WELCOME
 

The first time I heard the term zarzuela was when a friend gave me a live album of a concert at the Salzburg Festival featuring Plácido Domingo and Pilar Lorengar. The program, which included works by José Serrano, Pablo Luna, Federico Moreno Torroba, Jerónimo Giménez, among others, was completely unknown to me and to the audience, who were in an almost delirious state, as can still be heard in the recording to this day.

After this first, brief encounter with Spanish music, the subject of zarzuela faded into oblivion. It wasn't until my connection with the city of Madrid and my work as a stage director at the Teatro Real that I became intrigued by the programming of the Teatro de la Zarzuela. Specifically, in the fall of 2020, when cultural life around the world had come to a standstill, Madrid chose to take a different path by not closing its theaters and concert halls. It was during this time that I attended my first true zarzuela performance.

 

I saw La del manojo de rosas by Pablo Sorozábal and was completely overwhelmed. Emilio Sagi's production is considered a classic on the same level as Otto Schenk’s Rosenkavalier and is carefully rehearsed over several weeks for each revival. The performance highlighted not only the virtues of the piece itself but of the entire genre: a skillful fusion of text, song, and dance; a plot full of characters who defy typical social norms and yet feel entirely familiar; and music that sounds popular but is, at the same time, some of the finest psychological theatrical music. Moreover, there was a warmth in the audience that I hadn’t felt in the major opera houses for a long time. That night marked a turning point in my life, and since then, I have dedicated myself to learning everything I can about the genre of zarzuela.

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The emotion quickly turned into artistic productivity. Through various conversations, I managed to convince Stefan Herheim at the Theater an der Wien to include a zarzuela in his programming specifically, the Roaring Twenties-style operetta BENAMOR by Pablo Luna, which has a “queer” touch. The Teatro de la Zarzuela itself offered me the verismo-style EL GATO MONTÉS by Manuel Penella, and finally, the Theater Basel decided, in collaboration with the Teatro de la Zarzuela and the Spanish Lyric Theatre Festival in Oviedo, to produce the classic EL BARBERILLO DE LAVAPIÉS by Barbieri.

 

All these new productions will take place in the 2025/26 season, marking a new direction not only in my own repertoire, but more importantly for theaters outside the Spanish-speaking world that have chosen to take this step. The choice of these three works alone demonstrates how necessary it is to overcome the prejudice held by those few who have heard the term zarzuela (with comments like “Oh yes, Spanish operetta” though it’s fair to ask, what’s wrong with that?).

 

Zarzuela dates back to musical theatre pieces written in the first third of the 17th century, and fundamentally it means nothing more than musical theatre in Spanish with all the richness that the term “musical stage work” implies in the rest of the world, as found in classic opera and operetta dictionaries and guides. From early Baroque to full Baroque, Singspiel, comic and serious works, comic opera, verismo dramas with and without spoken text, to musicals and revues with a loosely connected plot… all of it, simply, in Spanish. Why not one absolutely not one of these works has entered the general canon of international musical theatre is a mystery to me.

 

When speaking with the theaters in Basel and Vienna, I tried to remain realistic despite my enthusiasm. I asked myself: What can we do to get audiences as excited as I am? That’s when I came up with the idea of organizing Zarzuela Galas to introduce this genre to new audiences. These galas would showcase the versatility of the repertoire and also help familiarize audiences with young Spanish or Spanish-speaking singers who would be involved in future productions. These kinds of concerts are still hugely popular in Spain today, often under the title Antología de la Zarzuela. For the programs I’m creating and varying depending on the occasion I’ve drawn inspiration from a legendary vinyl album recorded by Igor Markevitch in the 1960s, titled Antología.

 

Out of all these reflections, the idea emerged to actively promote zarzuela beyond the Spanish-speaking world. These concerts, always semi-staged and guided by an internal dramaturgy, will be offered in cities and venues where no full zarzuela production is currently planned. That’s where the idea came from to form a company a group of Spanish singers, all familiar with the genre and mostly coming from the “family” of the Teatro de la Zarzuela. Now, together with me, they will act as fellow advocates, as champions, touring different theaters to give zarzuela the broad recognition it deserves.

I’m overjoyed to have José Miguel Pérez-Sierra, the music director of the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, as my musical partner. He will conduct, among other works, the three new zarzuela productions I’ll be staging. The core of the company will consist of four singers: soprano Cristina Toledo, mezzo-soprano Carmen Artaza, tenor Santiago Sánchez, and baritone David Oller. All of them have previously stood out in this repertoire, and with them, we aim to explore a new approach  freeing ourselves from the burden of stereotypes and delving into the essence and humanity of the characters and stories. Allowing folkloric elements to create a necessary atmosphere, but without letting them dominate or become cliché.

 

Alongside these singers with a modern understanding of musical theatre and a love for the repertoire of their own culture there will be established stars and artists who will act as ambassadors for zarzuela. They will support our work and help win over audiences. We also plan to continually expand and vary the core group depending on the repertoire being presented on each occasion.

 

And of course, the dream is to eventually mount our own productions following in the footsteps of 19th- and early 20th-century impresarios and composers who toured with their own orchestra and chorus, presenting zarzuelas over several weeks in different cities. Just like Plácido Domingo’s parents did whose dedication likely saved zarzuela from falling into complete oblivion.

 

Ultimately, this is not only about a revival of zarzuela but about the first true international dissemination of a genre that has been marginalized in the history of musical theatre. Now, after almost 400 years of existence, we hope to finally usher in its long-overdue “Golden Age.”