FULL Per començar, sarsuela! Barcelona 2014 Antoni Comas, Begoña Alberdi, Núria Dardinyà

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Per començar, sarsuela!  
• Composer: various  
• Libretto: various  
• Venue & Opera Company: Teatre Nacional de Catalunya i ESMUC, Barcelona, Spain, Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya  
• Recorded: October 2014
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Antoni Comas, Begoña Alberdi, Núria Dardinyà, Xavier Mendoza, Oriol Genís, Quim Giron
• Conductor: Wanda Pitrowska  
• Orchestra: Orquestra de les Glòries Catalanes  
• Choreographer: Roberto G. Alonso  
• Stage Director: Xavier Pujolràs   
• Costume Designer:   
• Lighting Designer: Ignasi Camprodon  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Musicals sense títol  
• Date Published: 2026  
• Format: Unknown
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

  From 1850 onwards, when demographic changes began to transform Europe and prepare the ground for a future mass culture, a type of theatre with sung and spoken parts developed that in the Iberian Peninsula would be called “zarzuela”, while in more northern latitudes it would be known by names such as “operetta”, “music-hall” or “Singspiel”. This phenomenon will democratize interest in the lyrical genre, at a time when opera mainly reflects the codes of representation of very specific social elites.
  Catalan zarzuela is a lush island of hidden treasures. The genre also enjoyed significant vitality on Barcelona stages, despite the fact that a large majority of these gems are still waiting to be unearthed, and that there are a few that are even waiting to be premiered for the first time. If we want to do justice to our scenic heritage, we must understand that zarzuela is not only a genre in Spanish, but is also expressed in Catalan and its forgotten voice is one of the most unjust victims of the amnesia that has all too often had the history of the theater of this country.
  A journey through some of the most splendid moments of Catalan zarzuela, which in many cases will allow its riches to go up on a stage for the first time.
  I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that zarzuela was the artistic movement with the greatest dimension and social roots in Spanish culture. […] Unlike other musical genres of a more restricted or exclusive scope—court opera, flamenco, popular romance, Renaissance polyphony…—, zarzuela permeated all social classes. Union, like no other and for nothing less than a hundred years, to aristocrats and workers; to nuns and anticlericals; to liberals and conservatives…
  José Luis Temes, El Siglo de la Zarzuela. 1850-1950

  Quoted from https://www.tnc.cat/en/comencar-sarsuela

  PROGRAM

  L’euterpense
  Music: Nicolau Manent
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Champs Elysees in 1864
  Symphonic fantasy based on motifs by Josep Anselm Clavé

  A posta de sol
  Music: Nicolau Manent / Lyrics: Frederic Soler
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre de Novetats in 1871
  Zarzuela set shortly before the September Revolution of 1868, which would overthrow Queen Isabel II. A couple about to get married must delay the ceremony because the groom offers to save a liberal leader who was about to organize a riot, taking him on his ship, a fact that another suitor of the girl will try to take advantage of to assassinate him under the guise of a maritime accident.
  – Soprano aria ( Black rocks, grains of sand… )

  Please, by force
  Music: Antoni Gordon / Lyrics: Serafí Pitarra (pseudonym of Frederic Soler)
  Gatada in which an old bachelor refuses to marry a widow who requires him, and deposits his well-being in the promise of leaving as an inheritance to his service a daily amount of money for each day he lives, which causes a dangerous excess of medicinal zeal in the care of his servants, who will become morbidly obsessed with the inheritance that the future death of their master will bring them.
  – Soprano aria ( When I go out on the Rambla… )

  La revolta
  Music: Felip Caparrós / Lyrics: Víctor Móra
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1930
  Lyrical episode set in 1842, which dramatizes the revolt in Barcelona that confronted General Espartero, who ended up bombarding the city of Barcelona from the mountain of Montjuïc. The protagonists of the piece, workers from l’Hospitalet, will end up assaulting the Ciutadella to free one of their comrades, captured by the Regency forces.
  – Tenor romance ( La pols del camí… )

  La Paula té unes hoyges
  Music: Enric Morera / Lyrics: Lluís Planes de Taverner
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Victòria in 1924
  Zarzuela that shows the story of Paula, a saleswoman at the Encants Vells in Barcelona, ​​in front of the current Llotja, who decides to prostitute herself to get money, and of “Maco”, her suitor. This one, upon losing his lover due to his social situation, goes from being a spendthrift to establishing himself as a shopkeeper, until he has the financial capacity to take the girl out of prostitution.
  – Comic scene ( Long live Peroi!… )
  Choral piece to sing the thanks of Peroi, a world-famous bullfighter from Reus.
  – Soprano aria ( The woman is a doll… )
  Pauleta confesses to El Guapo that she cannot love him because he is poor and she only wants to be rich.

  My rose is not for you
  Music: Enric Daniel / Lyrics: Alfons Roure
  Premiere in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1937
  Operetta buffa set in an undefined era in the city of Birosta, capital of the Slavic kingdom of Regalèssia, which lives in a state of increasing social and political tension, while its aristocracy is dedicated to flirting with the “mermaids” of the dock and visiting the most famous dens of vice in the city.
  – Baritone romance ( Com que m’atrau el bon gust del vi… )
  Declaration of intentions of the prince in a country where the only norm is debauchery.
  – Comic scene ( La dona que vol ser-ne policia… )
  Ironic feminist claim.

  Pasqua Florida
  Music: Càndida Pérez / Lyrics: Rossend Llurba
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Tívoli in 1922
  Lyrical-dramatic sainete of friendly customs that shows some events of the life of a Barcelona neighborhood over the course of a year, through different popular festivals.
  – Couplet (The grocer’s son…

  The legion of honor
  Music: Rafael Martínez Valls / Lyrics: Víctor Móra and Lluís Capdevila
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1930
  Zarzuela set in the First World War, in a village in Normandy inhabited almost exclusively by women, who with the appearance of a regiment will soon be paired with the different soldiers. Conflicts between the couples will not take long to occur, but will be resolved when the end of the war arrives.
  – Tenor romance ( Under the ground… )
  Reflections of a gravedigger in the midst of the cruelty of war.
  – Comic duet ( Ai negre!… )
  Declaration of love between Madalena and Trabuc, a black soldier.
  – Baritone romance ( Noia que vas a muntanya… )
  Popular song warning women of the dangers of love.

  The sickle in the fist
  Music: Manuel Blancafort / Lyrics: Lluís Capdevila and Rafael Homedes
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1931
  Zarzuela with a marked political tone, with a background of struggles between liberals and absolutists, which shows how a master who treats the reapers who work for him in a tyrannical manner will end up receiving a lesson in ethics that will serve to denounce the injustices of the property-owning class towards his subordinates.
  – Comic duo ( T’has espantat?… )

  Boris d’Euskàlia
  Music: Rafael Martínez Valls / Lyrics: Artur Suárez and Jordi Campmany
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1936
  Operetta set in the imaginary kingdom of Euskàlia, where its king Boris —a democrat concerned with giving the kingdom peace, work and freedom— is about to suffer a plot to assassinate him, while his entire court will strive to hide from him the multitude of miseries that afflict the kingdom and the conspiratorial movements.
  – Comic scene ( Majesty, majesty, majesty… )
  King Boris of Euskalia awaits proposals from his ministers to improve the well-being of his citizens. These ministers, however, understand public management as more concerned with their own pockets than with the quality of life of the kingdom’s subjects.

  Les noies de l’Estatut
  Music: Francesc Montserrat i Ayarbe and Ramon Ferrés / Lyrics: Víctor Móra
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1934
  Barcelona comedy set on the day of the proclamation of the Catalan State in 1934 by Lluís Companys, shortly before the demonstration organized by the Workers’ Alliance that will head to Plaça Sant Jaume begins. In a bar where bathers go to cool off, a series of characters from different backgrounds (an industrialist who has sung the anthem to the Statute, a worker from Madrid, a Valencian woman…) prepare to attend the demonstration. The chosen duet is a parody of the famous Mazurka de las sombrillas from the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda.
  – Comic duet ( Allà a la platja mij despullades… )

  Tempesta esvaïda
  Music: Joaquim Serra / Lyrics: Carme Montoriol
  Premiered in Barcelona at the Teatre Nou in 1936
  Lyrical comedy that offers a poetic vision of seafaring life. In a town on the Catalan coast, the return of a sailor who had been in love with a girl who is now married will shock the life of her younger sister, who after an attempted suicide out of jealousy, will see the storm in her heart fade when her love is finally reciprocated.
  – Soprano aria ( Why this anguish?… )

  La Pinxeta i el noi maco
  Music: Joan Dotras / Lyrics: Salvador Bonavia and Emili Vendrell
  Premiere in Barcelona at the Teatre Victòria in 1946
  Melodramatic sainet set in a square in old Barcelona at the beginning of the 20th century, a meeting place for the city’s pinxos, along with factory workers and the Pay-Pay coupletists. Pinxeta is a street girl who will be dragged into a series of entanglements caused by the attempts of a notary to take advantage of her, and by her loving environment full of jealousy and all kinds of abuse.
  – Comic scene ( This American… )

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