Zarzuela

Zarzuela [ θaɾθwela ] is the name of a typical Spanish genre of musical theater, which has some similarity to the French opéra comique, or operetta. As this is the Zarzuela characterized by alternately spoken and sung text. The music of the Zarzuela consists mostly of original compositions, supplemented by folk songs or popular hits that were selected to match the action.

History

Origins

The Zarzuela originated in the late 17th century, first as a courtly festival in the form of a Singspiel. Strait is the relationship to the vaudeville of the Paris market theater, which contained new textierte known tunes.

In a point near Madrid forest area, the so-called Pardo, the Spanish kings had erected a castle surrounded by dense Brombeergebüschs, which ( from the Spanish zarza: " bush "), the name Palacio de la Zarzuela got. The Infante Don Fernando, who later became governor of the Spanish crown in the Netherlands, was a great lover of hunting and used often, this chateau for the night. If the weather did not allow hunting, the king had the comedians come to his entertainment from the theaters of the nearby capital.

The creator of the theater genre was the poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The oldest both in the text and in the music traditional Spanish opera Celos aun del aire matan of Calderon and Juan Hidalgo, set to music several works of Calderon.

Revitalization

The zarzuela was soon superseded by the Italian opera buffa and revived only in the second half of the 19th century, emerged as everywhere in Europe " national cultures ". With the premiere of the three-act work Jugar con fuego ( libretto by Ventura de la Vega ) in 1851, which was a resounding success, Francisco Asenjo Barbieri created the " Zarzuela Grande ". The zarzuela was built in 1857 by an association of artists whose goal was the maintenance and renewal of the Zarzuela, Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid.

At the time were quite common Zarzuela in an act experienced an unexpected flowering soon and generally received the name " género chico ". End of the 19th century no less than ten theaters were devoted exclusively to the performance of these works in Madrid. The crowning glory of this musical genre reached Asenjo Barbieri in 1874 with his three-act El Barberillo de Lavapies, a work which also found its way into many other countries.

Important composers were next Asenjo Barieri Emilio Arrieta, Ruperto Chapí y Lorente, Tomás Breton, Federico Chueca (who successfully as any to capture the atmosphere of the popular Madrid), Jerónimo Giménez y Bellido ( mainly used the Andalusian music ), M. Nieto Tomás López Torregrosa and in addition to other well-known names such as Vicente Lleó, Amadeo Vives, Emilio Serrano and Rafael Calleja.

20th century

With the beginning of the 20th century, the Zarzuela of mehraktigen " género grande" moved to the foreground, whose bloom Federico Moreno Torroba, Pablo Luna, Francisco Alonso, Jacinto Guerrero, Rafael Millán, Reveriano Soutullo, Juan Pablo Sorozábal Vert and contributing. Enrique Granados Also, Manuel de Falla and Daniel Alomia Robles wrote zarzuela. It is known Alomia Daniel Robles especially as a composer of the zarzuela El Cóndor Pasa (1913 ) with the famous song of the same title.

The Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the upcoming film translated the Zarzuela enthusiasm to a temporary end. The attempt of the Franco regime, to stylize the Zarzuela national symbol, was rejected. Only with the preparations for the 500th anniversary celebration of the discovery of America (1992 ) was remembered the musical heritage, and various foundations enabled high-quality CD - new recordings.