🎄What's on in Madrid: December 19
More Christmas markets, an exhibit on the Debod Temple, Carmen at the opera and more!
Madrid | Issue #126
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
It’s Friday again!
December in Madrid always feels like the city is playing on multiple stages at once, lights switching on, doors opening, and cultural plans stacking up faster than your calendar can handle
This weekend is all about that energy. New spaces are launching, major exhibitions are settling in for the winter, markets return with their festive chaos, and museums, theatres, and cafés offer perfect excuses to escape the cold.
If you’re looking for smart plans, low-effort discoveries, and reasons to leave the house (or stay out a little longer), consider this your curated roadmap for the days ahead.
Happy weekend and happy holidays!
1.🎭 Carmen returns to the Teatro Real (and it’s darker and sharper than ever)
Madrid closes the year with a new Carmen at the Teatro Real that feels far removed from postcard flamenco and operatic clichés. Director Damiano Michieletto’s production of Bizet’s masterpiece leans hard into the opera’s darker core: lust, violence, obsession, and the slow collapse of a man who confuses desire with possession.
Set in Seville and stripped of romantic excess, this Carmen puts the spotlight firmly on power dynamics and masculinity. Carmen is not a femme fatale fantasy here, but a woman asserting autonomy in a world that punishes her for it.
Don José’s descent (from disciplined soldier to jealous, violent outcast) feels less like melodrama and more like a psychological unraveling that lands disturbingly close to the present.
Musically, the production is in excellent hands. Aigul Akhmethsina leads as Carmen, returning to the Real after her acclaimed Maria Stuarda, alongside Michael Fabiano and Charles Castronovo as Don José, and J’Nai Bridges in a standout role.
On the podium, Eun Sun Kim (music director of the San Francisco Opera and the first woman ever to conduct an opera at the Teatro Real) brings precision and tension to Bizet’s familiar score.
This is Carmen without nostalgia. That is, urgent, unsettling, and very much of its time. Even if you think you know this opera by heart, this production makes a strong case for seeing it again.
🖥️ What: Carmen by Georges Bizet
📍 Where: Teatro Real, Plaza de Isabel II, Madrid
📅 When: Dec. 19 & 20, 7:30 p.m.
🎟 Tickets start at €41
2.💼 Madrid’s new ‘third place’ just opened in Delicias, and it’s built for curious people
Madrid has a new cultural space worth paying attention to, and it’s not a museum, a gallery, or a foodie hub, but a bit of all three. Infinito Delicias, which officially opened its doors on Dec. 11, lands in the Delicias neighborhood with an ambitious promise: to be a true third space, somewhere between home and work, where culture, food, sustainability, and community naturally collide.
Spread across 2,700 square meters, the project brings together experimental kitchens, cultural rooms, coworking areas, labs, and a shared outdoor patio.
The idea isn’t specialization but cross-pollination. Imagine artists, neighbors, social projects, and entrepreneurs sharing the same ecosystem and letting unexpected collaborations happen. As its creators put it, this is a place designed to “let the unexpected in.”
The space launches its public life this weekend with an Open Day that doubles as a neighborhood celebration.
There will be exhibitions, screenings, performances, communal food, and the first-ever Romería de las Delicias, a ritual-style procession conceived by artist Antoni Miralda that will spill into the streets to celebrate everyday neighborhood identity.
Infinito Delicias feels like a quiet but meaningful shift in how Madrid thinks about urban culture: slower, more porous, and deeply rooted in local life.
If you’re curious about where the city’s cultural future is heading, this is a very good place to start.
🖥️ What: Infinito Delicias Open Day
📍 Where: Infinito Delicias, C. de Juana Doña, 5, Madrid
📅 When: Dec. 20
🎟 Tickets: Free entry, open to all
3.🇪🇬 Before Debod came to Madrid: A forgotten chapter of displacement and rescue
Most of you know the Temple of Debod as a sunset spot to bring your potential love interests while drinking wine in the summer. Few of you know the story of what it cost to save it. Debod 1954–1964, on view since October, looks back at the decade-long effort to document, dismantle, and relocate the ancient Egyptian temple before the waters of the Aswan High Dam erased its original landscape forever.
The exhibition draws from rare national and international archives to show Debod as it existed in Nubia: weathered, partially buried, surrounded by villages that would soon disappear beneath the rising lake.
These images don’t just document a monument in danger — they capture a way of life on the brink of erasure, as local communities were forced to relocate alongside the temple itself.
Structured in three chapters (The Alert, The Documentation, and The Transfer), the exhibition combines striking photographic material with Nubian ethnographic objects collected by the Spanish Mission working in the region between 1960 and 1965. Together, they tell a quieter, more human story of heritage preservation: one that involves loss, displacement, and international cooperation as much as archaeology.
Seen today, with Debod firmly embedded in Madrid’s urban landscape, this exhibition reframes the monument as a survivor of a global rescue operation and a reminder that saving history often comes at a human cost.
