''The Butterfly's Evil Spell'' (''El maleficio de la mariposa'') was the first play by the twentieth-century

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

.Lorca Plays
Edwards, G. 2014. Lorca Plays: 3: The Public; Play without a Title; Mariana Pineda. A

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

work drawing inspiration from

Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

and

Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize i ...

, especially the latter's '' The Blue Bird'' (1905), Lorca's play deals with an injured butterfly, temporarily stranded amongst other insects, that flies away despite a cockroach's love for her. Written at the invitation of impresario

Gregorio Martínez Sierra Gregorio Martínez Sierra (6 May 1881 – 1 October 1947) was a Spanish writer, poet, dramatist, and theatre director, a key figure in the revival of the Spanish theatrical avant-garde in the early twentieth century. Work as a poet and playwr ...

, it was first staged at

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

's Teatro Eslava on 22 March 1920 with ballet dancer Encarnación López Júlvez, called "

La Argentinita Encarnación López Júlvez, known as La Argentinita (Buenos Aires, March 3, 1898 – New York, September 24, 1945), was a Spanish-Argentine flamenco dancer (bailaora), choreographer and singer. La Argentinita was considered the highest expr ...

", as the Butterfly, and Catalina Bárcena as the Cockroach. It was not well received by the public and was cancelled after only four performances.Federico Garcia Lorca
Delgado, M, M. 2008. pp39-42. Retrieved: 25/04/18 Later García Lorca would claim on various occasions that '' Mariana Pineda'' (1927) was his first play. Several aspects of the style and thematic content of ''The Butterfly's Evil Spell'' became distinguishing features of Lorca's mature drama: the exploration of symbolist stylization and non- naturalism, the incorporation of different art forms including music and ballet, bold attention to details of staging, and familiar themes such as frustrated love and the imminence of death. The work has been made into an opera by

Edward Lambert Edward Lambert (born 1951) is an English composer who has written chamber music, vocal and choral works, and chamber operas. He is also a conductor and pianist. Study Edward Lambert was educated at Christ's Hospital and read music at Mer ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterflys Evil Spell, The Plays by Federico García Lorca 1920 plays Symbolist plays