Madrid's Zarzuela theatre Género chico (literally, "little genre") is a Spanish genre of short light dramas. 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. It could be considered to be in many ways the nineteenth-century Spanish equivalent of the modern televised soap opera. This work is copyrighted. ...
This work is copyrighted. ...
Zarzuela (IPA /θarθwela/) is the Spanish lyrical opera. ...
Operetta (literally, little opera) is a performance art-form similar to opera, though it generally deals with less serious topics. ...
This article is about opera as an art form. ...
Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The first TIME cover devoted to soap operas: Dated January 12, 1976, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of Our Lives are featured with the headline Soap Operas: Sex and suffering in the afternoon. A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction, usually broadcast on television...
Origin and development
Historical context Zarzuela had developed together with Spanish politics, beginning during the reign of Philip IV (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. Philip IV of Spain Philip IV (April 8, 1605 - September 17, 1665) was the king of Spain, from 1621 until his death, and king of Portugal until 1640. ...
This article is about opera as an art 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 marshall 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. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Isabella II (October 10, 1830–1904), Isabel II in Spanish, was queen of Spain. ...
Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. ...
1868 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
For information on mainstream political parties using the term Socialist, see Social democracy and Democratic socialism, For the governments of the USSR, the PRC, and others, see: Communist state, Other variants of Socialism include Marxism, Communism, and Libertarian Socialism. ...
Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ...
Joan Prim, Spanish general and statesman Joan Prim, Marquis of los Castillejos, Count of Reus (December 12, 1814 – December 30, 1870), Spanish soldier and statesman, was the son of Lieut. ...
A regency is a period when a regent holds power in the name of the current monarch. ...
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The Real (plural reais) is the present monetary unit (currency) of Brazil. ...
The beginning Against this trend, Juan José Luján, Antonio Riquelme and José Vallés, three actors, 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. Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ...
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 myths, royalty, the Army, politics, etc. It does so with pleasant, unremarkable music with a certain erotic and exotic tone. Opera buffa (comic opera), also known as Commedia per musica (musical comedy), or Dramma giocoso per musica (musical dramatic comedy), is a form of opera. ...
Offenbach holds many meanings. ...
Coat of arms The Plaza de España square Madrid, the capital of Spain, is located in the center of the country at 40°25′ N 3°45′ W. Population of the city of Madrid proper was 3,093,000 (Madrilenes, madrileños) as of 2003 estimates. ...
1873 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
For the computer game, see Myth (computer game). ...
A nations army is its military, or more specifically, all of its land forces. ...
Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. ...
Because of the need for short plays 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 is was so successful with the public: apart from the low price, people could easily follow the plot and identify with the characters, making género chico the equivalent of the modern soap opera. In difficult times, people tend to escape into entertainment, so they don't have to think about the world outside.
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 Cap"), 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. Events and Trends Technology Invention of the telephone (1876) and phonograph (1877) WTF Science Ludwig Boltzmanns statistical definition of thermodynamic entropy War, peace and politics Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) results in the collapse of the Second French Empire and in the formation of both the French Third Republic...
The Phrygian cap or Liberty cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, worn by the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia in antiquity. ...
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 playwrights, often colaborating with Joaquín Valverde. His work includes El año pasado por agua, Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente, perhaps the most popular nowadays, La alegría de la huerta ("The happiness of the garden"), El arca de Noé ("Noah's Ark"), Los descamisados ("The Shirtless Ones") and more. 1886 is a common year starting on Friday (click on link to calendar) Events January 18 _ Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England. ...
Another common model for plays 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, Quinito Valverde (Joaquín'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, El cabo primero ["The Headman", e.g. 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 plays 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) [1] (http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Oct03/breton.htm);, curiously written by a playwright who had no other successes, Tomás Bretón. This popular piece came about following several years of experiments by its creator. August 14 is the 226th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (227th in leap years), with 139 days remaining. ...
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 Cruz, 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. 1880 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...
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. Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ...
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 style. Singspiel is form of German-language musical drama, similar to opera, but with a lot of spoken dialog and simpler, folk-like, strophic songs. ...
The music is familar 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 boleros, fandangos, or habaneras from Latin America, jotas, seguidillas, soleás, pasacalles, and waltzes, polkas, or mazurcas from Poland. Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country or nation and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. ...
The bolero is a type of dance and musical form. ...
This page is about the flamenco style; for other meanings, see Fandango (disambiguation). ...
The habanera is a musical style or genre from Cuba, and is one of the oldest mainstays of Cuban music. ...
In music a passacaglia (French: passacaille, Spanish: passacalle or pasacalle) is a musical form and the corresponding court dance. ...
The waltz is a dance in 3/4 time, done primarily in closed position, the commonest basic figure of which is a full turn in two measures using three steps per measure. ...
Polka is a type of dance and genre of dance music; it originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia, and is still a common genre of Czech folk music; it is also common both in Europe and in the Americas. ...
See also Zarzuela (IPA /θarθwela/) is the Spanish lyrical opera. ...
Operetta (literally, little opera) is a performance art-form similar to opera, though it generally deals with less serious topics. ...
This article is about opera as an art form. ...
The culture of Spain has roots in Iberian and Latin influences, Catholicism, Moorish Islam, tension between the centralized Castilian state and its regions, and its minority peoples. ...
References - género chico. (24 Oct 2004, 04:03 UTC). In Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre. Retrieved from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/género_chico.
- género chico. Encyclopædia Britannica Deluxe CD 2000 (international version).
1913 advertisement for the 11th edition, with the slogan When in doubt - look it up in the Encyclopædia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica (properly spelt with æ, the ae-ligature) is the oldest English-language general encyclopedia. ...
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