Género chico
Encyclopedia
Género chico is a Spanish
genre of short light musical plays. It is a subgenre of zarzuela
, the Spanish operetta
. It differs from zarzuela grande and most other opera
forms both by being short and by aiming at a proletarian audience.
(1605 – 1665, reigned from 1621), who introduced the genre to soften his parties at the Palacio de la Zarzuela
. During the reigns of a succession of monarchs, zarzuela, as it became known, passed through numerous highs and lows, alternating between a tendency to create a Spanish national opera and to copy the Italian
form.
In the 19th century, the country's tense political circumstances affected zarzuela. Isabella II
fell from power due to the liberal
revolution of 1868. The country found itself submerged in a crisis at all levels: economic, political, and ideological (with various forms of socialism
on the rise). People were nervous because of all the instability in the country, which increased with the 1870 assassination
of Juan Prim
(president of the regency
council and marshal
of Spain. For economic and other reasons, there was a sharp drop in box-office sales, bankrupting theatres. A good ticket was about fourteen reales
, which the average citizen could not afford for something he or she was not even sure to enjoy. The high price, plus national uncertainty, brought most zarzuela theatres into crisis, often just avoiding bankruptcy.
and José Vallés, three actor
s, had the idea of splitting the afternoon at the theatre into four parts of one hour each, creating the so-called sesiones por horas, or "performances by the hour", which cost barely a real, and were given in down-market theatres. This kept the seats filled, since people came more often, due to low prices. Managers accepted the idea, needing customers.
They wanted to repeat the success of comic theatre, an earlier phenomenon that copied Offenbach
's comic model, and was brought by the theatre manager Arderíus to the Madrid
Variety Theatre (with El Joven Telémaco — "Young Telemachus" — as the main play). Comic plays were nevertheless quickly eclipsed by the expansion of the género chico and disappeared in 1873. The comic model is a short play, with a wacky, unpredictable plot, tending towards caricature and mockery of various topics, such as historical myth
s, royalty, the Army
, politics
, etc. It does so with pleasant, unremarkable music with a certain erotic and exotic tone.
Because of the need for short operetta-like works that could fit into one hour, the first performances were of old plays that were already popular, such as El Maestro de baile ("The Dancing Master", by Luis Misón
, and predating the género chico by many years), or plays like Una vieja ("An Old Woman", Joaquín Romualdo Gaztambide) and El grumete ("The Cabin Boy", Juan Pascual Antonio Arrieta). These plays had originally been considered secondary and were programmed as such, beside larger, more important zarzuelas, but with a change of taste and the tendency towards nationalism and German opera, the Italian taste copied by the zarzuelas would fall out of fashion, whilst the character of these little plays shone for itself. With time, new short plays were written for this short format and jolly style, notably influenced by the comic genre (with suggestive titles such as La hoja de parra ("The Fig Leaf") or Dice el sexto mandamiento ("According to the Sixth Commandment").
It is easy to see that the goal of género chico is purely to entertain the audience. Unlike the serious, dramatic themes and complicated plots in zarzuela mayor, this genre presented simplified farces about everyday topics such as daily life in Madrid. This is why it was so successful with the public: apart from the low price, people could easily follow the plot and identify with the characters.
"), and Fernández Caballero's Château Margaux. The genre was now centred on a model similar to that of contemporary realist literature, mainly with the musical form of lyrical one-act farces.
The definitive accolade that the género chico would receive was with Chueca and Valverde's La Gran Vía, in the summer of 1886. The play, named after a major street that was then under construction through the heart of Madrid, was so successful that it went from the summer theatres to the Apolo, and was repeated several times. It incorporated a series of lively, unrelated one-act farces on current affairs. Federico Chueca
was one of the most prolific and important chico composer-librettists, often collaborating with Joaquín Valverde Durán
. His work includes El año pasado por agua ("Last Year Under Water"), Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente ("Water, Sweets, and Spirits"), perhaps the most popular nowadays, La alegría de la huerta ("The happiness of the orchard"), El arca de Noé ("Noah's Ark"), Los descamisados ("The Shirtless Ones") and more.
