Flamenco Night - de Falla El sombrero de tres picos

Spain’s most famous composer, Manuel de Falla, returned to Madrid shortly after the beginning of the First World War, having lived in Paris for seven years. There, he composed El amor brujo (The bewitched love), a ballet about an Andalusian gypsy woman who is harassed by the ghost of her deceased husband. The original work, which was created at the request of the then star dancer Pastora Imperio and also contained dialogues, was not a success, however. Manuel de Falla revisited the composition and created a new version for orchestra and mezzo-soprano, which soon became very popular. Few other works evoke flamenco culture so well, although El amor brujo is also largely indebted to the encounters Manuel de Falla had in Paris, among others with Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and the Russian impresario Diaghilev. The ballet was filmed in the 1980s by the well-known Spanish film director Carlos Saura.

A few years later, Manuel de Falla composed the ballet El sombrero de tres picos (The three-pointed hat). In 1919, on the initiative of Sergei Diaghilev, this work was performed by the Ballets Russes in London in a set and costumes by Pablo Picasso. The main characters of the ballet are a miller, his beautiful wife and a dignitary who tries to seduce the miller’s wife. After the premiere, Manuel de Falla distilled from the ballet two orchestral suites that can compete in musical quality with Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

The Danzón No. 2, composed in 1994 by the Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, became world famous in 2007, as it was part of the programme played by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, during their American and European tour. It is a highly rhythmic composition with solos for, among others, clarinet, oboe, piano, violin, alto oboe, trumpet, flute and piccolo.

Josep Vicent, conductor
Ginesa Ortega, singer
David Romero, dancer