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Seville, That Glorious Backdrop
| Article
# : |
19949 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1992 |
1,718 Words |
| Author
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Peter Roberts
Peter Roberts, editor of the London-based theater magazine
Plays International, has lived in Spain and studied at Madrid
University. |
For some people, oranges are to Seville what fried chicken is to Kentucky. But for many more who can elevate their thoughts above what they eat and drink, this ancient city on the banks of the Guadalquivir is not just Spain's only river port but, above all, a place in which to celebrate the arts. For, unlike many centers that in part live off the borrowed fame of men who happened to be born in them, Seville not only has unique links with generations of writers, painters, and musicians but has also contrived to be the setting for many famous works of art, particularly in opera.
It has been calculated, for instance, that no less than eighteen operas are set in or around Seville. Just a few of the best known constitute a formidable list; they include, in order of composition, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, Beethoven's Fidelio, Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Donizetti's La Favorita, and Bizet's Carmen. The result is that many people form their first impressions of Seville's Andalusian setting not when they get off the plane but in the opera house long before they set off. Visitors first experience the whites of its tiny houses; its abundant jasmine, magnolia, and orange trees; and the vegetation that luxuriates in its patios, balconies, and parks as a theater design against which are staged the works of some of the world's greatest composers.
Of course, opera, which is usually dated as having begun in 1600, is very much a new art compared to literature. And Seville had already begun the process of working its way into our collective consciousness by forging links with two great writers who predate the birth of opera by a few years. Although Miguel de Cervantes was born near Madrid in 1547, it was while he was in prison in Seville that he hit on the idea of creating Don Quixote, who, with his servant Sancho Panza, provides such a hilarious parody of the tales of knights errant and their deeds of chivalry.
Another world-famous double act--Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello--comes from Seville's Tirso de Molina (nom de plume of a Mercedarian friar, Gabriel Tellez) who was born in 1584 and later gave the world the immortal figure, Don Juan, in his play El Burlador de Sevilla. His Don Juan Tenorio was based on a non-fictional figure, and, consequently, there is at least one ancient drinking place in Seville that claims to have served the original Don Juan while he was about his latest conquest.
Fortunately for Seville, Spain's culture had a magnetic charm that pulled several foreign writers to its shores.
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