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A theater for a genre... La Zarzuela

Since its creation, the Teatro de la Zarzuela has been the meeting point for different generations of the public and for all those who are interested in Hispanic culture. In this venue, where the music of the Spanish lyrical genre has always been cultivated, the best works of its repertoire continue to be sung and heard and premiered what is already the zarzuela of the s. XXI.
The origins of the modern zarzuela were soon linked to those of its first and only venue created exclusively for the genre: the Teatro de La Zarzuela; whose history dates back to the 1950s, when the main promoters of the new genre: Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, Joaquín Gaztambide, Rafael Hernando, José Inzenga, Francisco Salas, Luis Olona and Cristóbal Oudrid, who had established the Musical Artistic Society, They decide to offer the public a modern and comfortable place -in tune with the new atmosphere that prevails in the city- next to the central street of Alcalá.
It is in this setting of the Jovellanos square where Gaztambide's oath is heard for the first time; The Diamonds in the Crown, Bread and Bulls and El barberillo de Lavapiés by Asenjo Barbieri; Giants and Bigheads and La Viejecita by Fernández Caballero; The Witch, The Small Homeland and The King Who Raged by Chapí; Chueca's batting; Bohemians, Maruxa and La villana de Vives; or El Caserío by Jesús Guridi, among many other authors and titles. During the second half of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century, the history of the genre and the coliseum is written by the musicians and poets, as well as by the actors and singers who, day by day, with their continuous premieres and reruns, keep the zarzuela alive. in his theatre.
Starting in 1984, the Ministry of Culture, as the absolute owner of the building, and through the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM), prepares the first lyrical seasons, and in the absence of an opera house and an auditorium, hosts dance, flamenco, opera and zarzuela shows alike. In 1994 the coliseum was declared a National Monument, and four years later, after the last architectural reforms, the site recovered the original purpose for which it was created in 1856: the Spanish opera.
Today, the Teatro de la Zarzuela is a public theater, a treasure that belongs to us and that aspires for everyone to feel as their own: to inhabit it, enjoy it and transform it.
This theater is today the representative par excellence of the musical legacy of all the Spains that inhabit Spain. It has always maintained its maxim of being a theater for a genre and a genre for a theater. Because the zarzuela, that beautiful and fun artistic expression, is alive and still having fun.

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