''Doña Francisquita'' is a zarzuela in three acts composed by

Amadeo Vives Amadeu Vives i Roig (; 18 November 1871 – 2 December 1932) was a Spanish musical composer, creator of over a hundred stage works. He is best known for '' Doña Francisquita'', which Christopher Webber has praised for its "easy lyricism, flue ...

to a Spanish libretto by Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández-Shaw and based on Lope de Vega's play ' (''The Ingenious Lover''). With its colourful score and comic story of multiple love triangles which ends happily for the young lovers, Francisquita and Fernando, ''Doña Francisquita'' is considered a classic of the zarzuela genre, and Vives' masterpiece.

Performance history

''Doña Francisquita'' premiered at the Teatro Apolo in Madrid on 17 October 1923. It became very popular, receiving over 5000 performances throughout the Spanish-speaking world in the years immediately following its premiere. The work is still regularly performed in Spain and Latin America, but like most works in this genre, has only rarely been seen elsewhere. It was, however, performed in French translation at

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and

Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...

in 1934 and received a major production at

Washington National Opera The Washington National Opera (WNO) is an American opera company in Washington, D.C. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Perform ...

in 1998. There have been several film adaptations of ''Doña Francisquita'', the most recent of which was directed by

Ladislao Vajda Ladislao Vajda (born Weisz László; 18 August 1906, Budapest – 25 March 1965, Barcelona) was a Hungarian-Spanish film director who made films in Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Italy and West Germany. Biography He was born in Budapest, ...

and shown at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

in 1953 with Mirtha Legrand and Armando Calvo in the leading roles.Cannes Film Festival Archives.
The act 1 soprano

aria In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

"Canción del ruiseñor" ("The Song of the Nightingale") and the act 2

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

aria "Por el humo se sabe donde está el fuego" ("We know where the fire is by the smoke") have been individually recorded or sung in recitals by many opera singers from Spanish-speaking countries.

Roles

Synopsis

:Time: 19th century :Place:

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

during the Carnival season. Francisquita is in love with student and would-be poet, Fernando. He, however, is infatuated with the fiery actress Aurora la Beltrana, who in turn is the lover of Lorenzo Pérez. When Francisquita tries to flirt with Fernando, he ignores her. His friend Cardona takes him to task and suggests that he would be happier with her than Aurora. Francisquita is then wooed by the Don Mathias, Fernando's father, in the presence of Doña Francisca, Francisquita's mother. At first, Doña Francisca mistakenly believes that she is the object of Don Mathias' affections. Francisquita pretends to accept the elderly man's advances, hoping to make Fernando jealous. At the urging of Cardona, Fernando also makes advances to Francisquita hoping to make Aurora jealous. Fernando's passion for Francisquita starts to grow. He is horrified that she might marry his father and become Doña Francisquita. He tells Aurora that she no longer has any power over him, which at last piques her interest in him. But it is too late, he is now completely in love with Francisquita. All is resolved after a series of misunderstandings and machinations involving Cardona disguising himself as a woman; Aurora's lover, Lorenzo Perez, challenging Fernando to a duel; and rumours that Fernando plans to marry Francisquita's mother to the subsequent horror of Don Mathias. Don Mathias eventually realizes he is too old for Francisquita and gives his blessing to the young couple. In the finale all celebrate the forthcoming wedding of Francisquita and Fernando by singing "Canción de la Juventud" ("Song of Youth"), a hymn to the youthful spirit of Madrid.

Recordings

* María Bayo (Francisquita),

Alfredo Kraus Alfredo Kraus Trujillo (; 24 November 192710 September 1999) was a distinguished Spanish tenor from the Canary islands (known professionally as Alfredo Kraus), particularly known for the artistry he brought to opera's bel canto roles. He wa ...

(Fernando), Raquel Pierotti (Aurora); Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife;

Antoni Ros-Marbà Antoni is a Catalan, Polish, and Slovene given name and a surname used in the eastern part of Spain, Poland and Slovenia. As a Catalan given name it is a variant of the male names Anton and Antonio. As a Polish given name it is a variant of the fe ...

(conductor). Label: Naïve Classique. * María Rosa del Campo (Francisquita), Jaime Aragall (Fernando), Norma Lerer (Aurora); Orquesta Filarmonía de España;

Lamberto Gardelli Lamberto Gardelli (8 November 191517 July 1998) was a Swedish conductor of Italian birth,Lamberto Gardelli. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.'' Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory, e ...

(conductor). Label: Alhambra/Columbia MCE 846-7 / SCE 946-7. *

Ainhoa Arteta Ainhoa Arteta Ibarrolaburu, better known as Ainhoa Arteta (born 24 September 1964 at Tolosa, Basque province of Gipuzkoa), is a Spanish soprano. Personal life and training Her father, José Ramón Arteta, was founder and director of the C ...

(Francisquita),

Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French ...

(Fernando), Linda Mirabal (Aurora); Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla; Miguel Roa (conductor). Label: Sony Classical.

References

Notes Sources *Brown, Keith
''Sunday Afternoon at the Opera''

WWUH WWUH is a non-commercial radio station licensed to the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. The station was started on July 15, 1968 and has a Public Alternative Radio format. WWUH operates on 91.3 MHz from a ...

Radio, July–August 2008 *

Sadie, Stanley Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

and Bashford, Christina (eds) ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', Macmillan, 1992.

External links