Operetta
The zarzuela is a form of theatrical music or scenic musical genre that emerged in Spain that is distinguished mainly by containing instrumental parts, vocal parts (solos, duets, choirs...) and spoken parts, although there are exceptions in which the latter, the spoken parts, are completely absent. The term "zarzuela", applied to the musical and theatrical genre, comes from the Palacio de la Zarzuela, a Spanish royal palace located near Madrid and where the theater that housed the first performances of the genre was located.
In such a reducing and erroneous way, zarzuela has been assimilated to operetta, a genre of French origin, mainly because it contains spoken or recited parts, thus claiming that “zarzuela is the Spanish operetta”. But the zarzuela is historically much earlier and this characteristic was already found in other European genres, also much earlier than the operetta and not necessarily earlier than the zarzuela. Actually, in that sense, the zarzuela would be more like the Spanish equivalent of the French opéra-comique or the German singspiel. These genres from France and the Germanic world are characterized by producing theatrical and musical performances in which, unlike opera itself, music alternates with spoken or declaimed parts. Mozart's The Magic Flute, for example, is not an opera but a singspiel and, therefore, it makes as much sense to say that "zarzuela is the Spanish operetta" as to say that «the singspiel is the Viennese zarzuela». Despite everything, there have been zarzuelas of the grande genre that, because they do not have spoken parts, are similar to the French grand opéra or the Italian opera seria. Therefore, the zarzuela would be defined in a more appropriate and simpler way, as the properly Hispanic lyrical and stage art, because although it was born in Spain, shortly after its appearance it spread to almost the entire Hispanic world.
History
It seems that the first authors who contributed to this new style of musical theater were Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca. According to research, Calderón de la Barca is the first playwright to adopt the term zarzuela for his play entitled El golfo de las sirenas that premiered in 1657 and depicted the life of a young adventurer. that he was embarking on a long journey full of mysteries and dangers.
Lope de Vega wrote a play entitled The jungle without love, comedy with orchestra. According to the author it was "a new thing in Spain." In the prologue of the 1629 edition it is read: «The instruments occupied the first part of the theater, without being seen, to whose harmony the figures sang the verses in that leafy artificial jungle, making admiration of the same composition of music, complaints, anger and other affections…». However, only enough music remains in the work Los celos hacen estrellas by Juan Hidalgo de Polanco and Juan Vélez de Guevara, which premiered in 1672. With this work one can have an idea of how was this genre in the XVII century and how it made a difference for the following doctrines of the genre.
With the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, from the early XVIII century, Italian styles became fashionable in various artistic manifestations, including music and dance in the centers of coexistence of the common people. The zarzuelas became works stylistically similar to Italian operas, such as the works of Antonio de Literes. But when the reign of Carlos III arrived, a lover of good theatrical performances, political problems caused a series of revolts against the Italian ministers, leading to the seizure of town halls and frequent riots (such as the Esquilache riot)., a fact that had an impact on theatrical performances and once again returned to the popular Spanish tradition represented, on this occasion, by the farces of Don Ramón de la Cruz, whose first work of this genre performed was Las segadoras de Vallecas (1768), with music by Rodríguez de Hita.
The rise of zarzuela and its fame came in the XIX century, from 1839, with various musicians among which Francisco Barbieri and Emilio Arrieta stand out. Many times the success of the work was due to one or more songs that the public learns and makes known orally to others through acoustic performances, as was the case with cuplés. The structure of the work remained the same: spoken numbers, sung, choruses, which are seasoned with comic scenes or love content that are generally performed by a duo. The costumbrista and regionalist genre abounded and the scripts included all kinds of idioms, regionalisms and popular jargon to ensure that the performance was a success.
Unlike the Spanish scenes, set in the Court or in villages, the Cuban zarzuela depicted images and colonial customs, using the soft musical cadences that give Cuba so much recognition worldwide. A popular theme was the rich gentleman, son of the mill owner, who, although engaged to a young woman of his class, courted the young mulatto, smooth-talking and daring, with whom he had love affairs, promising to marry her. The ending was usually gruesome, with disappointment, passion, jealousy, and tears. These impressive finales did not detract one iota from the beauty of the music, rather they emphasized the skills and histrionic and musical talents of the artists of the theatrical and musical interpretation of the Divine Master.
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Towards the middle of the century, customs, popular, comic themes and Spanish dances were adopted; some respected musicians from this period are Emilio Arrieta, Federico Chueca, Fernández Caballero, Tomás Bretón and Ruperto Chapí.
