With its name derived
from the Palacío dela Zarzuela,
the royal hunting seat near Madrid,
the Zarzuela flourished in seventeenth
century Spain. As a form of musical
theatre however it was no more immune
to contemporary currents in music-making
than any other and the infiltration
of Italian opera led to a fruitful cross-current
of influences. The characteristic rhythms
(seguidillas and fandangos) and high
literary texts of Zarzuela fused with
Italianate styles to produce the kind
of music espoused on this exciting and
excellently realised disc.
With an orchestra in
characterful, pungent and colourful
form and a soloist of striking range
and energy – and imagination – we are
set for some revealing examples of a
genre often overlooked. Whilst Soler
and Boccherini may be household names
it’s generally for the work in other
mediums – and I suspect that the real
operatic Zarzuela stars here (de Nebra
Blasco and de Hita) will be unknown
to most. The arias from the former’s
striking Iphigenia en Tracia
are memorably incisive and vibrant,
their Handelian qualities potent, as
is the tense and fine horn writing and
María Bayo’s divisions and powerful
sense of declamatory theatricality.
In the case of Pieded, Señor
– which is particularly difficult
aria to make dramatic sense of – it’s
notable how well, fluently and persuasively
Bayo joins the threads and makes of
it a dramatic unity. And this is quite
typical of her approach throughout the
disc. One can hear that in Soler’s La
madrileña o el tutor burlado
(1778) the famous Zarzuela seguidillas
make their inimitable presence felt.
De Nebra Blasco’s Ay!
Amor! Clelia mia from Amor aumenta
el valor (1728) has certain Bachian
affinities – and some beautiful harmonies,
whereas the vitality and rhythmic nuance
of the Zarzuela operas can best be appreciated
in the Overture to Boccherini’s Clementina.
The demands that these composers made
are not obviously less than those of
their Italian contemporaries – de Nebra
Blasco’s Más fácil
sera al viento for example
is extremely taxing vocally and the
scrunchy harmonies of Horacio’s aria
from Amor aumenta el valor are
no less so.
In all of these the
performers, the orchestral soloists
and the production values are exceptionally
high and the booklet notes thorough
and full of detail. Above all, there
are some rewarding discoveries to be
made amongst the Zarzuela stars of the
baroque.
Jonathan Woolf