Another common model for these works was comparison of two places: De Madrid a París (Chueca y Velarde, "From Madrid to Paris") or De Getafe al paraíso ("From Getafe to Paradise", a two-act zarzuela by Barbieri, Getafe is a town close to Madrid), Cádiz (Valverde). Other important playwrights were Giménez, Joaquín "Quinito" Valverde Sanjuán
(Joaquín Valverde Durán's son), Tomás Lopez Torregrosa (San Antón and El santo de la Isidra ["Isidra's Saint", Isidra being one of the characters]) Fernández Caballero (El dúo de la africana [The Duet from L'Africaine, a reference to the opera by Meyerbeer
], El cabo primero ["The Headman", that is, the person in command], La viejecita ["The Little Old Lady"], and Gigantes y cabezudos ["Giants and cabezudos"]; named after popular Spanish parade disguises), Jerónimo Jiménez (El baile de Luis Alonso ["The Dance of Luis Alonso"] and its sequel La boda de Luis Alonso ["The Marriage of Luis Alonso"]).
One very important auteur was Ruperto Chapí
, who spent his life oscillating between attempts to create a proper Spanish opera, and his modest género chico plays, which included Música Clásica ("Classical Music"), La revoltosa ("The Rebel Girl"), ¡Las doce y media y sereno! ("Half Past Midnight and all is quiet"), y El tambor de granaderos ("The Grenadiers' Drum").
Finally, one of the best-known examples of género chico was La verbena de la Paloma
("The Fair of the Dove", set at a verbena on the night of the Virgin of the Paloma, August 14) http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Oct03/breton.htm;, by composer Tomás Bretón
. This popular piece came about following several years of experiments by its creator.
The género chico was to decline in importance with the turn of the 19th century.
The Apolo was considered the real bastion of the genre, and very famous because of the popularity of its fourth session, "la cuarta de Apolo", which was a night-time performance and was always full of dodgy characters, rogues and tricksters no different from the villains represented on stage.
Outside of the theatres, the género chico was also performed in small cafés, and during the summer cheap stages were set up for plays. Indeed, the arguably most important play in the genre, La Gran Vía, was performed in this way.
, is the direct heir of the comic interludes or brief farces that were previously so popular. These are essentially short, independent pieces, with music and often dance. The género chico evolved from this form towards a relatively faithful portrait of everyday Madrid life, in keeping with the abovementioned Realism. However, unlike Realism, which lingers on the darker and murkier aspects of reality, such as poor, marginal sections of society and the violence running through them, the género chico, whilst dealing with low-class neighbourhoods and uneducated people, concentrated on the jollier, picturesque aspects of Madrid, such as the dialect of the characters, and their most jovial facets.
Moreover, as a unique characteristic of the genre, it is worth noting the constant presence of open-air parties, often at night, which appear at the beginning of the plays in order to situate them and at the end as dénouement.
The género chico was always fiercely current: the actors make references (often in the songs, into which extra verses are added) to the outside world, with this "news" aspect of the play being even more important than the actual plot. There are mentions of politicians, external events and so forth, all as a way of connecting with an audience of humble culture. To this effect, the unity of what is going on in the play is broken, and the spectator is drawn in with the actors, without actually getting on stage.
The text is usually in prose, although some of the first plays alternate between parts in prose and in verse. Moreover, the language used is deliberately vulgar, with fashionable expressions and badly-pronounced foreign words and references. Jokes and other semantic aspects were not originally part of the sainete, but were subsequently incorporated by quinteros. The music was then justified by the text: people dancing in the street and suchlike. There is also theatre within theatre, as well as orchestra in the text. All these features aim fundamentally to create contact with the audience.
