Enrique GRANADOS María del Carmen Opera in Three Acts Veronese • Suaste Alcalá • Montresor Wexford Festival Opera Chorus National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus Max Bragado-Darman CD 1 43:33 5 Yo también güervo enseguía Enrique (Fuensanta, María del Carmen) 0:36 Act 1 6 ¡Muy contenta! y aquí me traen, como aquel GRANADOS 1 Preludio (Orchestra, Chorus) 6:33 que llevan al suplicio (María del Carmen) 3:46 (1867-1916) 2 A la paz de Dios, caballeros (Andrés, Roque) 1:28 7 ¡María del Carmen! (Pencho, María del Carmen) 5:05 3 Adiós, hombres (Antón, Roque) 2:27 8 ¿Y qué quiere este hombre a quien maldigo María del Carmen 4 ¡Mardita sea la simiente que da la pillería! desde el fondo de mi alma? (Pepuso, Antón) 1:45 (Javier, Pencho, María del Carmen) 4:10 Opera in Three Acts 9 5 ¿Pos qué es eso, tío Pepuso? ¡Ah!, tío Pepuso, lléveselo usted (Roque, Pepuso, Young Men) 3:04 (María del Carmen, Pepuso, Javier, Pencho) 0:32 Libretto by José Feliu Codina (1845-1897) after his play of the same title 0 6 ¡Jesús, la que nos aguarda! Ya se fue. Alégrate corazón mío Critical Edition: Max Bragado-Darman (Don Fulgencio, Pepuso, Roque) 1:49 (María del Carmen, Javier) 0:55 ! ¡Viva María el Carmen y su enamorao, Javier! Published by Ediciones Iberautor/Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales 7 Una limosna para una misa de salud… (Canción de la Zagalica) (María del Carmen, (Chorus, Domingo) 5:22 @ ¡Pencho! ¡Pencho! (Chorus) ... Vengo a delatarme María del Carmen . Diana Veronese, Soprano Fuensanta, Don Fulgencio, Pepuso, Roque) 6:59 8 Voy a ver a mi enfermo, el capellán para salvar a esta mujer (Pencho, Domingo, Concepción . Larisa Kostyuk, Mezzo-soprano (Don Fulgencio, Pepuso, María del Carmen) 3:56 María del Carmen, Javier, Antón, Migalo, Pepuso) 5:32 Fuensanta . Silvia Vázquez, Soprano 9 Mírala, aquí la tenemos # ¡Dile que huya! (Domingo, María del Carmen, Pencho . Jesús Suaste, Baritone (Domingo, María del Carmen, Javier) 3:17 Pencho, Javier) 1:56 0 Tú sabes mi mal cruel Javier . Dante Alcalá, Tenor (Javier, María del Carmen, Chorus) 4:33 Act 3 Domingo . Gianfranco Montresor, Baritone ! Ya ha empezado la misa $ Preludio (Orchestra) 3:10 Don Fulgencio . David Curry, Tenor (Domingo, Javier, María del Carmen) 0:46 % ¡Me ha llamado cobarde! (Pencho, Chorus) 4:02 Pepuso . Alberto Arrabal, Baritone @ He hablado con el médico ^ Pencho de mi alma, prepárate a huir (Domingo, María del Carmen) 1:26 (María del Carmen, Fuensanta, Pencho, Chorus) 1:56 Migalo . Stewart Kempster, Bass # María el Carmen, oye, ¿no sabes? & Si te prenden, sola, ¿qué hará tu zagala? Antón . Ricardo Mirabelli, Tenor (Fuensanta, María del Carmen, Domingo) 0:53 (María del Carmen, Pencho) 1:18 Roque . Alex Ashworth, Baritone $ ¡Resuelve si libre quieres que sea! * Vengo a lo que sabes Andrés . Nicholas Sharratt, Tenor (Domingo, María del Carmen) 0:47 (Javier, Pencho, María del Carmen) 1:17 % ¡Virgen Santísima de la Fuensanta! (Chorus) 2:21 ( ¿Y mi Javier? (Domingo, Fuensanta, Un cantaor huertano . Vicenç Esteve, Tenor ^ Poco lento (Orchestra) 1:29 María del Carmen, Pencho) 1:14 ) Buenas noches (Don Fulgencio, Domingo, The Wexford Festival Opera 2003 production CD 2 59:48 María del Carmen, Pencho) 0:49 ¡ Disponte a oírme con entereza Recorded during performances at the Theatre Royal, Wexford, Ireland, Act 2 (Don Fulgencio, Domingo) 4:13 on 23rd, 26th and 29th October, 2003 1 Preludio (Orchestra) 2:16 ™ Ponte en sarvo, huye si quieres (Domingo, Pencho) 0:29 Produced, engineered and edited by Andrew Lang (K&A Productions Ltd.) 2 Nenicas huertanas, que tanto amáis a los zagales £ ¡Oh, ven a matarme, ven! (Javier, Pencho) 2:11 (Fuensanta, Domingo, Antón) 4:41 ¢ Vamos pues, vamos allá, vamos a prender Wexford Festival Opera Chorus (Chorus Master: Lubomír Mátl) 3 Ya estamos aquí nosotros a Pencho ya (Concepción, Domingo, María del Carmen, Antón) 0:52 (Chorus, María del Carmen, Javier, Pencho) 2:35 National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus 4 Sentarse Max Bragado-Darman (Domingo, Concepción, Migalo, María del Carmen) 0:51 Enrique Granados (1867-1916) d’amor, L’ocell profeta, Elegia eterna and Cant de les German repertoire. It conforms more to the characteristic María del Carmen estrelles; and above all, the stage poem Liliana, a mature formula of Spanish poetry, returning again and again to work first given on 9th June 1911 and representing the the same idea but from different perspectives. Thus he Whether Enrique Granados should be regarded as a in Valencia, probably instigated by his father-in-law, the culmination of his uneven relationship with the modernist tended to repeat melodies more than he developed them, Spanish or as a Catalan composer has been the subject influential impresario Francesc Gal, the opera was not movement. adding different and increasingly brilliant decoration to of some discussion. He was born in Lérida (Lleida in performed again until December 1935, when it was Although