Goyescas (Opera)

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Work data
Title: Goyescas or The Beauties in Love
Original title: Goyescas, o Los Majos enamorados
Second scene: Challenge to a duel (1916)

Second scene: Challenge to a duel (1916)

Original language: Spanish
Music: Enrique Granados
Libretto : Fernando Periquet y Zuaznabar
Premiere: January 28, 1916
Place of premiere: Metropolitan Opera
Playing time: Around 1 hour
Place and time of the action: Madrid, around 1800
people
  • Rosario, a young lady of the Madrid nobility ( soprano )
  • Fernando, a young officer, her lover ( tenor )
  • Paquiro, bullfighter ( baritone )
  • Pepa, a girl from the people ( mezzo-soprano )
  • one voice (soprano or tenor)
  • Majas and Majos ( choir )

Goyescas is an opera in one act and three pictures by the Spanish composer Enrique Granados from 1915. Granados composed the opera based on a Spanish libretto by Fernando Periquet y Zuaznabar from melodies from his piano suite of the same name from 1911. The opera was at the Metropolitan Opera premiered in New York City on January 28, 1916.

Background and history

In 1911 Granados performed his Goyescas piano cycle , which was inspired by Francisco Goya's early works of art , with great success in Barcelona. His pianist friend, Ernest Schelling , then advised him to convert the suite into a stage play. Granados orchestrated five of the six piano pieces and the genre piece El Pelele as opera scenes and wrote two new interludes for the plot, which is divided into three images. He commissioned Fernando Periquet y Zuaznabar with the libretto, which, contrary to the usual procedure, had to be adapted to the existing melodies. He dedicated the opera to Schelling and his wife Lucie.

Anna Fitziu as Rosario (1916)

A performance of the piano suite was so enthusiastically celebrated in Paris in 1914 that the Paris Opera Granados offered to perform the stage version. However, since the First World War prevented the premiere at the Opéra Garnier in Paris, the premiere of Goyescas took place on January 28, 1916 at the Metropolitan Opera; Granados traveled to New York especially for this and even extended the intermezzo between the first and second image at short notice to enable the change of scene. Goyescas was the first opera to be performed there in Spanish. Anna Fitziu (in her Metropolitan Opera debut) as Rosario, Giovanni Martinelli as Fernando, Giuseppe De Luca as Paquiro and Flora Perini as Pepa took part in the double performance, in which Leoncavallos Pagliacci was also given ; La Argentina danced the fandango in the second picture . The performance was conducted by Gaetano Bavagnoli; the stage production was directed by Jules Speck. It included sets by Milanese designer Antonio Rovescalli and costumes by GB Santoni, based on paintings by Goya.

content

The plot of Goyescas is based on a series of six paintings from Francisco Goya's early work, inspired by young people from the “Majismo” movement. These so-called majos and majas are characterized by a bohemian tendency and a certain opulence. The opening scene is derived directly from Goya's painting El Pelele from 1791.

Francisco Goya, El Pelele (1791/92)

First picture

First scene: the pelele

Young people enjoy an afternoon on the festival meadow in front of the church "San Antonio de la Florida". They spend their time dancing, feasting and the traditional game called Pelele , in which a straw doll, which is supposed to represent an unfaithful lover, is thrown into the air with a stretched cloth and caught again ( "El Pelele" ). While they are talking and flirting, the young bullfighter Paquiro appears, surrounded by women. He flirts with them ( “Los Requiebros” ), but the women know that he is really in a relationship with Pepa.

Second scene: the carriage

Pepa enters the scene on a carriage ; the men crowd excitedly as she thanks them for the warm welcome. Suddenly a sedan chair carried by two well-dressed servants attracts attention, in which the noblewoman Rosario is waiting for her lover Fernando, a young captain of the guard.

Third scene: the flatteries

Rosario gets out of the litter, Paquiro approaches her and reminds her of the last lantern ball she had attended. He invites her again for this night. Rosario ignores him, but Fernando doesn't notice this when he secretly spies on the two of them. He suspects that Rosario flirted with Paquiro. Although she denies this, Fernando doesn't believe her. The two continue arguing while Pepa and the women around them taunt them. Fernando decides that Rosario should accept the invitation, but that he will accompany her. The two leave the scene and Pepa and Paquiro make a plan to ruin the two lovers. Then they too take off on their carriage.

Second picture

First scene: the lantern ball

In the evening at the lantern ball, the youngsters dance in a barn. Fernando enters the scene, trailing Rosario, who is mocked by Pepa. Fernando assures Rosario that he will defend her honor. Paquiro then asks Rosario to dance with a great spectacle; Pepa jealously questions his motive.

Second scene

Fernando insults Paquiro's honor, whereupon the latter suggests a duel to prove his courage. A scuffle ensues in which the women prevent Paquiro and the other men from chasing Fernando off the ball; Rosario passed out with excitement. After the time and place of the duel has been determined, Fernando and Rosario leave the ball. Pepa, back in the center of attention, invites the ball goers to a fandango ( "El Fandango de Candil" ).

