Doña Francisquita is a zarzuela

Zarzuela

Zarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...

 in three acts composed by Amadeo Vives

Amadeo Vives

Amadeu Vives i Roig was a Catalan Spanish musical composer, creator of over a hundred stage works. He is best known for Doña Francisquita, which Christopher Webber has praised for its "easy lyricism, fluent orchestration and colourful evocation of 19th Century Madrid—not to mention its memorable...

 to a Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 libretto by Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández Shaw and based on Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega

Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...

's play La discreta enamorada (The Ingenious Lover). With its colourful score and comic story of multiple love triangles which ends happily for the young lovers, Francisquita and Fernando, Doña Francisquita is considered a classic of the zarzuela genre, and Vives' masterpiece.

Performance history

Doña Francisquita premiered at the Teatro Apolo in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 on 17 October 1923. It became very popular, receiving over 5000 performances throughout the Spanish-speaking world in the years immediately following its premiere. The work is still regularly performed in Spain and Latin America, but like most works in this genre, has only rarely been seen elsewhere. It was, however, performed in French translation at Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....

, Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 and Vichy

Vichy

Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...

 in 1934 and received a major production at Washington National Opera

Washington National Opera

The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...

 in 1998.

There have been several film adaptations of Doña Francisquita, the most recent of which was directed by Ladislao Vajda and shown at the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 in 1953 with Mirtha Legrand and Armando Calvo in the leading roles. The Act 1 soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 aria

Aria

An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

 "Canción del ruiseñor" ("The Song of the Nightingale") and the Act 2 tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 aria "Por el humo se sabe donde está el fuego" ("We know where the fire is by the smoke") have been individually recorded or sung in recitals by many opera singers from Spanish-speaking countries.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, October 17, 1923 (Conductor: )
Francisquita	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Mari Isaura
Fernando Soler	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Juan de Casenave
Aurora la Beltrana, an actress	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Cora Raga
Doña Francisca, Francisquita's mother	contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...	Felisa Lázaro
Don Mathias, Fernando's father	bass Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...	Ricardo Güell
Cardona, Fernando's friend	tenor	Antonio Palacio
Lorenzo Pérez, Aurora's lover	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Juan Frontera

Synopsis

Time: 19th century

Place: Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 during the Carnival

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

 season.

Francisquita is in love with student and would-be poet, Fernando. He, however, is infatuated with the fiery actress Aurora la Beltrana, who in turn is the lover of Lorenzo Pérez. When Francisquita tries to flirt with Fernando, he ignores her. His friend Cardona takes him to task and suggests that he would be happier with her than Aurora. Francisquita is then wooed by the Don Mathias, Fernando's father, in the presence of Doña Francisca, Francisquita's mother. At first, Doña Francisca mistakenly believes that she is the object of Don Mathias' affections. Francisquita pretends to accept the elderly man's advances, hoping to make Fernando jealous.

At the urging of Cardona, Fernando also makes advances to Francisquita hoping to make Aurora jealous. Fernando's passion for Francisquita starts to grow. He is horrified that she might marry his father and become Doña Francisquita. He tells Aurora that she no longer has any power over him, which at last piques her interest in him. But it is too late, he is now completely in love with Francisquita. All is resolved after a series of misunderstandings and machinations involving Cardona disguising himself as a woman; Aurora's lover, Lorenzo Perez, challenging Fernando to a duel; and rumours that Fernando plans to marry Francisquita's mother to the subsequent horror of Don Mathias. Don Mathias eventually realizes he is too old for Francisquita and gives his blessing to the young couple. In the finale all celebrate the forthcoming wedding of Francisquita and Fernando by singing "Canción de la Juventud" ("Song of Youth"), a hymn to the youthful spirit of Madrid.

Recordings

• Amadeo Vives: Doña Francisquita - Maria Bayo (Francisquita), Alfredo Kraus
  Alfredo Kraus
  Alfredo Kraus Trujillo was a distinguished Spanish tenor of partly Austrian descent, particularly known for the artistry he brought to opera's bel canto roles...
  
   (Fernando), Raquel Pierotti (Aurora); Orchestra Sinfonica of Tenerife; Antoni Ros-Marbà
  Antoni Ros-Marbà
  Antoni Ros-Marbà is a Spanish conductor from Catalonia. He began his musical education at the Conservatori Superior de Música de Barcelona...
  
   (conductor). Label: Naïve Classique.
• Amadeo Vives: Doña Francisquita - Ainhoa Arteta (Francisquita), Plácido Domingo
  Plácido Domingo
  Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
  
  (Fernando), Linda Mirabal (Aurora); Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla; Miguel Roa (conductor). Label: Sony Classical.

External links

• Christopher Webber, Detailed synopsis and analysis of Doña Francisquita on Zarzuela.net