ENRIQUE MORENTE. 2008 CAJAMADRID FLAMENCO
FESTIVAL
...free
Silvia Calado. Madrid, January 29th, 2008
Enrique Morente:
cante. Pepe Habichuela: guitar. Ángel Gabarre,
Enrique Morente Jr., Popo: choruses, compás. 16th
CajaMadrid Flamenco Festival. Teatro Albéniz. Madrid,
January 29th, 2008. 8:30 p.m.
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Enrique Morente (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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“What should be sung nowadays?”
Just yesterday, Enrique
Morente asked himself this important question
in an interview he gave to Fermín Lobatón
for ‘El País’. And last night at the
opening of the 2008 CajaMadrid Festival, its sixteenth
edition, he answered himself with a recital guided by
freedom. It isn’t that he did anything strange.
As he said, Sonic Youth are already calling him up for
another collaboration, “but they’ll have to
wait, because I have to sing seguiriyas now”. And
the thing is that he reunited at this point on the road
with his so often fellow sufferer through thick and thin,
maestro Pepe Habichuela. So it was time for cante jondo...
but free, forever free.
It was picture perfect. Enrique Morente
and Pepe
Habichuela once again side by side, rubbing shoulders,
together up on stage. And following the inevitable ovation,
they devoted themselves to cante and toque. Unbelievable.
Morente’s ‘ay’ bursts out. And the cantaor
gives each phase space, leaves it roomy... as if to make
the guitar take a long time to find it. The cante toys
with the ‘taratatrán’. The guitar follows
it with unusual freshness. Everything is unique, even
if it’s the usual stuff. When it sounded like Pepe
was tuning up, he was already doing brilliant things on
his guitar. As an apparent dissonance, he gave Enrique
a hoarse, insistent ‘tran tran’ for him to
sing the Lorca-style guitar por cabales. Minimal. Modern.
Beautiful. Free. This guitar must also have been weeping.
Every quejío is now shivering.
Enrique Morente
(Foto Daniel Muñoz) |
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A spoken reference to the Spanish Court.
“Flamenco would have been one thing with Madrid
and something else without Madrid. It’s thrilling
here”. And that’s how the journey through
soleá turned out. “If you suffer, suffer
quietly and don’t announce your grief, even if they’re
suffocating you, so that nobody laughs at it”. Those
are the verses with which he preaches the granaíno
with such extraordinary grandeur, between flashes of genius.
And in the lyrics about the town crier, he goes and cries
out. The guitar is on top of things and cooks up a beautiful
intro for him for the poem by Antonio Machado, ‘Yo
escucho los cantos’. Chills come and go. How the
guitar frolics and how the verses are allowed to slide.
The people are no longer applauding or cheering; now they’re
shouting. And in the postscript of the remedies for all
evils, Morente is one and many Morentes. Collective euphoria.
They then remember that poem by Miguel Hernández
which they recorded long ago, ‘Elegía a Ramón
Sijé’. And the jondo turns deeper. “As
far as pain goes, even my breath hurts”. He recites-sings-hurts.
And then, the seguiriya... resounding, gigantic, old,
free. The experience is so intense for the spectators,
that many of them can’t remain seated.
There had to be relief. And he called
on his family, a male trio commanded by cantaor Ángel
Gabarre, as its only professional. The spotlight acted
as a fire and they all formed a circle. Clapping to the
bulería beat. Enrique the child who still babbles.
Popo the child who played hooky. And the father who sets
everything right and covers with his short films between
remarks and songs. The skillful guitar returns for the
tangos. The tight spot is over; now it’s time to
relax... Tangos or bulerías. And he staggers away,
since he’s free to leave as he wishes. He has Madrid
at his feet. Let him leave as he wishes. And if he wants
to come back, let him come back. Everything’s a
gift at this point. Primitive cantes in a circle. Beats,
echoes, ritual. And he ends up declaring his madness...
which is a way of being free.
Enrique Morente and Pepe Habichuela
(Photo Daniel Muñoz)
Defense of a theater
condemned to death
Opening night of the sixteenth
edition of the CajaMadrid Flamenco Festival.
The theater was jam-packed, a thousand seats
filled up, with a tremendous ambience like
that of a bullring. Whoever would say that
it’s going to vanish because of mercantilism?
What’s going to happen to Enrique Morente,
like to everyone who was there, turns out
to be a catastrophe for culture. And quite
jokingly he explained that “they’re
going to set up a store here of the kind where
they sell canned chorizos, dirt hamburgers
and candy of the type that makes little girls’
eyes fall out”. And he made his proposal:
“Now that flamenco touches us all more
and more, even if it’s a little piece
of hair or fingernail, they could set up a
flamenco center here or a Spanish music center”.
No electoral candidate in this country has
had so much success with his proposals before
his audience. Let’s see if the politicians
follow suit and make albeit promises to save
Madrid’s Teatro Albéniz.
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