The Teatre Principal in Palma has launched an Instagram app which lets users become a character from one of three operas that are scheduled for the current season - Carmen (for which there are three performances this week), Lucia di Lammermoor and The Magic Flute. Social media is therefore being used to attract new audiences to opera.
Operating in a random manner, the filter can mean - for Bizet's opera - becoming Carmen herself, Don José or Escamillo, the bullfighter. For Donizetti's Lucia de Lammermoor, an Instagrammer can assume the role of Lucia, Lord Arturo Bucklaw or Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood. The main roles in Mozart's The Magic Flute include the Queen of the Night, Papageno and Sarastro.
The theatre's director, Josep Ramon Cerdà, says that this initiative is part of the campaign to modernise opera. This was the case with Loopera, which started the season and mixed the classical genre with electronica "with great success".