The musical part varies greatly in length, the plays with most music being Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente and La verbena de la paloma. Normally, the plays are preceded by a musical prelude, and occasionally have little intervals or music for dancing, and finish with a short finale in which the music from some previous scene is repeated. There are usually passages read over background music, in Singspiel
style.
The music is familiar to the ear, popular and traditional, with popular or fashionable melodies of the time being taken and their lyrics changed. The aim is to have the ditty stick in the audience's mind after they leave the theatre. Furthermore, pronounced, popular rhythms are sought in the dance halls, generally imported but "nationalised", such as the chotis (from the German Schottisch, its ultimate origin being in Scotland
), and many others, such as bolero
s, fandangos, or habanera
s from Latin America, jota
s, seguidilla
s, soleá
s, pasacalles, and waltz
es, polka
s, or mazurcas from Poland
.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
genre of short light musical plays. It is a subgenre of 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...
, the Spanish operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
. It differs from zarzuela grande and most other opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
forms both by being short and by aiming at a proletarian audience.
Historical context
Zarzuela had developed together with Spanish politics, beginning during the reign of Philip IVPhilip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...
(1605 – 1665, reigned from 1621), who introduced the genre to soften his parties at the Palacio de la Zarzuela
Palacio de la Zarzuela
Zarzuela Palace is the principal residence of King Juan Carlos of Spain and Queen Sofia and their family. The palace is on the outskirts of Madrid, near the Royal Palace of El Pardo. The complex also houses the official residence of the Prince and Princess of Asturias in a nearby mansion...
. During the reigns of a succession of monarchs, zarzuela, as it became known, passed through numerous highs and lows, alternating between a tendency to create a Spanish national opera and to copy the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
form.
In the 19th century, the country's tense political circumstances affected zarzuela. Isabella II
Isabella II of Spain
Isabella II was the only female monarch of Spain in modern times. She came to the throne as an infant, but her succession was disputed by the Carlists, who refused to recognise a female sovereign, leading to the Carlist Wars. After a troubled reign, she was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of...
fell from power due to the liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
revolution of 1868. The country found itself submerged in a crisis at all levels: economic, political, and ideological (with various forms of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
on the rise). People were nervous because of all the instability in the country, which increased with the 1870 assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
of Juan Prim
Juan Prim
Don Juan or Joan Prim, Marquis of los Castillejos, Grandee of Spain, Count of Reus, Viscount of the Bruch was a Spanish general and statesman.-Life:...
(president of the regency
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
council and marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
of Spain. For economic and other reasons, there was a sharp drop in box-office sales, bankrupting theatres. A good ticket was about fourteen reales
Spanish real
The real was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century, but changed in value relative to other units introduced...
, which the average citizen could not afford for something he or she was not even sure to enjoy. The high price, plus national uncertainty, brought most zarzuela theatres into crisis, often just avoiding bankruptcy.
The beginning
Against this trend, Juan José Luján, Antonio RiquelmeAntonio Riquelme
Antonio Riquelme was a Spanish film actor. He appeared in over 140 films between 1911 and 1967.-Selected filmography:* Ella, él y sus millones * La Torre de los Siete Jorobados...
and José Vallés, three actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s, had the idea of splitting the afternoon at the theatre into four parts of one hour each, creating the so-called sesiones por horas, or "performances by the hour", which cost barely a real, and were given in down-market theatres. This kept the seats filled, since people came more often, due to low prices. Managers accepted the idea, needing customers.
They wanted to repeat the success of comic theatre, an earlier phenomenon that copied Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's comic model, and was brought by the theatre manager Arderíus to the 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...
Variety Theatre (with El Joven Telémaco — "Young Telemachus" — as the main play). Comic plays were nevertheless quickly eclipsed by the expansion of the género chico and disappeared in 1873. The comic model is a short play, with a wacky, unpredictable plot, tending towards caricature and mockery of various topics, such as historical myth
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
s, royalty, the Army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, etc. It does so with pleasant, unremarkable music with a certain erotic and exotic tone.
