Opera for public: Spain’s Teatro Real opera house offers free broadcast to towns and cities

BERNAT ARMANGUE

On a night in the middle of July, tenors, sopranos and a choir delighted the crowd in Madrid’s luxurious Teatro Real opera house with Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece, “Turandot.”

After the curtain came down, the audience filed from their plush seats and left the theater’s state-of-the-art air conditioning for the summer swelter outside — only to be met again by the voices of Calaf and Princess Turandot.

The performance they had just seen was being replayed on a giant television screen in the big square at the back of the theater.

Here, the spectators sat on hundreds of plastic chairs. Many wore shorts and sandals. Others, tourists included, sat on the low walls and benches in the square or leaned on the barriers and the nearby subway station’s railings.

Some chewed on rolls of Spanish jam, others played cards. But most were absorbed with the show on the 9-