Despite the fact that all the attempts to institutionalise a National Lyric Theatre on the stage of the opera house in Calle Jovellanos had seen no success at the end of the 1920s in Madrid, Spanish lyric theatre was still living through a period of late blooming, with the works premièring one after another through the 1930s, until they were abruptly cut off by the Civil War. A short while before this historic gap, The tavern girl in the port was staged in Barcelona for the first time — on 6th May, 1936 to be exact — and it arrived later in Madrid, with the conflict now over, on 23rd March, 1940; it is therefore considered to be “the last great zarzuela of history”.
This is one of the most abiding successes of the Basque composer, Pablo Sorozábal, and of 20th century lyric theatre, and it now returns to the stage of the Teatro de la Zarzuela in a new production, the work of a producer of the calibre of Mario Gas, a real connoisseur of the theatrical world of Sorozábal, due to his family connections. His father, Manuel Gas, premièred the work in Madrid and achieved great success with his performance of Simpson.
Furthermore, the production boasts the presence of Maestro Josep Caballé-Domenech, who will bring life to this “evocative score, with its impressionist atmosphere, full of the flavour of the fishing port, of the exotic, of ethnicity, and of modern fusions”. “This Nautical Romance is not a work of realism, nor does it intend to be; it is a theatrical tale, tinged with an aura of legend, or a poetic element, in which a story of smuggling and of love in a coastal village is narrated.” Mario Gas wants to remain true to the work, and wants his performers to help to “tell the story with all the feeling and all the truth that the theatre permits”, because theatrical passion is combined here with popular culture.
El Teatro de la Zarzuela y el Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza organizarán conjuntamente una exposición dedicada a la obra escénica de Ezio Frigerio y Franca Squarciapino. La exposición se presentará durante el mes de mayo en la sede de Madrid del Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.
