SPECIAL FEATURES: FERNANDA DE UTRERA

Queen, goddess, nun

Zata for Flamenco-world

Half a century has passed since that skinny young girl appeared in Edgar Neville's film, 'Duende y misterio del flamenco', clapping for her sister Bernarda's cante. Five decades, countless performances, some twenty recordings, London, Paris, New York, a great deal of globetrotting, prizes and awards, a street named after her and the sister who has never left her side … Nowadays, when one talks about the Utrera cante or the Serneta soleá, all fans know that it is a reference to Fernanda Jiménez Peña, Fernanda de Utrera, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most widely-admired cantaora of our time.

Fernanda de Utrera in Flamenco de Carlos Saura

"Saying that I'm yours
what chain have you used on me
that you're so sure you have me?"

According to journalist José María Castaño, Fernanda de Utrera has the name Peña repeated ten times in her complete fourteen-name family name, the Peña family of cantaors with roots in Lebrija and Utrera, whose central figure is Fernando Peña, Pinini. When the gypsies of Utrera sing "Nueva Street gets stirred up, because Pinini has gotten drunk", they are talking about her grandfather. The credentials of the cantaora known as "the queen of the soleá" - because nobody else like her has known how to find and take advantage of the nooks and crannies of this noble style, the most essential one in the flamenco repertoire - are impeccable. She was born amidst cante and she grew up with cante. At the age of ten she was already drawing attention at the family get-togethers and neighborhood festivals, at a time when flamenco was still a way of life, in the most literal sense of the phrase, and cantes were learned by ear.

"For what people said
I forgot who I really loved
for as long as I live in this world
my joy is gone"

It was maestro Antonio Mairena who convinced Fernanda and Bernarda's father to let 'the girls' become artists. In 1957 he took them to the legendary Madrilenian tablao Zambra, and later to Corral de la Morería, Torres Bermejas, Las Brujas… Fernanda's artistic maturity conveniently coincided with Spain's economic miracle, foreign tourism and the boom of tablaos and cante flamenco festivals in that era. Her fame grew quickly and in 1964 she traveled to New York to perform at Spain's pavilion in the World's Fair. That first long journey is the subject of a known anecdote that Fernanda retells: the cantaora being over the age of forty at the time, decided it best to tell her mother she was going to work in Barcelona so that she wouldn't be worried and her mother advised here to take a sack of flour to set up a churro stand in case things didn't work out with the contract.

Despite so much tradition and so much lineage, Fernanda's trademark is unmistakable and very personal. If she doesn't have imitators, it might be because she's inimitable. She has won the most important prizes related to cante flamenco: the National Flamenco Art Contest of Córdoba (1957), the Mairena del Alcor Contest (1966), the National Cante Prize of the Flamencology Professorship (1967) and Cante Rhythm (1989), among others. And in 1998 she was named Hostess for Life of the cante festival in Gazpacho de Morón, a town she is especially dear to due to her longtime collaboration with local guitarist Diego del Gastor.

Besides the soleá, like any cantaor from Utrera, she has a broad repertoire of bulerías translated into Spanish. 'Se rompió el amor' and 'Ten cuidao' are among the songs most strongly identified with her versions. Many of them have been recorded at some point in her vast discography. Fernanda has taken part in recordings that have already been branded as classics: 'Sevilla, cuna del cante' (1959), 'Festival de Cante Jondo Antonio Mairena' (1967), 'El cante de Fernanda y Bernarda de Utrera' (1970), 'Potaje Gitano en Utrera' (1973), 'Fiesta en Utrera' (1974) and, singing for Manuela Vargas' dancing, 'El flamenco de Manuela Vargas' (1966).

My child is lost
and if God doesn't put it right
I'm going to lose my mind

Fernanda de Utrera in Flamenco de Carlos Saura

What could this cantaora have which has fascinated flamenco fans and scholars for decades? Avoiding the strings of grandiloquent adjectives used by writers, critics and flamencologists seeking a way of explaining the mysterious attraction of this unique voice, it could be said that, on the one hand, Fernanda de Utrera has two fundamental, indispensable gifts: an infallible sense of rhythm, always with the Utrera appellation of origin and inborn harmony. On the other hand, these qualities are at the service of an exquisite artistic sensitivity and voice that is impossible, broken, hoarse … a degree of 'insufficiency' that would normally advise against any professional activity related to the use of the vocal cords. And in this curious seesaw of advantages and disadvantages lies a great deal of the magic. Fernanda's cante is an extraordinary struggle, a fight that is won by the cantaora with great difficulty every time she takes the listener to a terrible, devastating landscape which she fearlessly caresses and embraces. Even in the most trivial styles, there are shadows, adventures and challenges at every turn. Even the silences are dangerous. Everything is a risk. This is possibly the voice that most closely takes flamenco lovers to the "black sounds", an idealized concept of how the purest cante flamenco should sound. For some, she is "a little short", meaning that she does not master a wide repertoire of cante styles, that she does not get away from her soleá, her bulerías, her tangos, her fandangos and her Pinini alegrías. For others, she is the goddess. Queen, goddess … or nun? In the '90s, already up in age, when she was asked in an interview if she misses having gotten married and having a family, she answers no, she feels married to cante.

Oh gypsy woman, you're a Moor
A Moor from the Moorish district...

Since 1970 Fernanda de Utrera has definitively remained in her beloved hometown, except for work-related trips which have been few and far between. One departure stands out: the 'Pure Flamenco' Tour she went on in the United States in 1987 with veterans Farruco and Chocolate, among other stars of the most traditional flamenco. And, of course, that appearance in the film 'Flamenco' by Carlos Saura (1994) in which she utters one of her last soleás. Seriously ill for some time now, she is no longer seen out in public and much less on stage, where her sister Bernarda - on the rare occasions when she still performs - remembers her, sings to her and cries for her. And the thing is that it's not easy to forget those years in which Fernanda de Utrera used to embody the spirit of the festivals and fairs where her generous, genuine smile, her great humanity... and that hurting voice were never missing.

magazine@flamenco-world.com