🖥️ What: Debod 1954–1964
📍 Where: Museo de San Isidro, Plaza de San Andrés, 2, Madrid
📅 When: Through March 29
🎟 Tickets: Free entry
4. 🏛️ Film director Oliver Laxe brings Cannes to the Reina Sofía
The Reina Sofía is turning cinema into a spatial experience this winter. The museum is hosting a new installation by Oliver Laxe, one of Spain’s most internationally respected filmmakers, centered on Sirat, his latest film, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes 2025 and nominated for a Golden Globe for best non-English language motion picture.
Set around a rave, Sirat uses the language of cinema to explore something larger than narrative: collective ritual, shared trance, and what theorist McKenzie Wark calls a “micro-ethnography.”
Shot between Morocco and Aragón, the film blends mysticism, personal searching, and non-rational forms of knowledge, continuing Laxe’s long-standing interest in communities that live and think outside dominant frameworks.
Presented at the Reina Sofía as an installation rather than a standard screening, the film pushes beyond the limits of the traditional movie theater and asks what cinema can become inside a museum.
The exhibition also works as a deep dive into Laxe’s wider practice, bringing together a selection of his previous feature films and experimental shorts. Across these works, Laxe often appears on screen himself, underscoring how inseparable his life, beliefs, and creative process really are.
Fiction and reality blur constantly, producing a cinema that feels as lived-in as it is contemplative.
🖥️ What: Oliver Laxe, HU/هُوَ. Bailad como si nadie os viera
📍 Where: Museo Reina Sofía, Calle de Santa Isabel 52, Madrid
📅 When: Through April 20
🎟 Tickets: €12
5.🐈 El Mercadillo del Gato: Madrid’s most elegant pop-up market is back on Gran Vía
If your idea of holiday shopping involves style, craftsmanship, and the occasional “I didn’t know I needed this” moment, El Mercadillo del Gato is officially back. Madrid’s most refined pop-up market has returned to Gran Vía, turning number 13 on that avenue into a carefully curated playground of design, fashion, and small luxuries.
This Christmas edition brings together more than 60 exhibitors from across Spain and beyond, offering everything from fashion and jewelry to gourmet treats, cosmetics, home décor, children’s items, and collectible pieces.
The charm lies in the details: a real flower preserved inside a pendant, a silk scarf printed with 19th-century masterpieces, a vintage dress, a perfectly cut jacket, or a luxury handbag you won’t see on every corner.
Part of what keeps El Mercadillo del Gato fresh is its constant rotation. The selection evolves across editions, meaning no two visits are quite the same, and there’s always a sense that the best piece might disappear if you don’t grab it.
This is one of those Madrid traditions that manages to capture people’s imaginations every year.
🖥️ What: El Mercadillo del Gato (Christmas Edition)
📍 Where: Gran Vía, 13, Madrid
📅 When: Through Jan. 6, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
🎟 Tickets: Free entry
📺 What to watch if you’re staying in this weekend…
🖥️ What: City of Shadows| Miniseries | 2025
📍Where to watch: Netflix
❓What’s it about: A burned body appears on Barcelona’s iconic Gaudí building, Casa Milá. Suspended police inspector Milo Malart returns to duty, partnering with deputy inspector Rebeca Garrido to solve the mysterious crime.
🤩 Why you should watch: It’s about mysterious murders taking place in iconic Gaudí locations throughout the city. Need we say more? City of Shadows is a slow-burn crime thriller that uses Barcelona not just as a backdrop but as a character in its own right.
💬 English Subtitles: Yes
💃🏻 Something to try this weekend…
🥩 Where fire meets flavor: Charrúa brings Uruguayan grill culture to the city
What’s it about: Charrúa is a Uruguayan-style steakhouse in the Justicia/Recoletos area of Madrid, where fire and meat are the stars of the show. Inspired by the indigenous Charrúa tribe’s ancestral relationship with fire and grilling, the restaurant centers on high-quality cuts cooked over an open flame, with a menu that ranges from charred starters to impressive steaks and even grilled vegetables.
Why you should go: If you love serious grilled meat, Charrúa delivers with international and Uruguayan cut alongside chargrilled veggies, empanadas, and special sides.
Bottom line: A carnivore’s favorite in Madrid with genuine Uruguayan flair and serious grill chops, rustic but refined, with plenty of personality and a lively, cozy vibe that makes meat lovers feel right at home.
📍 Address: Calle Conde de Xiquena, 4, Madrid
☕️ Café Moderno: old-school charm and slow coffee in one of Madrid’s prettiest plazas
What’s it about: Café Moderno is a charming, classic café tucked away in Plaza de las Comendadoras in Madrid’s Conde Duque/Malasaña area, offering a peaceful escape from the bustle of the city in a picturesque setting. 🍵🍊 It’s the kind of place where locals linger with coffee, pastries, or a glass of wine on the terrace and the vibe feels timeless and easygoing.
Why you should go: It offers a relaxed Spanish-style breakfast with fresh bread, warm croissants, orange juice and aromatic coffee, an iced peppermint tea that locals rave about and it’s great for a quiet afternoon chat with friends. Café Moderno delivers comforting and simple pleasures with friendly service (and also, it was featured in one of Almodovar’s movies).
Bottom line: A hidden gem in a lovely plaza, perfect for slow mornings, casual meetups, or a mellow break during a city stroll.
Address: Plaza de las Comendadoras, 1, Madrid
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