After the Revolution of 1868, the country entered a deep crisis (especially economic) that was also reflected in the theater: the theatrical performance became expensive entertainment, within the reach of few pockets. It was then that the Teatro Variedades in Madrid had the idea of reducing the duration of the performance, to lower the price of the show: the theatrical function, which until then had lasted about four hours, was reduced to one hour, which was called theater for hours. The innovation was a great success and the composers of zarzuelas adapted to the new format, creating much shorter works whose true triumph took ten years, until 1879. Zarzuelas with a single act were classified as género chico and those with two or more acts, large genre. The zarzuela grande was kept at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, although with little success and few audiences. Despite this, in 1873 a new Apolo theater was opened in Madrid, which shared the failures with the previous one, for wanting to make a place for drama and comedy, until it had no choice but to change the show to the small genre in the one who triumphed for decades.
20th century
In the first years of the XX century, works of higher musical quality were composed, such as El punao de rosas, La alegría del batallón, El trust de los tenorios in the genre chico and Doña Francisquita by Amadeo Vives, La calesera or, a little earlier (in 1898), Gigantes y Cabezudos by the maestro Manuel Fernández Caballero, who knew how to win over critics very well by composing a very "tasteful work popular".
At the same time, performances known as magazines began to be called intimate genre. They are musical works with a connection to some ideas of the zarzuela but lighter and more daring, with stage numbers that, at the time, were described as "green", that is, rogue for today's times, which spoke or put on the table the evolution of society on sexual themes and with lyrics with double intentions, in almost all of them there are "cuplés". One of these works was Pharaoh's Court, based on the French operetta Madame Putiphar. The music became so popular that some of its numbers ended up being veritable couplets spread by the public.
In the first third of the century, the zarzuela continued with productions that sometimes conformed to the musical structure of an Italian opera, thanks to composers such as Francisco Alonso, José Padilla, Pablo Sorozábal, Federico Moreno Torroba, Tomas Barrera Saavedra, Rafael Calleja, Pablo Luna, José Serrano Simeón and Jacinto Guerrero.
The Civil War opens a disastrous parenthesis that ends up aggravating the same problem as in previous years, and in the postwar period the decline is almost total. There are hardly any new authors of this genre and the works are not renewed because the premieres do not come together as they did in other times. On the other hand, the pre-existing zarzuela is difficult and expensive to perform and only appears sporadically, seasonally, for a few days or weeks.
Zarzuela outside of Spain
The zarzuela was cultivated with many successes when moving to Cuba, where the composers Gonzalo Roig and Ernesto Lecuona, and Rodrigo Prats, Eliseo Grenet; to Argentina, in whose capital up to 3 theaters La verbena de la Paloma was performed the year it premiered, and to Venezuela, with José Ángel Montero and Pedro Elías Gutiérrez.
In Argentina, the zarzuela, the sainete and the tango formed a new peculiar genre of great popular success known as sainete criollo.
In the Philippines, the popularity of zarzuelas yielded to the indigenization of this genre. During North American colonization, sarswelas (the indigenous form) were a major way of showing resistance to foreign forces. Honorata 'Atang' de la Rama was known as the Queen of the Philippine Sarswela. This art form is also called zarzuelta in various parts of the country.
Expansion in Latin America
The 19th and 20th centuries were times of great production of zarzuelas in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico and Argentina, from which came great works that are still presented internationally such as Leonor's Birthday, by Montero, which was the story of an older woman who, upon discovering her husband's betrayal, sought a better life in the big city; La cuarta plana by Carlos Curti with the participation of Esperanza Iris; María la O by Ernesto Lecuona, and La mediana naranja by Ibero-Argentine Antonio Reynoso.
Argentina: zarzuela, Creole farce and tango
In Argentina, zarzuela began to spread in the second half of the XIX century, at the same time that the tango, from the fusion of various local styles, of African, gaucho and indigenous origin, and others contributed by immigrant contingents from different parts of the world that were arriving in large numbers in the country.
In Spain, as a specific genre, it was very popular until the second half of the XX century. Several Spanish musicians composed zarzuelas, such as Lópe de Vega with Amalia, La Pericona and Madame Lynch. Antonio Videgain García, who lived there, composed some works of this type and Francisco Alonso, for his part, composed Manuelita Rosas (1941), a zarzuela set in Argentina.
But the zarzuela was also an important influence in the gestation of tango. In fact, the first time the word "tango" to name the musical genre, it was in a zarzuela, Justicia Criolla by Ezequiel Soria.