Granados distanced himself from the each repetition. Generally less chromatic than Franck or Catalan), the capital of the least Catalan province of the revived in Barcelona with the famous soprano Conchita political elements in Catalan nationalism, he nevertheless Wagner, his elaborate harmonic schemes confer a four that make up Catalonia, and the name of the present Badia under the baton of Joan Lamote de Grignon. Since had strong aesthetic and social ties with his cultural distinction and brilliance to his style that bring it close to opera, María del Carmen, is profoundly Castilian. This then the work which Granados himself considered his environment. These ties were integral to him not only as the works of those two composers, both of whom he fact, and the opera’s plot to the libretto by Barcelona best opera has been largely ignored until today. a musician but also as an amateur painter and a man admired very much. His music is always refined and playwright José Feliu i Codina, were what provoked María del Carmen was created at an important time who loved literature. His admiration for the Wagnerian extremely elegant. strong reproaches from the Catalanista world in which in Catalan culture. In the Spain of the mid-1880s, world, which had a firm following in Catalonia, inevitably Like Wagner, Granados frequently uses the devices Granados was living and in which, in some ways, he modernism was a lively cultural movement that in brought him closer to modernism, and to collaboration of self-quotation and thematic references to other works. actively participated. Catalonia crystallized the ideals of the ‘Renaixença’. with the Barcelona Wagner Society, and even inspired a Without actually creating a true scheme of leitmotifs, he Granados achieved his first great operatic success Modernism completely dominated the cultural and piano piece Eva y Walther. The influence of Wagner on often links harmonies and melodic motifs with specific with María del Carmen, in which the action is set far from musical life of Catalonia and Barcelona, which was then Catalan artists and society was strong and Wagnerism dramatic events, thereby conferring a Wagnerian flavour Catalonia in Murcia, in the south-east of Spain. From its much more avant-garde than Madrid, a city dominated by underlies some of Granados’s works, with the importance to certain works, including María del Carmen, which must première in the Teatro de Parish in Madrid on zarzuela and farce, and deaf to the crisis that the given to the orchestra, and the absence of the be ranked with Goyescas as among the best operas of a 11th November 1898, conducted by the composer, the decadent Kingdom of Spain was going through as its last conventional divisions between arias and dialogue, composer who always felt a fervent and intense vocation opera was very well received. The critics emphasized its colonies, the Philippines and Cuba, gained their familiar to the public from zarzuelas. for the lyric theatre. fine orchestral writing and the profound lyricism of its independence in 1898. People such as the architects It was the lot of Granados to live at a time when avant- Granados remains imperfectly known and popular melodies. The success of the première is Domènech i Montaner and Gaudí, the painters Casas, garde trends in Barcelona were extraordinarily active, understood as a composer. Not even his Catalan and demonstrated by its run of nineteen performances. It Hugué, Nonell, Picasso and Rusiñol, writers such as probably to a much greater extent than he, with his Spanish countrymen can come to any agreement on him. remained in the Madrid repertoire until 9th January 1899, Maragall, Mestres and Miralles, or musicians such as conservative background, could assimilate. Perhaps For some he is the last Romantic, for others the Spanish when Queen Maria Cristina awarded Granados the Albéniz, Morera, Pedrell, and Granados (who also because of this, and despite his determined involvement in Chopin, and for others, the Spanish Grieg. Whatever the Charles III Cross in recognition of his creative work. painted), were all main actors in this unique movement in Barcelona’s developing aesthetic trends, he was always truth, he is the most important Spanish composer of his Its appearance in Catalonia, on 31st May 1899, in Catalan culture. It was defined by Federico de Onís as regarded by his colleagues as a conservative incapable of time, together with his countrymen Isaac Albéniz and the the Teatro Tivoli in Barcelona, was less of a triumph: a the Spanish form of the universal crisis and spirit that really understanding the renewing dynamics then at work. Cadiz-born Manuel de Falla. That other Catalan, Pablo pro-Catalanista section of the audience demonstrated around 1885 heralded the dissolution of the nineteenth At bottom, and as his teacher Felipe Pedrell Casals, once compared these three geniuses of Spanish their rejection of the work by whistling and by shouts of century.