Third picture

First scene: Maya and the nightingale

Later that evening, Rosario sits thoughtfully on a bench in the garden of her house, listens to the sad song of a nightingale in the moonlight and returns her song ( “La Maja y el Ruiseñor” ).

Second scene: love duet at the window

When Rosario tries to retreat into the building, Fernando approaches calling. She replies worried; the two declare their mutual love and share an intimate moment ( “Coloquio en la Reja” ). A chime of the bell signals the hour of the duel, for which Paquiro and Pepa appear. Fernando is getting ready to leave; Rosario clings to him and begs him to stay. Fernando breaks free and promises to return victorious. Rosario follows him and the duel begins. Two screams mark the end of the duel - one from the fatally wounded Fernando, the other from Rosario; Paquiro flees.

Final scene: love and death

Rosario drags Fernando to the bench on which they had shared the tender moment earlier. She pulls him to her chest and the two kiss one last time before he dies in her arms ( "Balada: La Maja y la Muerte" ).

Instrumentation

Orchestra: 2 flutes (2nd flute also piccolo ), 2 oboes , English horn , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 2 horns , 3 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion , strings .

Incidental music behind the scene: bells , hoopla .

effect

The opera was well received by the critics. In his report for the New York Times , Richard Aldrich wrote that the music was not just "guitar music on a hot night" but was "deeply felt" and had an "intense national tinge". The success that Goyescas premiered at the Metropolitan Opera indirectly led to Granados' death. He was then invited by the then US President Woodrow Wilson to give a piano recital in the White House , which is why he did not return to Spain directly. Granados and his wife died on March 24, 1916 when the French steamer Sussex they were traveling on was torpedoed by a German submarine in the English Channel .

Despite its initial success, opera never found a permanent place in the operatic repertoire outside Spain. It was never revived at the Metropolitan Opera after the original five performances. In translations, Goyescas was performed at the Paris Opera in 1919, at La Scala in Milan in 1937 and at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona in 1940 . The German premiere took place in 2009 at the Heidelberg Theater .

The intermezzo from the opera developed into an independent concert piece. It is performed both as an orchestral work and as an arrangement for cello and piano.

A Spanish film based on the opera called Goyescas was made in 1942. It was directed by Benito Perojo; the main role played Imperio Argentina .

The Mexican musician Consuelo Velázquez used the melody of the nightingale's aria from the third picture for her best-known song Bésame mucho .

Recordings

  • Consuelo Rubio (Rosario), Ginés Torrano (Fernando), Ana-María Iriarte (Pepa), Manuel Ausensi (Paquiro); Madrid Cantores, Spanish National Orchestra, Ataúlfo Argenta (conductor); Decca Records LXT 5308 (1 LP) 1955
  • Maria Bayo (Rosario), Ramón Vargas (Fernando), Lola Casariego (Pepa), Enrique Baquerizo (Paquiro); Orfeón Donostiarra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, Antoni Ros-Marbà (conductor); Auvidis V4791 (1 CD) 1996
  • Rafaella Angeletti (Rosario), Yikun Chung (Fernando), Francesca Franci (Pepa), Davide Damiani (Paquiro); Coro ed Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (conductor); Dynamic CDS380 / 1 (CD) 2001 live

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Score of the piano reduction. (PDF; 22.4 MB) Accessed February 14, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Moderation manuscript by Ulla Zierau. (PDF; 209 kB) SWR Oper, March 29, 2015, accessed on February 13, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Goyescas. Metropolitan Opera Association Archives, accessed February 14, 2017 .
  4. ^ Enrique Granados, Màrius Bernadó i Tarragona (introduction): Goyescas, o Los Majos enamorados . Universitat de Lleida, Lleida 1997, ISBN 978-84-8409-688-7 , p. 7 (edition for piano four hands by Albert Guinovart).
  5. ^ Spanish Opera to Have Premiere This Week. The New York Times , January 23, 1916, accessed May 22, 2019 .
  6. ^ Richard Aldrich: World's premier of opera “Goyescas”. The New York Times , January 29, 1916, accessed May 22, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Michael Stegemann: The death of the Spanish composer Enrique Granados. Deutschlandradio Kultur , March 24, 2016, accessed on February 14, 2017 .
  8. ^ Stephan Hoffmann: German premiere: "Goyescas" by Enrique Granados. Die Welt , February 24, 2009, accessed February 13, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Enrique Granados. Naxos Classical Music, accessed February 13, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Movie review: Goyescas. The New York Times , May 29, 1944, accessed February 13, 2017 .
  11. ^ Marvin E. Paymer: Sentimental Journey: Intimate Portraits of America's Great Popular Songs 1920–1945 . Two Bytes Publishing, Darien, Connecticut 1999, ISBN 978-1-881907-09-1 , pp. 443 .

Web links

Commons : Goyescas  - collection of images, videos and audio files