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FULL El chaleco blanco (Chueca) & El Madrid de Chueca Madrid 1996 Loreto Valverde, Pedro Peña, Carmen Rossi
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: El chaleco blanco
- Composer: Chueca Federico
- Libretto: Miguel Ramos Carrión Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Los Veranos de la Villa, Madrid, Spain
- Recorded: 1996
- Type: Staged Opera Live
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
El Chaleco Blanco or The White Vest is a “comic-lyrical episode” ( zarzuela ) in one act , divided into two scenes and an intermission , with music by Federico Chueca and libretto by Miguel Ramos Carrión . It premiered on June 26, 1890 at the Teatro Felipe in Madrid .
The origin of this work of the genre chico is anecdotal. Several writers from the Círculo Artístico de Madrid were having dinner and decided to draw a random title from a hat, committing to write a farce within a month. Whoever proved incapable of writing a libretto would have to invite the rest to dinner and lunch for a month. After discarding other titles, Ramos Carrión was chosen to write El cintura blanco .
Argument
Scene 1
The plot revolves around a winning lottery ticket that is supposed to have been lost inside a white vest. The play begins in the living room of a small guest house . The owner, Perez, is cleaning boots and singing the “bootblack polka .” Rosa, the washerwoman, arrives to take the clothes to the river to be washed. The owner of the guest house, Doña Casta, criticizes her for using too much soap and for returning the clothes in tatters. Rosa leaves with the laundry.
Don Quintín explains to Pérez that he has borrowed clothes from the other guests to go to an interview to see if he could get a job. The Pérez’s daughter, Tecla, shows up with her lover David, another of those who live in the house; he is a musician who has little talent or prospects, and who owes rent. He expresses his desire to compose beautiful music and not rubbish like La Gran Vía . Pérez warns them to be careful with Doña Casta. They sing the mazurka- triplet “I have a lot to tell you.”
Doña Casta plans to throw David out to see if she can get a rich suitor for the girl Tecla to come in as a guest. David enters saying that he has won the lottery jackpot , which he was carrying in his white vest. But the vest is in the laundry that the washerwomen have taken to the Manzanares . Everyone rushes out of the house, singing “Vamos todos, vamos presto”, a quintet that parodies ” Di quella pira ” by Il trovatore , which he quotes.
Scene 2
On the banks of the Manzanares River . The washerwomen sing their seguidillas “Pa sortijas y gracia”. This is followed by the mazurka “¡El bollero!” and then the pasodoble “Rataplán”. When all the inhabitants of the guest house arrive, it takes a while for them to find Rosa, who has already done the laundry, so the tenth song has been lost.
However, in the end, the lottery ticket appears. Don Quintín arrives saying that he has got the job, but no one is happy with his news. Then we see that he is wearing the white vest, which he has borrowed from David. The lottery ticket is there.
Quoted from Wikipedia