Notes on the Text
Notes on the Text
[P. 13.] "why it was abandoned I have never learned": Oscar Hammerstein has since told me: "The score called for a large number of guitar players, more than I could get together readily. I should have been obliged to have engaged all the barbers in New York."... Raoul Laparra has spoken to me with enthusiasm about the orchestration of La Dolores: "The guitars produce an extraordinary effect."
[P. 14.] "There are probably other instances": During the season of 1916-17 at least two attempts were made by Spanish companies to give New York a taste of the zarzuela. In December at the Amsterdam Opera House Arrieta's Marina and Chapí's El Puñao de Rosas were sung on one evening and Valverde's El Pobre Valbuena and somebody else's America para los Americanos on another. In April a company came to the Garden Theatre and gave Chapí's La Tempestad and perhaps some others. Both of these experiments were made in the most primitive manner and were foredoomed to failure.... The Land of Joy was the first Spanish musical piece of any pretension (save the dull Goyescas) to be presented in New York.
[P. 14.] "La Gran Vía": I heard a performance of this zarzuela in Italian at the People's Theatre on the Bowery, July 1, 1918. The work is a favourite with itinerant Italian opéra-bouffe companies, probably on account of the very delightful Pickpockets' Jota in which the rogues outwit policemen in a dozen different ways. This strikes a truly picaresque note, redolent of folklore. The music of this number, too, is the best in the score, aside from the Tango de la Menegilda. This performance was primitive and certainly not in the Spanish manner but it was very gay and delightful from beginning to end.
[P. 15.] "the earlier vogue of Carmencita": This list could be extended almost indefinitely. I have made no mention of Lola Montez, who danced, acted, lectured, and died in this country. However, her pretensions to Spanish blood were mostly pretensions. Her father was the son of Sir Edward Gilbert of Limerick, although she had some Spanish blood on her mother's side. She spent some time in Spain and studied Spanish dancing there, but there is no evidence that she ever achieved proficiency in this art.... I believe both Otero and La Tortajada have appeared in this country. But neither of these women could help the cause abroad of Spanish music or dancing. Of these two I can speak personally as I have seen them both. Elvira de Hidalgo, a Spanish soprano, sang a few performances at the Metropolitan Opera House and the New Theatre at the end of the season of 1909-10. One of her rôles was Rosina, which is a greater favourite with Spanish women singers than Carmen. Margarita d'Alvarez, a Peruvian contralto born in Liverpool, sang in Oscar Hammerstein's last Manhattan Opera House season. Tortola Valencia danced for a short time during the season of 1917-18 in a revue at the Century Theatre. As for painters Francis Picabia, the Cuban, and Henry Caro-Delvaille, who is almost wholly Spanish in sympathy and appearance, but quite French in his art, are both living in this country at present ... and the work of Pablo Picasso is well-known here.