From today until January 25, the Teatro de la Comedia in Madrid (Calle Príncipe, 14) is reviving the comic zarzuela Los Bufos Madrileños.
Two years after the premiere of this production, the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico invites audiences to once again enjoy Los Bufos Madrileños, a show conceived by Rafa Castejón to celebrate a 19th-century era of zarzuela that seems to contradict almost everything we think about that time of sentimental romances or grandiose concertos. According to musicologist Enrique Mejías García, there is no room for romances in this zarzuela; its thirteen numbers are ensemble pieces, and the chorus participates in half of them. The version now presented by the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico is, naturally, a very free arrangement of this original, without a chorus and with piano accompaniment instead of an orchestra.
The Madrid Bufos is based on the figure of Francisco Arderíus and the comic zarzuela Los órganos de Móstoles, with music by José Rogel and a libretto by Luis Mariano de Larra.
Francisco Arderíus, actor, singer, brilliant and innovative theatrical impresario, introduced Offenbach’s opera buffa to Spain and revolutionized theater in the turbulent years preceding and following the 1868 Revolution with his company, Los Bufos Madrileños (The Madrid Buffoons). Thanks to Arderíus’s artistic and entrepreneurial vision, some of the most important lyric-dramatic works of this difficult period in the history of Spanish theater premiered at the Teatro de los Bufos. The género chico (a type of short, light musical comedy), the revue, the cuplé (a type of Spanish song), and many playwrights of the first half of the 20th century owe a great deal to Francisco Arderíus and to all the playwrights and composers who wrote for the buffoons. Tickets can be purchased at this link.
The Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico is a production unit of the INAEM (National Institute of Performing Arts and Music), which reports to the Ministry of Culture and Sport. Founded by Adolfo Marsillach in 1986, it is the leading institution for the recovery, preservation, production, and dissemination of pre-20th-century theatrical heritage, with a special focus on the Golden Age and the prosody of classical verse. Throughout its history, the company has staged over one hundred productions that have toured not only throughout Spain but also extensively in Europe and the Americas, reinforcing its commitment to promoting our dramatic heritage.