FESTIVAL SUMA FLAMENCA 2008. ‘GOYESCA’
Of the artificial
Silvia Calado. Madrid, May 30th, 2008
‘Goyesca’. Cante: Carmen
Linares, Miguel Poveda, Fernando Terremoto, David
Lagos... Baile: Rafael Estévez, Nani Paños,
Israel Galván & Proyecto Lorca, Rocío
Molina, Carmen Cortés... Guitars: Alfredo Lagos,
Óscar Herrero... Festival Suma Flamenca 2008. Teatro
Albéniz. Madrid, May 30th, 2008. 8:30 p.m.
Israel Galván
on 'Goyesca' (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
The agenda which, with all its pomp and
ostentatiousness, has been developed in the last month
by Madrid’s government to patriotically commemorate
the bicentennial of the uprising against the French troops
of occupation, has rubbed off - avoidably- on Festival
Suma Flamenca 1808. And the thing is that the artificial
constructions which are done out of external initiative
(in this case, political) usually lack the truth, dynamics
and commitment one applies when defending one’s
own. But in the end, just as a few weeks ago listening
to Músicos del Nilo was enjoyed at the Plaza Mayor,
in a multicolored ceremony in which the Charge of the
Mamelukes was ‘staged’, you can move away
from the setting to enjoy - albeit for stints - the cante
of Carmen
Linares, Miguel
Poveda, David
Lagos and Fernando
Terremoto, the baile of Nani
Paños and Rafael
Estévez, of Israel
Galván and Rocío
Molina. And the thing is that what saved the dragged-out
gala was just the dazzling level of some of the artists
involved in order to come out with flying colors in such
a big assignment which is premiered and bidden farewell
at the same time.
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Israel Galván on 'Goyesca'
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
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The invention, directed by Pedro G. Romero,
was called ‘Goyesca’. Since the show resorted
to the motif of several pictures by the Aragonese painter
alluding to the period and to the events occurring a couple
of centuries earlier and which led to the Spanish War
of Independence and the subsequent restoration of absolutist
monarch Fernando VII. The fact is that here, the arguable
political circumstances of that era weren’t analyzed,
but rather the musical ones. And it is exactly the period
of pre-flamenco music which Faustino Núñez
has studied so conscientiously and recently summarized
in his ‘Guía comentada de la música
y baile preflamencos (1750-1808)’. The one in charge
of this section was precisely his colleague in other projects,
José Manuel Gamboa (who even had a cameo in the
final chirigotera scene). Romances, polos, cañas,
tonadas, tiranas, soleá de Arcas, El Vito, tangos,
trillas, cabales, saetas, pregones, cuplés... were
intertwined with scant fluency and even fewer resources
throughout the extremely long show, which was accompanied
by a thick explanatory booklet in case anyone got lost.
An intellectual discourse which, in short, didn’t
manage to be transferred to the stage or to the audience.
