El trovador
Antonio García Guttiérez

(Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa
Madrid, 10 July 2026)

reviwed by Enrique Mejías García

Rehabilitating García Gutiérrez

Rarely has a masterpiece had the ‘misfortune’ to go down to posterity as the origin of another masterpiece. Nor does a theatre production often leave its audience wanting to return home and read the play. Yet this is perhaps the greatest virtue of the revival of El trovador presented by Ensamble Bufo at the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa: far from encouraging us to go home and listen to Il trovatore, it spurs us into returning to Antonio García Gutiérrez’s original text, to experience a totally forgotten stage tradition.

This project arose from research carried out at the University of Alcalá under the direction of Marina Barba Dávalos, whose objective was to restage El trovador with the original music written for its premiere at Madrid’s Teatro del Príncipe, on 1 March 1836. The production is also part of a line of research developed by the author from her doctoral thesis on the function of music in Spanish romantic drama, demonstrating that those scores were not merely ornamental, but essential elements of the dramaturgy.

This research work, though, would have been of little utility without a stage concept capable of turning documentary discovery into living theatre. And therein lies the main merit of Daniel Llull’s adaptation, as directed by Hugo Nieto. Distilling a romantic drama in five acts for a cast of just five actors was a daunting challenge. The result could easily have drifted towards mere scholastic didacticism (or even fusty university academicism), but fortunately the opposite happens: the dramaturgy lets García Gutiérrez breathe. Naturally there are cuts and elisions, but the adaptation never conveys the sensation of violating the original or of using it as a didactic pretext. Curiously, Llull’s solution to the problem reminds us how Cammarano and Verdi (who knew a thing or two about theatre) worked, in turning the drama into an opera libretto.

Ensamble Bufo lives up to its name. Even in such a sombre drama we may sense a particular approach to understanding stage rhythm, collective movement and diction that clearly comes from music theatre. We even have a prologue and an interlude (short enough) that introduces us to a nineteenth-century salon where El trovador is being presented in one of those antique private productions. There was even a congenial adaptation of the ‘Coro de la murmuración’ from El dúo de la Africana, and we ended with a toast to the memory of García Gutiérrez over the waltzes from La Gran Vía and La traviata, both appropriately tailored.

Far from clouding the drama, this musical energy endowed the performance with convincing vivacity, especially in the case of the two female protagonists: Andrea Soto, a definitive Azucena, who put across her very difficult role with conviction and dignified sensitivity, and Ania Hernández, who triumphantly captured the musicality of Leonor’s verses in her moving monologues. Next to them it was difficult for the men to attract much attention; although we must mention Daniel Rovalher (who managed to make our hair stand on end with Manrique’s dream narrative), the perfidious Count de Luna delineated by that superb actor Didier Otaola and Dani Llull himself, more than adequate in countless cameos.

At this point we must devote a word or two to the music of El trovador. Having heard them described for years by Marina Barba and Víctor Sánchez, it was truly wonderful to listen to these anonymous melodies so familiar at the time, and so well-integrated within the drama’s plot and gothic aesthetics. The two songs for the Troubadour himself and the Song of the Gypsy make us think of the spianato (flowing) Bellini of La straniera and I Capuleti e i Montecchi, although the Fernán Gómez Cultural Centre of the Villa relied on piano and cello to sketch instrumental accompaniments. When this production was mounted in March at the Salón Cervantes in Alcalá de Henares, it featured the Orquesta Ciudad de Alcalá, which has unfortunately been dispensed with in Madrid.

I also don’t understand the obsession with microphones. Was amplification necessary without the presence of an orchestra? I don’t think so, but this is a losing battle today, where decibels seem to overrule the naturalness (and musicality!) of the spoken and heard word without technological mediation.

When I left the theatre, walking through Recoletos while the entire country was paralyzed by a World Cup match featuring the Spanish national football team, I could not stop thinking about how lucky I was to have been able to attend a performance that exuded so much love for forgotten repertoire, but also for living theatre. Hopefully it will not be long before we see more Spanish romantic dramas staged, glorying in those violent dramatic contrasts which can still work well for today’s audiences, bored with prosaic theatre preaching to the converted. As for García Gutiérrez … I dream that one day someone will decide to revive his splendid zarzuelas with music by Arrieta, including Azón Visconti, La tabernera de Londres and El capitán negrero. Although now I think that I am the romantic here!

© Enrique Mejías García and zarzuela.net, 2026

Cast: Andrea Soto, Ania Hernández, Daniel Rovalher, Didier Otaola, Dani Llull; Ramón Gil (piano); Marina Barba (cello and d. mus.); Hugo Nieto (d.); Daniel Llull (dramaturgy); Mónica Boromello (des.); Helvia G. Jürschik (cost.); Felipe Ramos (l.); Lalo Gandulfo (sound and technical coordination); Miguel Asuero García (prod.). Production: Ensamble Producciones SL.

en español
Antonio García Guttiérez
homepage - zarzuela.net

13/VII/2026