Fundación Juan March
Modern zarzuela and género bufo

Spanish opera in the 19th century and género bufo

The foremost creative challenge facing Spanish composers for the lyrical theatre in the 19th century was opera in Spanish. One fact in particular is astonishingly revealing. Of the 131 operas premiered at the Teatro Real in that century, only 16 were by Spanish composers, and a good proportion of those, what is more, had librettos in Italian (as illustrated by the output of Carnicer, Saldoni and Eslava for example). As the century progressed, more and more attempts were made to achieve what has since then been the unfinished business in the history of music in Spain – creating a genuinely Spanish opera with its own identity but comparable to the great theatrical models from France, Italy and Germany.

Works

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