PhilPaine.com

Spain and Cat­alo­nia have always stood apart from the main­stream of Euro­pean cul­ture, doing things after their own fash­ion. Among these dis­tinc­tions was their fond­ness, over sev­eral cen­turies, for zarzuela, an alter­na­tive to Opera, with its own styles and con­ven­tions. While zarzue­las were staged as ear­ly as the mid-sev­en­­teenth cen­tury, they reached their apogee of pop­u­lar­ity and artis­tic glo­ry in the ear­ly 20th cen­tury, and were still going strong decades after opera had ceased to be broad­ly pop­u­lar. There are dis­tinc­tive styles of zarzuela sung in Cata­lan (sar­suela) and in Basque (zartzue­lak). The roman­zas of this kind of music-dra­ma are the equiv­a­lent of opera’s arias.

Rolan­do Vil­lazón, an oper­atic tenor who is cur­rently in great demand, is very much at home in this vari­ant tra­di­tion. With his mighty tenor col­league and com­pa­triot, Place­do Domin­go, hold­ing the baton of the Orques­tra de la Comu­nidad de Madrid, Vil­lazón pro­duced a fine selec­tion of roman­zas for Vir­gin Clas­sics, under the title Gitano, released in 2007. The selec­tions are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the lat­er phas­es of zarzuela com­pos­ti­tion, and include works by José Ser­rano, Fed­er­rico Moreno Tor­robá (who is bet­ter known out­side Spain for his gui­tar com­po­si­tions), Jac­into Guer­rero, Pablo Sorozábal, Amadu Vives, Pablo Luna, Augustin Pérez Sori­ano, José Maria Cano, Reve­ri­ano Soutul­lo and Juan Vert.

In their casu­al charm, these “arias” are clos­er in feel­ing to Broad­way solos than to the thun­der­ous shout­ing match­es of Ital­ian opera. Some of them would not feel out of place in Okla­homa or Seven Brides for Sev­en Broth­ers. I would not be sur­prised if some of the clas­sics of the genre could be suc­cess­fully filmed, and reach out to a world audi­ence. Bet­ter yet, this art form, which fell into decline dur­ing Franco’s dic­ta­tor­ship, could be adapt­ed to the wealth and dynamism of mod­ern Spain and Cat­alo­nia, through entire­ly new works. Zarzue­las always incor­po­rated cur­rently pop­u­lar song. There’s no rea­son why con­tem­po­rary pop music, or even rai, hiphop, elec­tron­ica and dance, could not play the same role in new works.