But the zarzuela was also one of the sources of tango, giving rise to the tango "azarzuelado", at the same time that it influenced the creation of a dramatic-musical genre from Argentina, which adopted the name of "criollo sainete", also exceptionally designated as "zarzuela criolla", which had enormous popular success, with outstanding works such as El conventillo de la Paloma by Alberto Vacarezza.
Sarsuwelas from the Philippines
Zarzuela arrived in the Philippines in 1879 or 1880, when the group led by Dario de Céspedes presented the Game of Fire in Manila. Since then, various Filipino groups began to make their own zarzuelas in various indigenous languages. The most popular were written in Tagalog, Pampangueño, Ilocano, Cebuano, Panayano and Samareño.
The first known sarswela in Samareño is An Pagtabang ni San Miguel (The Help of Saint Michael) by Norberto Romualdez, while Ing Managpe by Mariano Proceso Pabalan Byron is the first in pampangueño. The national hero José Rizal, a musician as well as a writer, is the author of the zarzuela called Junto al Pásig.
With the arrival of vaudeville, sarswelas lost their popularity, but they renewed their success with the advent of cinema. Many sarswelas, mainly the Tagalog ones, were filmed for the cinema.
Discography
Starting in 1950, zarzuela was able to survive in popular taste thanks to discography, a field that has been booming ever since. A series of highly successful recordings were produced, most of them conducted by the Spanish musician Ataúlfo Argenta, with the collaboration of highly respected musicians such as Mary Carmen Alvira or Julián Parera. The best voices of the moment appeared on these records, world-famous singers who were professionally dedicated to opera and recitals. Voices like those of Teresa Berganza, Ana María Iriarte, Carlos Munguía, etc., participated in the recordings. The choirs of the Orfeón Donostiarra and Coro de Cantores de Madrid were added, contributing to give them a great quality. But on the other hand, it clouded the memory of the singers at the premiere, who began to be forgotten as participants in the success of those works.
After the death of Ataúlfo Argenta, the directors Indalecio Cisneros, García Asensio, and others joined. There were even rare recordings because they were directed by the author of the work himself for the reason that I previously argued, as was the case with Pablo Sorozábal and Federico Moreno Torroba. At this stage, new and great established voices participated in the recordings: Monserrat Caballé, Alfredo Kraus, Plácido Domingo, Juan Pons, etc.
Interest in gender
During the 1960s, Radio Televisión Española began producing a series of zarzuelas performed by well-known actors of the moment, such as José Moreno, Antonio Casal, Juan Luis Galiardo, María Cuadra and María José Alfonso), with good musical directions, normally in charge of Federico Moreno Torroba, and using voices or covering their deficiencies with dubbing by lyrical artists of recognized prestige such as Alfredo Kraus or Luis Sagi Vela for the vocal numbers, recorded with the playback technique.. Many of them were directed by Juan de Orduña and natural settings were used, where possible, for their recording, achieving works of notable quality, especially in the musical section. With this system were recorded, for example:
- The riotous (1969), with José Moreno and Elisa Ramírez as actors.
- Bohemians (1969), performed by Antonio Durán and Dianik Zurakowska.
- The song of oblivion (1969), with Juan Luis Galiardo and María Cuadra.
- The host of the Sevillian (1970), with Rubén Rojo, María José Alfonso and María Silva.
- The farm (1972), performed by Armando Calvo and Paca Gabaldón.
In the last years of the decade from 1970 to 1980, interest in zarzuela revived, especially its music. Throughout Europe, a renaissance of love for lyrical performances was unleashed, especially among the youth. This renaissance has repercussions in Spain, which shows great interest in zarzuela. The businessman José Tamayo puts on a theatrical show of great production long forgotten, Antología de la zarzuela, representing the most popular fragments of the modern zarzuela repertoire with first-rate singers, a production that is maintained for decades renewing the numbers included. The record companies offer collections whose records are accompanied by a booklet containing the synopsis of the work and some information about the author. Radio and television devote several slots to their programming. The programs that TVE offered under the title Antología de la Zarzuela, based on playbacks of mid-century recordings performed in a TV studio with costumes and dancing, enjoyed a large audience. Regarding the most recent years, according to data from the SGAE in 2006, zarzuela experienced an increase of more than 4%. In addition, the Fundación Autor has joined forces with the Fundación de la Zarzuela to promote zarzuela among new public with the projects Zarzuela en feminine, with the sopranos Isabel Segarra and Sonia Martínez, presented in Málaga in 2014 and Zarzuela en masculine, in production.