24/7 VALENCIA: COULD YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THIS ZARZULA IN THREE ACTS?

PALAU DE LES ARTS: “The union of a musicologist, Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, and a playwright of poetic lineage, Luis Mariano de Larra, would bring to the light of day one of the titles, perhaps the title par excellence, which defined a genre that dated back to the Hispanic Golden Age and took its most recognisable form in 1874. Between the strongest tradition of Iberian rhythms and the inevitable presence of Italianisation, this barberillo del pueblo, loquacious and ladino, becomes a master of nobles with noble causes and a nucleus that generates synergies of frenetic life based in the populous Lavapiés, in an eighteenth-century Madrid that struggles to expel the Italian Grimaldi from control of the state to put the Spaniard Floridablanca in his place. The nobility is helped by the people; Italy is ousted by Spain through the weapons of the seguidilla and the caleseras, raised by the hand of a barber who pays homage to de Beaumarchais, while at the same time rejecting him.

These are good times for zarzuela. The best proof of this is the public success of the new production of El barberillo de Lavapiés premiered in 2019 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, and which this season returns to Les Arts. Alfredo Sanzol’s stage direction adapts the original text of Luis Mariano de Larra’s libretto to modern times, and takes care to accentuate the comic and adventurous situations of the characters, in scenes of admirable beauty and colour, to bring out the joyful aspect of Barbieri’s music. And what better accomplice for this purpose than maestro Miguel Ángel Gómez Martínez from the pit at the head of the OCV, one of the conductors who most loves and knows best the music of Spanish composers. The protagonist of the work, the barber Lamparilla, is entrusted to one of the most outstanding voices of the new generation of Spanish singers, the baritone Borja Quiza, accompanied by the Valencian mezzo-soprano Sandra Ferrández, Maria Miró and Javier Tomé, among others.”

Report by 24/7 Valencia team

Photo by Miquel Ponce / Miguel Lorenzo

TICKETS: https://lesarts.koobin.com/index.php?action=PU_evento&Ev_id=4041&idioma=VA

EL BARBERILLO DE LAVAPIÉS
Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (1823-1894)

April 2021

16 Friday 19:00h

18 Sunday 18:00h

20 Tuesday 19:00h

22 Thursday 19:00h

PALAU DE LES ARTS FUNDACIÓ C. VALENCIANA
Avda del Professor López Piñero (Historiador de la Medicina), nº 1
46013
València
Teléfono: 961 97 59 00
https://www.lesarts.com/en/