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Sunday,
September 17th.
Theater de la Maestranza: José Mercé
FIRST
MORNING LIGHT
Mercé finished
off the last Bienal singing disturbing seguiriyas in ‘Misterios
del Santo Rosario,’ by Évora. Along with him, Esperanza Fernández,
who has experimented with jazz for this year’s performance, while José
settles into the success of his recent recording. His was the only performance
programmed for a single singer.
String-pulling.
The voice of Remedios Amaya was disappointing, interpreting the first "gold"
recording of the guitarist and producer cordobés, Vicente Amigo.
Live, protected by the main man, Moraíto, Mercé floats over a net.
He’s got this one down cold after several years of offering the same show. He
uncorks his martinetes under a stream of light, like a warning that our
emotions are going to be held captive; templar pellizcos.
Moraíto
crushes out solo seguiriyas with his mighty thumb, until the moment when Mercé’s
voice slides into place; slow, smooth, con gusto. His voice squeezes out
the intensity of each verse of malagueña, soleá, seguiriya,
and fandangos of imperial eagle with a flamenco smile.
Supermoraíto’s
son Diego caresses bulerías on bass and percussion, before the arrival
of "Amanecer." Platinum recordings do tend to give one breathing room,
and Mercé did a lot of breathing, with everything coming straight from
the heart. "O morirme desolado." (Or I’ll die of sorrow).
There were things
from ‘Del amanecer…,’ between bulerías with a refrain, and alkaline
tangos, and even his encore of the teléfono chiquito. It would have
been nice if he had given us a hint of something from ‘Aire,’ to be released within
two weeks, but it couldn’t be on this occasion; not with the multinational in
charge.
His mic-less encore
was por bulerías de Jerez, with a few ungainly steps of dance; Moraíto
is still the better dancer. During the last thing José sang, surrounded
by his group, among cuplés por bulerías, he said:
Amanece en mis
pupilas Jerez de la Frontera
Dawn hits my pupils in Jerez de la Frontera
Meanwhile, in the Seville dawn, he was hailed as a hero.
Luis Clemente
Translated
by Norman Paul Kliman
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