Because of the need for short operetta-like works that could fit into one hour, the first performances were of old plays that were already popular, such as El Maestro de baile ("The Dancing Master", by Luis Misón
Luis Misón
Luis Misón was a Spanish composer. Born in Mataró, Barcelona, he composed over 100 tonadillas, including Una mesonera y un arriero , which contains the song "Seguidilla dolorosa de una enamorada" Luis Misón (c. 26 August 1727 – 13 February 1776) was a Spanish composer. Born in Mataró,...
, and predating the género chico by many years), or plays like Una vieja ("An Old Woman", Joaquín Romualdo Gaztambide) and El grumete ("The Cabin Boy", Juan Pascual Antonio Arrieta). These plays had originally been considered secondary and were programmed as such, beside larger, more important zarzuelas, but with a change of taste and the tendency towards nationalism and German opera, the Italian taste copied by the zarzuelas would fall out of fashion, whilst the character of these little plays shone for itself. With time, new short plays were written for this short format and jolly style, notably influenced by the comic genre (with suggestive titles such as La hoja de parra ("The Fig Leaf") or Dice el sexto mandamiento ("According to the Sixth Commandment").
It is easy to see that the goal of género chico is purely to entertain the audience. Unlike the serious, dramatic themes and complicated plots in zarzuela mayor, this genre presented simplified farces about everyday topics such as daily life in Madrid. This is why it was so successful with the public: apart from the low price, people could easily follow the plot and identify with the characters.
Development
The decade of the 1870s saw the genre consolidate itself, with numerous authors publishing, for example Miguel Nieto and his El Gorro Frigio ("The Phrygian CapPhrygian cap
The Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia. In the western provinces of the Roman Empire it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty, perhaps through a confusion with the pileus,...
"), and Fernández Caballero's Château Margaux. The genre was now centred on a model similar to that of contemporary realist literature, mainly with the musical form of lyrical one-act farces.
The definitive accolade that the género chico would receive was with Chueca and Valverde's La Gran Vía, in the summer of 1886. The play, named after a major street that was then under construction through the heart of Madrid, was so successful that it went from the summer theatres to the Apolo, and was repeated several times. It incorporated a series of lively, unrelated one-act farces on current affairs. Federico Chueca
Federico Chueca
Federico Chueca was a Spanish composer of zarzuelas and author of La gran vía along with Joaquín Valverde Durán in 1886. Chueca was one of the most prominent figures of the género chico....
was one of the most prolific and important chico composer-librettists, often collaborating with Joaquín Valverde Durán
Joaquín Valverde Durán
Joaquín Valverde Durán was a Spanish composer, conductor and flautist. As a composer he is known for his collaborations with other composers on zarzuelas...
. His work includes El año pasado por agua ("Last Year Under Water"), Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente ("Water, Sweets, and Spirits"), perhaps the most popular nowadays, La alegría de la huerta ("The happiness of the orchard"), El arca de Noé ("Noah's Ark"), Los descamisados ("The Shirtless Ones") and more.
Another common model for these works was comparison of two places: De Madrid a París (Chueca y Velarde, "From Madrid to Paris") or De Getafe al paraíso ("From Getafe to Paradise", a two-act zarzuela by Barbieri, Getafe is a town close to Madrid), Cádiz (Valverde). Other important playwrights were Giménez, Joaquín "Quinito" Valverde Sanjuán
Joaquín Valverde Sanjuán
Joaquín "Quinito" Valverde Sanjuán was a Spanish composer of zarzuelas. He was the son of Joaquín Valverde Durán, also a zarzuela composer, and was usually called Quinito Valverde to distinguish him from his father...
(Joaquín Valverde Durán's son), Tomás Lopez Torregrosa (San Antón and El santo de la Isidra ["Isidra's Saint", Isidra being one of the characters]) Fernández Caballero (El dúo de la africana [The Duet from L'Africaine, a reference to the opera by Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
], El cabo primero ["The Headman", that is, the person in command], La viejecita ["The Little Old Lady"], and Gigantes y cabezudos ["Giants and cabezudos"]; named after popular Spanish parade disguises), Jerónimo Jiménez (El baile de Luis Alonso ["The Dance of Luis Alonso"] and its sequel La boda de Luis Alonso ["The Marriage of Luis Alonso"]).
