Admin

Organization

Conductor

José Miguel Pérez-Sierra

Stage director

Paco Azorín

Set designer

Costume designer

Anna Güell

Video designer

Pedro Chamizo

Lighting designer

Pedro Yagüe

Choreographer

Carlos Martos

Chorus master

Antonio Fauró

Teatro Lírico Nacional de la Zarzuela

Maruxa

Madrid

Spain

Teatro de la Zarzuela

Maruxa Vives

Public

Approved

When Amadeo Vives took over the artistic direction of the new Teatro de la Zarzuela in 1914, following the rebuilding of the theatre after the 1909 fire, plans were made for the première of the new oeuvre by this Catalonian composer, Maruxa, a work exceptional for its musical production, an eclogue with no spoken parts. It was a resounding success and went from there to tour all the stages of Spain, even going as far as New York in 1919 (as was to be the case with The Wild Cat the following year). Maruxa is an example of nineteenth century folkloric nationalism, with all the music seeming to rely on popular tunes with very simple melodies, combining the reigning Verism of the time with a taste for opera and operetta which is made clear in the concept of the spectacle and the vocal treatment of the characters. The action is uninterrupted and the different themes follow one after another with admirable constructive skill. It is, in short, a wellwritten piece of music in which popular culture is particularly noteworthy. From the moment it premièred, Maruxa took up a special place in Spain’s national lyric theatre, in general, and in this theatre in particular.
In this production, the stage manager, Paco Azorín, starts off from the lines of the poetess Rosalía de Castro: … The great joys of the world always wind up as great catastrophes. According to Azorín, “Maruxa is a song to Galicia, Maruxa is Galicia”. So we are in a place between the past world of eclogues and the present world of environmental tragedies; these worlds flow in parallel, with the hand of man always present, for good and for bad. The actions of the most powerful affect ordinary people, who in general try to live in harmony with nature; at the same time the music guides the troubled love story of two simple young people, which progresses on the stage as something credible from a nearby past, a story which is recognisable for us. Everything is fiction, but it does no more than recreate what has been happening in that land over the years, nothing different from what happens over and over again in many corners of the world.

English

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Crew