From 15th to 26th June the Teatro de la Zarzuela offers 10 performances of El Barberillo de Lavapiés, Francisco Asenjo Barbieri’s masterpiece with libretto by Luis Mariano de Larra, with the acclaimed staging by Alfredo Sanzol and musical direction by José Miguel Pérez-Sierra.
The casts of the different characters will fall on the excellent voices of Borja Quiza, David Oller, Cristina Faus, Carol García, María Miró, Cristina Toledo, Javier Tomé, Francisco Corujo, Gerardo Bullón and Abel García. Accompanying this double cast on stage will be the Coro Titular del Teatro de la Zarzuela, as well as ten dancers and eight actors who also dance in each and every one of the dance numbers.
This year marks 148 years since El barberillo de Lavapiés was first performed at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in 1874. In all this time the work has ridden through three different centuries with the same fate: the pleasure of the public, of music lovers, of enthusiasts of high theatre. The interest and expectation of this Barberillo is due to the exceptional musical and literary material that make it an indisputable masterpiece. The composer and librettist, Barbieri and Larra, mix a popular plot, that of the love affairs of Lamparilla and Paloma, with the sentimental dalliances of two aristocrats, the Marquesita Estrella and Don Luis, and all this with a political background: the forced transition from a government of Grimaldi to Floridablanca, full of adventures, intrigues, politics, love and humour, working as if it had been written in the present day.
