The itinerant didactic initiative Ópera en Ruta has come to an end having visited 17 municipalities and reached 671 people, who have come to the 44 meetings held in facilities belonging to Red Insular de Bibliotecas. [Island Library Network].

The talks, which started in October, dealt with six major productions of the 2017-2018 Ópera de Tenerife season. The first two titles, Capuletti and Monteschi, and Faust each had a talk; followed by 19 conferences on the opera Don Carlo. For the family performance of The Magic Flute, nine talks were arranged, one of which was exclusive to students at IES de Arico.

The same number of meetings were held for The Traviata, coinciding with the first time the European Opera Days were held at Auditorio de Tenerife. Two of these talks took place at the Anaga District (San Andrés) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and at the Espacio Cultural La Capilla, in the main building of La Laguna University. For the last show in the season -the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda- five talks were scheduled.

Iván Morales was in charge of the talks in which he revisited every title in order to reveal not only the structure and its main arias, but also to talk about the historical period the piece was written in and the main biographical details of the author. Some of the most recurrent questions in these meetings had to do with the dress code to attend an opera performance or the need to speak Italian in order to understand it. The speaker highlights the group of 44 people from the village of Vilaflor and 25 from Garachico who went to the opera for the first time in their lives.

This pioneering cultural journey is part of the communication policy of Ópera de Tenerife in the current season. The aim is to reach new audiences and show the world of opera from a new perspective. This is one of the objectives included in the Tenerife 2030 strategy promoted by the Cabildo Insular.

The project is back in September to include the titles of the 2018-2019 season. Thus, the productions The Italian in Algiers, Lucia di Lammermoor, The Journey to Reims, Turandot, Hansel and Gretel, The Traviata and The Wildcat Will have all a calendar of talks so people attending can familiarise themselves with the productions by Auditorio de Tenerife.