We are a family of 12- 8 adults & 4 children ranging in age from 5-10 & will be in Barcelona at the end of August. My parents want to see a Flamenco show. I am hoping to get some recommendations since when searching online there are so many & all of them claim to be the best in Barcelona. Dinner or tapas included would be great & we are staying in Eixample. Thank you so much!!!
Posted by
Barcelona (Catalonia)
3071 posts
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, a small old nation now ruled by Spain. You should know that 'flamenco' is not typical here, we have a different culture that doesn't reflect at all the stereotypes one often sees in Hollywood movies about Spain. Flamenco was brought to these shores by the successive waves of migrants from the South of Spain during the last century or so, yet nowadays it's pretty much limited (with perhaps a couple of exceptions) to 'shows for tourists' -if you catch my drift.
This is not necessarily to say that some of the shows might not be good --from an artistic point of view that is- after all, Cirque de Soleil isn't from Las Vegas either but they've been very successfully performing there for a number of years with top class shows, right?-- but don't look for "authenticity". Without assessing its artistic quality -that's, of course, a personal matter- shows in the cradle of flamenco, in the South of Spain (Andalucía in particular), are more likely to convey that authenticity many are looking for.
Yet, knowing all this, should you still choose to see a flamenco show in Barcelona, I'd avoid the food and drink as they are rather low quality and expensive. If you're really interested in the music -and not necessarily in all the drama around it- have a look at the program of Palau de la Música Catalana since from time to time some flamenco groups perform there: http://www.palaumusica.cat/en or else, for one of those shows for tourists I mentioned earlier, http://www.tablaodecarmen.com/ - http://www.palaciodelflamenco.com/ - http://www.tablaocordobes.es/en/ - http://www.masimas.com/en/tarantos
Posted by
OP
19 posts
Thank you SOOO much for the reply!!
Posted by
Laval, Québec, Canada
336 posts
Having seen shows in Cordoba and Sevilla, I can see I was quite impressed by the quality of the show i saw In Barcelona at Palau Dalmases
http://palaudalmases.com/es/
I'm into music, I work in that field, we import Cajons(which is the percussion usually played at a flamenco show), I play myself. And this show was fabulous, all of this in a wonderful setting.
Agree with Enric of course about where Flamenco comes from, but as he well said, Cirque du soleil shows are great all over the world.
And Cirque du Soleil origins are from Montreal by the way, where I was born..
I can highly recommend Palau Dalmases.
If you want to see what it looked like, see by blog below, I put some videos of that great night. my comments are in french.
http://famillecyrstgeorges.blogspot.ca/2017/10/barcelone-jour-6-part-ii-memorable.html
We also went to Palau de la musica catalan. Totally different.
Fantastic place, big show, impressive. Not intimate of course.