One very important auteur was Ruperto Chapí
Ruperto Chapí
Ruperto Chapí y Lorente was a Spanish composer, and co-founder of the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores.Chapí was born at Villena, the son of a Valencian barber. He trained in his home town and Madrid...
, who spent his life oscillating between attempts to create a proper Spanish opera, and his modest género chico plays, which included Música Clásica ("Classical Music"), La revoltosa ("The Rebel Girl"), ¡Las doce y media y sereno! ("Half Past Midnight and all is quiet"), y El tambor de granaderos ("The Grenadiers' Drum").
Finally, one of the best-known examples of género chico was La verbena de la Paloma
La verbena de la Paloma
La verbena de la Paloma is a very successful 1894 zarzuela with libretto by Ricardo de la Vega and music by Tomás Bretón. It was adapted for the cinema in 1921 by José Buche, in 1935 by Benito Perojo and in 1963 by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia....
("The Fair of the Dove", set at a verbena on the night of the Virgin of the Paloma, August 14) http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Oct03/breton.htm;, by composer Tomás Bretón
Tomás Bretón
Tomás Bretón was a Spanish musician and composer.-Biography:Tomás Bretón was born in Salamanca.He gained renown as a result of the success of his zarzuela La verbena de la Paloma, although other were well-received works, included his operas Los amantes de Teruel, based on the eponymous legend,...
. This popular piece came about following several years of experiments by its creator.
The género chico was to decline in importance with the turn of the 19th century.
Performance venues
The idea of performances by the hour began in cheap theatres, the Teatro del Recreo being the first. Whilst the critics were harsh with the genre, it was a great success with the public and was adopted by a few more theatres, to the point where it took over the Variedades theater, which the decline of comic opera had left free, and which was already a venue of some note. But the most important venue associated with the género chico is the Teatro Apolo or "Apollo Theatre", opened in 1873, which, following the crisis in zarzuela grande, began to put on género chico, to overwhelming popular success.The Apolo was considered the real bastion of the genre, and very famous because of the popularity of its fourth session, "la cuarta de Apolo", which was a night-time performance and was always full of dodgy characters, rogues and tricksters no different from the villains represented on stage.
Outside of the theatres, the género chico was also performed in small cafés, and during the summer cheap stages were set up for plays. Indeed, the arguably most important play in the genre, La Gran Vía, was performed in this way.
Lyrical farce as form of género chico
The main model for género chico is the sainete lírico or one-act lyrical farce, thanks to the successful La canción de la Lola ("Lola's Song") by Chueca and Valverde, in 1880. Although other genres are also utilised, the most important plays follow this model. The sainete, established in its definitive form by Ramón de la CruzRamón de la Cruz
Ramón de la Cruz , Spanish neoclassical dramatist, was born in Madrid.He was a clerk in the ministry of finance, and is the author of three hundred sainetes, little farcical sketches of city life, written to be played between the acts of a longer play. He published a selection in ten volumes...
, is the direct heir of the comic interludes or brief farces that were previously so popular. These are essentially short, independent pieces, with music and often dance. The género chico evolved from this form towards a relatively faithful portrait of everyday Madrid life, in keeping with the abovementioned Realism. However, unlike Realism, which lingers on the darker and murkier aspects of reality, such as poor, marginal sections of society and the violence running through them, the género chico, whilst dealing with low-class neighbourhoods and uneducated people, concentrated on the jollier, picturesque aspects of Madrid, such as the dialect of the characters, and their most jovial facets.
Moreover, as a unique characteristic of the genre, it is worth noting the constant presence of open-air parties, often at night, which appear at the beginning of the plays in order to situate them and at the end as dénouement.
