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Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
@aitorehm
Sep 20, 2020 • 10 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
There's a full-on spectator’s revolt underway at Madrid’s #TeatroReal. The audience at tonight’s production of Verdi’s ‘Un ballo in Maschera’ is in an uproar because while socially distant seating is happening at the floor-level, the cheap balcony seats are packed together.
Although the theatre's management has told the crowd that they're running the show at 50% capacity, the images being tweeted out by spectators show some pretty full rows up top... And a lot of empty seats in the noble area down below.

According to this great thread from @EmiliaChacon, the opera has started one hour after schedule and the curtain has come down just ten minutes later due to the audience's incessant complaints. It's unclear if the performance has been called off.
All of this is happening with Madrid in the midst of COVID’s second wave. Reacting to the virus’s explosion in the Spanish capital, on Friday the regional government put the residents of several 'sanitary zones' under 'confinement' for a two week period.
elmundo.es/madrid/2020/09…
The 'confined' zones are mainly located in the capital's working-class neighborhoods, highlighting the city's social inequality and the fact that the capital's poorer residents are far more exposed to the virus than their privileged neighbors.
elpais.com/espana/madrid/…
Working-class madrileños in these neighborhoods often live in small, packed houses and can't telework. They use public transport with few social distancing measures in place in order to commute to service jobs in the wealthier parts of the city.
The public health centers in many of these neighborhoods are overrun and lack enough staff to attend to the patients that are pouring in. And residents are increasingly fed up with bearing the brunt of a deadly pandemic while keeping the city running.

20minutos.es/noticia/438351…
The "revolution in the cheap seats" (as @dorcarvajal cleverly dubbed it) may have happened in the refined ambience of the Teatro Real, but it's emblematic of a deeper split between the city's privileged elites (who can pay hundreds of euros to enjoy an evening of Verdi safely)...
...And a larger portion of the population that is asking why, in a country where the Constitution states that all citizens have an equal right to have their health protected, the likeliness of contracting COVID is determined by the size of one's wallet.
elpais.com/sociedad/2020-…
Additional historical context for the riots-in-opera-house fans out there:

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More from @aitorehm

Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
Dec 10
For the past 10 years @POLITICOEurope has published an annual ranking of the 28 people it considers will shape the following year in Europe. This summer I was tapped to put together the 2025 edition the P28 list; here's a brief thread on the experience...
politico.eu/politico-28-cl…Image
Predicting who will mold an entire continent's destiny over the course of the next 12 months isn't easy — especially when that continent is the site of an active war and struggling to deal with a series of socioeconomic and political identity crises. Image
To try to take this mission on alone would have risked a final product based on my inherent biases — which seemed silly, as God knows the world has no urgent need to have another hot-take written by a man of a certain age.

So I opted to take myself out of the equation. Image
Read 28 tweets
Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
Oct 14
Belgium held nationwide local elections yesterday and while the Socialists held on in Brussels, some big shifts still happened. Quick thread on the major developments and what they mean: Image
Image
As happened in last June's regional election, the big winner of Sunday's vote was the economic-liberal Reformist Movement (MR) party. During the campaign the MR painted a fairly dire image of the region's communes, arguing that a return to order was imperative. Image
The group also railed against the Good Move mobility plan — a collection of measures to reduce car traffic in residential areas and build new bike lanes — which it argued had wreaked havoc across the Brussels region and represented a threat to residents' freedom of movement. Image
Read 23 tweets
Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
Aug 9
On the Puigdemont saga: This may not seem clear to a lot of folks who are unfamiliar with Spanish politics, but the biggest winner in everything that happened in the last 24 hours may be ... Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Quick explanation...
Last year Sánchez was able to form a minority government thanks to the votes of Carles Puigdemont's Junts party. In exchange for their MPs' backing in the Spanish parliament, Sánchez's Socialist Party filed a controversial bill to amnesty all involved in the separatist movement. Image
In March early elections were called in Catalonia, and Puigdemont announced his intention to stand for the presidency in a bid to recover the post he occupied back in 2017, when his government orchestrated the illegal independence referendum. Image
Read 35 tweets
Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
May 13
Alright, so, it's the morning after: What happened in Catalonia yesterday? The Socialists won big, the separatist movement suffered a big defeat and the right made significant advances. A curious mix of results that all appear linked to Sánchez's handling of the Catalan dilemma.
Image
The big winner is Salvador Illa, the former Health Minister who oversaw Spain's handling of the COVID crisis. A subdued, exceedingly polite politician, Illa's campaign centered on restored the region's public services and the importance of social welfare instead of independence. Image
Back in November, when Sánchez's controversial decision to grant the Catalan separatists a blanket amnesty was announced, Illa told me that the measure was needed to finally move on from the drama of the 2017 independence referendum and to focus on the region's real problems. Image
Read 28 tweets
Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
May 12
It's a crucial election day in Catalonia: Will voters signal that quality of life issues are more important than self-determination, or will they instead give power back to separatist leader Carles Puigdemont and endorse a renewed push for independence? 🧵
politico.eu/article/catalo…
Around 5.4 million residents of Catalonia are called to participate in today's regional election. The final official polls published ahead of the vote have Socialist candidate Salvador Illa in the lead, followed closely by separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, of the Junts party. Image
Folks living abroad may have two reactions to the topic at hand.

The first is a reasonable: "Wait, another round of elections in Spain?!"

Yes.

In the span of a year a Catalan elector will have voted in the municipal, national, regional and EU elections.

Spain ❤️ voting. Image
Read 14 tweets
Aitor Hernández-Morales Profile picture
Apr 1
Given it's an overcast Easter Monday in Brussels and there's absolutely nothing to do, here's a tale of attempted regicide, bloodthirsty retribution and almost psychotic pettiness from Lisbon to brighten a day that's our calendar's equivalent of the doldrums. Image
Between the world-famous Pastéis de Belém shop and Lisbon's Mosteiro dos Jerónimos there's a dank, smelly alleyway where a single pillar rises, bearing tribute to the vanished Palace of the Dukes of Aveiro and the damned Távora dynasty. Image
The Távoras were an aristocratic family that had played its cards particularly well as Portugal switched from being ruled by the Spanish kings to the Dukes of Bragança and has subsequently accumulated a wild amount of power in less than two centuries. Image
Read 63 tweets

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