la Música, 4–6. The venue currently lists tickets from €38 to €88, a 170-minute duration with an interval, and Catalan surtitles; Les Arts Florissants confirms the Barcelona stop as part of its Riccardo Primo tour. This is the week’s flagship pick for listeners who want one substantial performance, a specialist Baroque orchestra and a complete opera in a room built for concentrated listening. Recheck the official Palau de la Música Catalana and Les Arts Florissants pages before leaving, since timing, prices and availability can change.[1][2][3]

These concerts happened on 23 October 2026

The next dates at these venues: Palau de la Musica Catalana

Sources

  1. Handel’s Riccardo Primo — Palau de la Música Catalana
  2. Palau de la Música Catalana programme — Palau de la Música Catalana
  3. Riccardo Primo – Handel — Les Arts Florissants
  4. Honor & Power: Riccardo Primo — Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía