The Teatro Fernán Gómez. Centro Cultural de la Villa (Plaza de Colón, 4) exhibits until next January 12, together with the Museo Nacional del Teatro (INAEM), in its Exhibition Room the show Zarzuela, heritage of Hispanidad. Sung chronicle of our life.
No music defines the Spanish musical scene as much as zarzuela. Born as a courtly show in the 17th century, it evolves throughout the 18th and becomes a mass show in the mid-19th century.
This gender has been a constant in our culture and life, and there are few institutions like it that represent and characterize national identity and Hispanic identity. At every moment it was loaded with experiential and historical meanings that helped to express itself in that society. It was fun, witness, pulpit, defender of the poor and mistreated and emerged from the same village with a language transmitting some social joy. The zarzuela has left its mark on our lives and acted as one of the mortars with which the musical and cultural identity of Spain has been built. Since its birth, like the phoenix, the zarzuela has had a history of continuous death and resurrection that has survived to this day. During these four and a half centuries, more than one thousand composers and as many librettists have bequeathed us no less than ten thousand works. The object of this exhibition is precisely to tell this story with more than 500 works that demonstrate the immense wealth and beauty that has treasured and promoted the genre. In it, first of all, the protagonists: musicians, writers and artists and, secondly, the great variety of genres that are hidden under the word zarzuela. But also the crafts of the artisans of the zarzuela, scores of the great titles, scenographies, costumes, signage, engravings, caricatures, portraits, plans of theaters, models, companies…
