[The Silver Age. Spanish Diptych]
GOYESCAS and EL RETABLO DE MAESE PEDRO
GOYESCAS o Los majos enamorados
[GOYESCAS or The gallants in love]
Opera in three tableaux by Enrique Granados to a libretto by Fernando Periquet
Premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House of Nueva York on the 28th of January 1916.
EL RETABLO DE MAESE PEDRO
Opera for puppets in one act with music and libretto by Manuel de Falla. Musical and theatrical adaptation of an episode of El ingenioso caballero don Quijote de La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes.
Premiered as a concert version at the Teatro San Fernando of Seville on the 23rd of March, 1923. The staged premier took place on the 25th of June, 1923 at the Palace of the Princess of Polignac in Paris.
Musical production Teatro Cervantes de Málaga
Stage coproduction Ópera de Oviedo and Teatro Cervantes de Málaga
Goyescas
Rosario Raquel Lojendio
Pepa Mónica Redondo
Fernando Enrique Ferrer
Paquiro Damián del Castillo
El retablo de maese Pedro
Don Quijote Joan Martín-Royo
Maese Pedro José Luis Sola
Trujamán Lidia Vinyes-Curtis
Orquesta Filarmónica de Málaga
Coro Titular del Teatro Cervantes de Málaga - Intermezzo
Conductor José María Moreno
Stage direction, stage space and dramaturgy Francisco López
Choir direction Pablo Moras
Choreography Olga Pericet
Costume design Jesús Ruiz
2.10 h (w/intermission)
Coproduced by the Opera of Oviedo and the Teatro Cervantes of Malaga, these two stage productions have been titled La edad de plata. Díptico español by the stage director Francisco Lopez as a clear tribute to some of the artists, intellectuals and literati of the first third of the twentieth century who played a leading role in one of the stellar moments of Spanish culture, and whose creative refuge was the city of Paris.
Goyescas o Los majos enamorados
Everything revolves around two women and two men, characters who recall those of Bizet’s Carmen. Fernando, an aristocrat, and Paquiro, a bullfighter, vie for the love of the uninhibited Rosario. Pepa is the matador's accomplice to win the young woman’s heart. The plot becomes so complicated that the two lovers challenge each other to a duel.
When Granados composed his famous series of pieces for piano, called Goyescas, he was inspired by one of Goya’s amiable and optimistic paintings of majos and manolas in a luminous and idealised Madrid. Four years later, the composer asked Fernando Periquet to convert this material into an opera of the same name. In fact, Granados only orchestrated and vocalised the piano pieces, giving them a successive order in accordance with the libretto.
With very refined instrumentation and considerable dramatic entity, the 'Song of the Nightingale' and the interlude are two of the opera’s very well-known passages.
El retablo de maese Pedro
Maese Pedro arrives at the same inn in La Mancha de Aragón where Don Quixote and Sancho are resting. The episode that Maese Pedro represents in his little theatre is a theme of chivalry from Spanish ballads: the rescue of Melisendra, held captive in Almanzor's prison in Sansueña (Sarragosa), by her husband Don Gaiferos. Don Quixote follows the performance calmly and attentively, commenting on the chivalrous scenes that attract him so much. But at the start of the pursuit of the lovers by the Moors, fearful that they are going to be captured, he violently ‘enters’ the plot and destroys the whole puppet troupe.
El retablo de maese Pedro, with music and libretto by Manuel de Falla, is based on Chapter 26 of the second part of Don Quixote. Musically, in this work the composer relinquishes his reiterated Andalusian colour to create a new neoclassical language, nonetheless with national references to the historical music of the Golden Age.