Libretto
The plot is very simple, and sometimes barely holds up the play, which then relies on the scenes it creates. In the majority of cases, it consists of a simple love story with the same basic structure: a couple is in love but some outside difficulty prevents them from consummating their love (always, by marrying each other in a happy ending); this difficulty is overcome and the story ends with a public dénouement, a happy ending and an implicit or explicit moral (as well as asking the audience's favour at the very end). Beside this structure, stereotyped characters from the Madrid scene are brought in (Madrid is typically the locale for these plays): the cheeky chappy, the colourful anarchist who avoids making provocative comments, the idler, the scrounger, the flirt, the sententious old geezer. There usually aren't any educated characters; instead, popular folk wisdom is represented.The género chico was always fiercely current: the actors make references (often in the songs, into which extra verses are added) to the outside world, with this "news" aspect of the play being even more important than the actual plot. There are mentions of politicians, external events and so forth, all as a way of connecting with an audience of humble culture. To this effect, the unity of what is going on in the play is broken, and the spectator is drawn in with the actors, without actually getting on stage.
The text is usually in prose, although some of the first plays alternate between parts in prose and in verse. Moreover, the language used is deliberately vulgar, with fashionable expressions and badly-pronounced foreign words and references. Jokes and other semantic aspects were not originally part of the sainete, but were subsequently incorporated by quinteros. The music was then justified by the text: people dancing in the street and suchlike. There is also theatre within theatre, as well as orchestra in the text. All these features aim fundamentally to create contact with the audience.
Music
There is disagreement regarding the relevance of the music itself. While some writers consider it always subordinate to the text in terms of importance, others such as Ramón Barce have theorised that the music comes first in the composition of the work; incoherent texts, called monstruos ("monsters"), merely gave the librettist a rhythm to which he must fit his words; these words were then often inexpertly fiddled with by the composer). In any case, the music does not usually correspond closely to the action, but rather is something in the background, sometimes coming in unexpectedly.The musical part varies greatly in length, the plays with most music being Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente and La verbena de la paloma. Normally, the plays are preceded by a musical prelude, and occasionally have little intervals or music for dancing, and finish with a short finale in which the music from some previous scene is repeated. There are usually passages read over background music, in Singspiel
Singspiel
A Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
style.
The music is familiar to the ear, popular and traditional, with popular or fashionable melodies of the time being taken and their lyrics changed. The aim is to have the ditty stick in the audience's mind after they leave the theatre. Furthermore, pronounced, popular rhythms are sought in the dance halls, generally imported but "nationalised", such as the chotis (from the German Schottisch, its ultimate origin being in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
), and many others, such as bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
s, fandangos, or habanera
Habanera (music)
The habanera is a genre of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the contradanza. It has a characteristic "Habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics...
s from Latin America, jota
Jota
Jota may refer to:*the name of J, the tenth letter of the Spanish alphabet and Portuguese alphabet*Jota , a type of Spanish music and dance*Jota, a bean-sauerkraut soup of Slovenian/Croatian origin*Laverda Jota, a motorcycle...
s, seguidilla
Seguidilla
The seguidilla is a quick, triple-time old Castillian folksong and dance form. The song is generally in the major key and often begins on an off-beat...
s, soleá
Soleá
"Soleares" is one of the most basic forms or "palos" of Flamenco music, probably originated around Cádiz or Seville in Andalusia, the most southern region of Spain...
s, pasacalles, and waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es, polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
s, or mazurcas from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
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See also
- ZarzuelaZarzuelaZarzuela is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance...
- OperettaOperettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
- OperaOperaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
- Culture of SpainCulture of SpainThe culture of Spain is based on a variety of influences.The Visigothic Kingdom left a sense of a united Christian Hispania that was going to be welded in the Reconquista. Muslim influences were strong during the period of 711 AD to the 15th century, especially linguistically...
- SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
- :Category:Spanish-language operas