CAPULLO • LEBRIJANO
• EL TORTA. 2008 CAJAMADRID FLAMENCO FESTIVAL
Hard cante
Capullo de Jerez:
cante. Manuel Carrasco: guitar. Jesús Flores, Luis
and Ali de la Tota: clapping/ Lebrijano:
cante. Pedro María Peña: guitar/ El
Torta: cante. Juan Manuel Moneo: guitar. 16th
CajaMadrid Flamenco Festival 2008. Teatro Albéniz.
Madrid, February 1st, 2008. 8:30 p.m.
Capullo de Jerez (Photo
Daniel Muñoz)
What a triad. What coarseness. Last night
the cante at the Madrilenian flamenco festival was a harsh
experience. Capullo
de Jerez, El Lebrijano and El Torta are categorical
artists brimming over with personality … bordering
on ‘the savage’ which is so often cheered
in flamenco. Now then, some more than others and in different
ways. The most overwhelming one in that sense was Capullo
de Jerez, who shook up, fractured and knocked over his
usual repertoire, consisting of styles like bulerías,
fandangos and tangos with motley lyrics of his own which
the audience applauds furiously when it manages to understand
them. The best part of his accompaniment was the clapping
… which is what lights the fuse that incites the
cantaor to release that bizarre energy. But it nearly
gives you a shock.
| |
Lebrijano (Photo Daniel
Muñoz) |
| |
|
In Lebrijano,
who is now a veteran maestro, this concept of the heavy
takes on a different meaning. His was always flamenco
hinging between the traditional and the evolutionary.
And his way of performing it, with that firmness he applies
to everything coming out of his broad chest, turns his
offer into a great, unique whole. He combined songs as
timeless as ‘En el soto’, more uttered than
sung, with orthodox cante. The soleá was a casual
but necessary request, since it revealed deep creation
which hadn’t been glimpsed until then. How he spun
the cante, how he made it grow. Despite the fact that
he says he still gets stage fright. From the “poor
heart of mine” to the seguiriya, from there to the
tongue twister por bulerías. The crowd bowed to
El Lebrijano. And he left like the Pope, kissing the stage.
After two hours of emotions, a little
break was needed... for the audience was now unbearably
restless. And then, El
Torta burst in, now a phoenix. Madrid was expecting
him, although nearly more the character and its mythology
than the unbelievable cantaor he is. Nobody else makes
cante such a dramatic, such a traumatic, such a long-suffering
experience. As if a spirit possessed him and he had to
resort to cante as a sort of exorcism. He clenches his
clothes, rips off buttons, strikes the mike, his fingers
get stiff… he transforms. And the same por alegrías,
as por soleares, as with those malagueñas whose
rules he twisted, as por seguiriyas, as por tangos recalling
Luis de la Pica, as por bulerías. “Let me
live”. That was one of his last verses. The Jerez-born
cantaor is pure ‘pathos’.
El Torta (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
