Madrid Chronicle

Teatro de la Zarzuela
(Madrid, 2024-25)

a letter from Miccone

Dear Mr. Editor,

It has been a long time (too long) since I sent you one of my impertinent letters. The truth is that the start of the 2024/25 Madrid season did not enthuse me, and at my age I have to think hard about whether the trip is worth it. It is ironic, because the scarcity of stage treats contrasts greatly with the plethora of phonographic ones. I need only remind you of the release during the last months of those zarzuela recital discs by Lisette Oropesa and Juan Diego Flórez; the exciting Mirentxu by Guridi from Ibs Classical; Nebra’s Venus y Adonis in an exquisite realisation from Los Elementos, and the latest CDs published by the tireless Ensamble de Madrid.

Meanwhile, at the publicly-funded Teatro de la Zarzuela, a season has been trundling along consisting of Marina, La del manojo de rosas, La tabernera del puerto, La corte de Faraón, and a double bill of La revoltosa with El bateo. This list, crudely translated into operatic language, would amount to something like a season in which Faust, Turandot, Tosca, The Merry Widow and finally ‘Cav and Pag’ were announced … And I think I am being generous.

Does no one in the Ministry of Culture or at INAEM realise that Teatro de la Zarzuela cannot afford the luxury of such a season? If the only objective was a run on the box office, they could have had it even easier – why not simply schedule Nuria Castejón’s La verbena de la Paloma and Ignacio García’s La rosa del azafrán every Monday to Sunday, and ensure a packed theatre for the whole year?

But back to this season: two old friends at the entry to Calle Jovellanos confirmed that (surprise, surprise!) Bárbara Lluch’s new production of Marina was certainly nothing special, and was only worthwhile for the singing of Marina Monzó and Pietro Spagnoli. Let’s not forget that the previous production of Arrieta’s ópera española, by Ignacio García, was born as recently as 2013, and was revived in 2017! Frankly, if at least the original score of the work had been revived, in its zarzuela version with spoken dialogue, there would have been some point to the exercise. But spending good money yet again on this dead operatic duck in three acts???

I scented a bad joke in the revival, for the sixth time in Madrid, of Emilio Sagi’s production of La del manojo de rosas. Premiered in 1990, this production was exhumed again at the Zarzuela in 1991, 1999, 2004, 2014 and 2020. But no, it’s no joke. If this was about celebrating Sagi, doesn’t anyone remember that his equally excellent productions of La Parranda and La Generala have never been revived once? And speaking of Sorozábal and his sainete’s siblings: couldn’t Don Manolito, which hasn’t been performed here for decades, have been given a turn? Well, as my Spanish friends say, ‘if you don’t want broth, have two cups’; so in June along will come yet another revival of La tabernera del puerto directed by Mario Gas, premiered in 2018 and already revived in 2021.

On this ‘strada polverosa’ (as Puccini’s Des Grieux sings as he stumbles through the Louisiana desert) an evening of La revoltosa with El bateo is like an oasis! Not because we haven’t seen them regularly on Jovellanos Street – La revoltosa most recently with Proyecto Zarza in 2017 and El bateo in 2008, coupled with De Madrid a París – but because during the Bianco Years double bills of género chico were banned from the programming, and the repertoire itself was consigned to the arrangements and free versions of Proyecto Zarza. Exceptions to the rule were the aforementioned La verbena de la Paloma and the shredded corpse of La Tempranica directed by Giancarlo del Monaco, coupled with La vida breve in 2020.

So let’s talk about La corte de Faraón, that irresistible biblical operetta that – if only to see it in optimal conditions – justifies my journey from Venice. The production is an old Sagi job (him again!) from the Arriaga in Bilbao, and my Madrid friends had already seen it at Teatros del Canal in 2014. To be honest, it is a rip-off to present a guaranteed sell-out run of the trusty warhorse without taking advantage of the Theatre’s resources to revive another Lleó zarzuela alongside it ... but anyway, that would be a dream of rosy Utopia.

Sagi’s method was to copy the shameless, ultra-queer style that Barrie Kosky was already developing in his operetta shows at Berlin’s Komische Oper. The passage of over a decade has given the production a twist that has something outlandish about it – a gay whimsicality almost of the ‘90s’, and one that certainly continues to delight the Zarzuela’s general public of old ladies and young queens (I count myself in both categories!) I would dare say that it still stings a certain sector of the audience that was somewhat scandalized (‘What a poof!’, I heard someone say afterwards in the Plazuela de Teresa Berganza). Well, it’s true that back in 1910 the librettists, Guillermo Perrín and Miguel de Palacios, intended nothing else… although Sagi has completely changed the songbook of the ‘Terceto de las viudas’ to turn it into a manifesto for ‘female empowerment’ – as if the original’s heavy irony didn’t imply that in any case!

Carlos Aragón’s conducting, at once refined and bombastic, made me recall what a great composer Vicente Lleó was. From the cast, I must highlight María Rey-Joly, generously clownish, very funny; as well as the dance troop, which we sometimes forget about – this production would be something very different without those six chicos led by the acrobat Rafael Lobato. And what can we say about Enrique Viana as Sul the Babylonian? The production almost revolves around this (literal) 25-minute showstopper. The truth is that, among many tacky jokes, there were some funny ones … on a par with the TV galas of the primitive José Luis Moreno. I wish we could say that the scene had any camp elegance.

I see that this week La Gran Vía is premiering at Proyecto Zarza. Stage direction and ‘version’ by Enrique Viana. Hopefully we are witnessing the last gasps of the social support work of the Bianco era. The thing is as witless as Viana’s new texts (and the same with Enseñanza libre and El año último por agua from last season).

Enough! I’m off back to Venice again. See you soon!

© Miccone and zarzuela.net, 2025

en español
La corte de Faraón
homepage - zarzuela.net

5/III/2025