GARCIA (DEL POPOLO VICENTO), MANOEL (1775-1832), Spanish singer and composer, was born in Seville on the 22nd of January 1775. He became a chorister at the cathedral of Seville, and studied music under the best masters of that city. At seventeen he made his début on the stage at Cadiz, in an operetta, in which were included songs of his own composition. Soon afterwards he appeared at Madrid in the twofold capacity of singer and composer. His reputation being established, he proceeded to Paris, where he appeared for the first time, in 1808, in Paer’s opera Griselda. Here also he was received with great applause, his style of singing being especially appreciated. This he further improved by careful study of the Italian method in Italy itself, where he continued his successes. His opera Il Califo di Bagdad was favourably received at Naples in 1812, but his chief successes were again due to his perfection as a vocalist. His opera La Morte di Tasso was produced in 1821 in Paris, where it was followed in 1823 by his Il Fazzoletto. In 1824 he went to London, and thence proceeded to America (1825) with a company of artistes, amongst whom were his son Manoel and his daughter Maria, better known under her subsequent name of Malibran. In New York was produced his opera La Figlia dell’ aria in 1827. He extended his artistic tour as far as Mexico, and was on the point of returning to Europe in order to retire from public life when he was robbed of his well-earned wealth by brigands on his way to Vera Cruz. Settled again in Paris in 1829, he soon retired from the stage, and devoted himself exclusively to teaching. He died in Paris on the 2nd of June 1832. His method of teaching was famous, and some of the most celebrated singers of the early part of the century were amongst his pupils. He also wrote an excellent book on the art of singing called Metodo di canto, of which the essence was subsequently incorporated by his son Manoel in his admirable Traité complet de l’art du chant (1847). His operas have not survived their day. He wrote nearly forty in all, but with the exception of those quoted, and El Poeta calculista, produced when he was thirty, none are remarkable. Besides the children already mentioned, his daughter Paulina, Madame Viardot (1821-1910), worthily continued the tradition for the best singing with which his name had become associated.
His son, Manoel Garcia (1805-1906), who celebrated his hundredth birthday in London on the 17th of March 1905, was born at Madrid, and after his father’s death devoted himself to teaching. He was a professor at the Paris Conservatoire from 1830 to 1848, from that time to 1895 was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He became famous for his invention of the laryngoscope about 1850, apart from his position as the greatest representative of the old “bel canto” style of singing.
GARCÍA DE LA HUERTA, VICENTE ANTONIO (1734-1787), Spanish dramatist, was born at Zafra on the 9th of March 1734, and was educated at Salamanca. At Madrid he soon attracted attention by his literary arrogance and handsome person; and at an early age became chief of the National Library, a post from which he was dismissed owing to the intrigues of his numerous enemies. The publication of his unsatisfactory collection of Spanish plays entitled Theatro Hespanol (1785-1786) exposed him to severe censures, which appear to have affected his reason. He died at Madrid on the 12th of March 1787, without carrying into effect his avowed intention of reviving the national drama. His Agamemnón vengado derives from Sophocles, his Jaire is translated from Voltaire, and even his once famous Raquel, though Spanish in subject, is classic in form.
GARCÍA DE PAREDES, DIEGO (1466-1534), Spanish soldier and duellist, was a native of Trujillo in Estremadura, Spain. He never commanded an army or rose to the position of a general, but he was a notable figure in the wars of the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, when personal prowess had still a considerable share in deciding the result of actions. His native town and its district, which lie between Talavera and Madrid, produced many of the most noted conquistadores of America, including the Pizarro family. Diego himself served in his youth in the war of Granada. His strength, daring and activity fitted him to shine in operations largely composed of night marches, escalades, surprises and hand-to-hand combats. The main scene of his achievements was in Italy, and he betook himself to it—on his own showing—not in search of glory, but because he had killed a relation of his own, Ruy Sanchez de Vargas, in a street fight arising out of a quarrel about a horse. He fled to Rome, then under the rule of the Borgias. Diego was a distant relation to the cardinal of Santa Cruz (Carvajal), a favourite with Pope Alexander VI., who was in conflict with the barons of the Romagna and took Diego into his service. He remained a soldier of the pope till he killed a man in a personal quarrel and found it necessary to pass over to the enemy. Now he became acquainted with the Colonnas, who appreciated his services. The wars between Ferdinand V. of Aragon (the Catholic king) and Louis XII. gave him a more creditable opening. The Spanish general Gonsalvo de Córdoba, who knew his value, employed him and trusted him; and he took part in all the wars of Italy on the frontier of Navarre, and once against the Turks on the Danube, till 1530. His countrymen made him the hero of many Münchausen-like stories of personal prowess. It was said that he held a bridge single-handed against 200 Frenchmen, that he stopped the wheel of a water-mill, and so forth. In the “Brief Summary” of his life and deeds attributed to him, and printed at the end of the Chronicle of the Great Captain, published in 1584 at Alcalá de Henares, he lays no claim to having done more than was open to a very athletic man. He was killed at Bologna in 1534 by a fall while engaged in a jumping-match with some of the younger officers of the army. His body was carried to his native town Trujillo, and buried in the church of Santa Maria Mayor in 1545.
GARCÍA GUTIÉRREZ, ANTONIO (1812-1884), Spanish dramatist, was born at Chiclana (Cadiz) on the 5th of July 1812, and studied medicine in his native town. In 1832 he removed to Madrid, and earned a scanty living by translating plays of Scribe and the elder Dumas; despairing of success, he was on the point of enlisting when he suddenly sprang into fame as the author of El Trovador, which was played for the first time on the 1st of March 1836. García Gutiérrez never surpassed this first effort, which placed him among the leaders of the romantic movement in Spain, and which became known all over Europe through Verdi’s music. His next great success was Simón Bocanegra (1843), but, as his plays were not lucrative, he emigrated to Spanish America, working as a journalist in Cuba and Mexico till 1850, when he returned to Spain. The best works of his later period are a zarzuela entitled El Grumete (1853), La Venganza catalana (1864) and Juan Lorenzo (1865). He became head of the archaeological museum at Madrid, and died there on the 6th of August 1884. His Poesías (1840) and another volume of lyrics, entitled Luz y tinieblas (1842), are unimportant; but the brilliant versification of his plays, and his power of analysing feminine emotions, give him a foremost place among the Spanish dramatists of the 19th century.
GARD, a department in the south of France, consisting of part of the old province of Languedoc. Pop. (1906) 421,166. Area 2270 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the departments of Lozère and Ardèche, E. by the Rhone, which separates it from Vaucluse and Bouches-du-Rhône, S. by the Mediterranean, S.W. by Hérault and W. by Aveyron. Gard is divided into three sharply-defined regions. Its north-western districts are occupied by the range of the Cévennes, which on the frontier of Lozère attain a height of 5120 ft. The whole of this region is celebrated for its fruitful valleys, its gorges, its beautiful streams, its pastures, and the chestnut, mulberry and other fruit trees with which the mountains are often clothed to their summits. The Garrigues, a dry, hilly region of limestone, which lends itself to the cultivation of cereals, the vine and olive, stretches from the foot of the Cévennes over the centre of the department, covering about half its area. The southern portion, which extends to the sea, and was probably at one time covered by it, is a low plain with numerous lakes and marshes. Though unhealthy, it is prosperous, and comprises the best arable land and vineyards in Gard.