At one point during the first show of her long-awaited Lux Tour on Monday night (Mar. 16), Rosal\u00eda told the Lyon crowd, in fluent French, that the evening was \u201creally special\u201d for her.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s easy to understand: this 57-date world tour is the biggest production the 33-year-old Barcelona native has ever staged and represents her first proper tour cycle since Motomami turned her into a global phenomenon in 2022. She\u2019s spent the intervening years crafting Lux, and on Monday at the LDLC Arena, it became clear that she\u2019d been dreaming about this night for a very long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecial\u201d would also be an apt way to describe the sheer ambition of the Lux Tour: structured in four acts plus an intermezzo, the show entertained 13,700 frequently screaming spectators for one hour and forty-five minutes, as Rosal\u00eda tirelessly shapeshifted from ballerina to nightclub provocateur to confessional penitent to winged angel across 24 songs. Choreographed by French collective (La) Horde and backed by a 22-piece classical orchestra, the production sits somewhere between grand opera and a rave\u2014and the achievement is often staggering.<\/p>\n
The Lux Tour is going to satisfy a lot of Rosal\u00eda devotees in the coming months, who will surely find their own favorite pockets of the setlist. And while fans should embrace the entire experience, the opening night provided some clear-cut highlights.<\/p>\n
Here are the 8 best moments from the Lux Tour kickoff in Lyon on Monday night. For a full setlist of the show, click here<\/a>. For a list of cities and dates, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n French Subtitles for a French Crowd<\/p>\n It was the detail nobody saw coming: every lyric, across all 24 songs, was translated and projected in French above the stage and on two flanking screens. For a show performed almost entirely in Spanish, the gesture transformed the audience\u2019s relationship with the material, turning unfamiliar poetry into something deeply felt in real time. It was a small logistical feat and an enormous emotional one \u2014 and it set the tone for an evening built on connection rather than spectacle alone.<\/p>\n The Degas Reveal<\/p>\n The show\u2019s opening was a masterclass in delayed gratification. After a live orchestra entered to the strains of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cAngel,\u201d the lights dropped, a giant painting-like backdrop split in two, and a crew of stagehands in blue work uniforms pried open a wooden crate at center stage. Inside: Rosal\u00eda, perfectly still on a pedestal, black hair pinned up, wearing a white leotard and pink tutu \u2014 an unmistakable echo of Degas\u2019 famous ballerina sculpture. She then danced on pointe as \u201cSexo, Violencia y Llantas\u201d erupted around her. As an opening image, it was breathtaking \u2014 art museum silence giving way to controlled sonic chaos in a matter of seconds.<\/p>\n \u2018Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti\u2019 and the Operatic First-Act Closer<\/p>\n Twenty minutes into the show, Rosal\u00eda was fitted with a white nun\u2019s headdress \u2014 the same one from the Lux album cover\u00a0\u2014 and launched into this Italian-language track about a weeping Christ. The Paris Match review described her vocal delivery as possessing a sincere faith and staggering intensity, and that\u2019s putting it mildly. Backed by the full orchestra, she channeled the power of a trained opera singer, her voice climbing into a register that visibly stunned the arena. It was the moment the crowd understood that this wouldn\u2019t just be a pop concert.<\/p>\n The \u2018Berghain\u2019 Techno Meltdown<\/p>\n The second act opened with the album\u2019s marquee collaboration \u2014 Bj\u00f6rk and Yves Tumor lending their recorded voices to a track named after Berlin\u2019s most infamous nightclub \u2014 and the live arrangement, extended and reshaped around (La) Horde\u2019s choreography, was a full-body experience. The crowd filmed everything on their phones, then collectively abandoned their devices as the song\u2019s closing techno sequence sent the arena into a frenzy. The ovation that followed was the loudest of the night, and Rosal\u00eda stood watching the crowd for a long beat, visibly moved.<\/p>\n The Living Mona Lisa on \u2018Can\u2019t Take My Eyes Off You\u2019<\/p>\n In the night\u2019s most delightfully unexpected moment, Rosal\u00eda covered the Frankie Valli classic in Gloria Gaynor\u2019s disco arrangement \u2014 while posing motionless inside a gilded picture frame, surrounded by dancers pretending to be tourists snapping photos of a masterpiece. It was funny, it was weird, it was glamorous, and it perfectly captured her instinct for turning a pop concert into a living gallery. The cover slot in Act III is reportedly set to rotate throughout the tour, which means this particular tableau may not last \u2014 catch it while you can.<\/p>\n \u2018Sauvignon Blanc\u2019 and the Golden Rain<\/p>\n For the evening\u2019s most intimate moment, Rosal\u00eda perched on a white grand piano while the orchestra\u2019s string section accompanied her on this slow-burning meditation. Golden confetti rained down like liquid light. She then broke the spell with a candid aside, delivered in Spanish, about preferring white wine to red. The contrast between the song\u2019s hushed beauty and her offhand humor landed perfectly \u2014 a reminder that behind the operatic ambition is a performer with impeccable comic timing.<\/p>\n \u2018Wesh 6-9 la trik\u2019 and the Local Connection<\/p>\n Deep into the third act, Rosal\u00eda returned through the audience in a regal costume \u2014 floral headband, transparent basket-shaped tutu \u2014 and climbed onto a small B-stage positioned among the orchestra and a caj\u00f3n player. After a run of songs that built to a techno crescendo laced with Eurythmics\u2019 \u201cSweet Dreams,\u201d she declared her love for Lyon, then dropped a piece of local slang \u2014 \u201cWesh 6-9 la trik\u201d \u2014 that absolutely detonated the room. It was the sort of crowd-specific moment that can\u2019t be replicated on another tour date, and it showed that Rosal\u00eda had done her homework on the city she\u2019d chosen to launch the tour.<\/p>\n The \u2018Magnolias\u2019 Vanishing Act<\/p>\n After 24 songs and four acts, Rosal\u00eda returned for her encore alone \u2014 no dancers, no orchestra, no screens. She performed \u201cMagnolias,\u201d the devastating closing track from Lux, a meditation on mortality in which she asks the listener to throw magnolias on her coffin. The stripped-back arrangement let her voice carry every ounce of weight. When the final note faded, she disappeared in a single beam of light \u2014 no bow, no wave, no words. The house lights came up to reveal the orchestra conductor and musicians embracing one another, and the audience gave them a prolonged standing ovation. It was an ending that belonged to the opera house, not the arena \u2014 and that was entirely the point.<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At one point during the first show of her long-awaited Lux Tour on Monday night (Mar. 16), Rosal\u00eda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31435,146,85,46,5706,168216],"class_list":["post-344068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-billboard","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-rosalia","tag-the-lux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}