Iberia

by James A. Michener

  For visitors interested in modern painting, that is to say the work of artists like Cezanne, Manet and Van Gogh, two small pictures in one of the lesser Velázquez rooms attract most attention. The two unimportant landscapes show the gardens of the Villa de’ Medici in Rome and were done in one of Velázquez’s scouting expeditions to Italy. The first landscape appears finished and shows simply the façade of a wall of some kind, tall cypresses, a hedge and two male figures. The second, and more important shows a comparable scene except that the wall is replaced by an archway beyond which rocks and landscape can be seen. Three male figures populate this picture, which might seem unfinished except that this was the way Velázquez intended it.

  It is an extraordinary work. It could have been done by any of the modern artists mentioned above, or by Renoir or Pissaro. The subtle brushwork, the spare use of color, the impressionistic drawing and the manner in which space and planes are indicated combine, to make this small canvas one of the gems of the collection. It speaks directly from the age of Velázquez to the present, reminding us that all artists face similar problems.

  As one would expect, the Prado contains superior works by a host of other important Spanish artists like Ribera (1588–1652), Zurbarán (1598–1664) and El Greco (1541–1614), but it is the paintings by Goya (1746–1828) that astonish. So rich is the museum in works by this artist that a major room on the second floor is given over to them, plus a series of rooms on the first. In the former is found that intriguing pair of portraits which we discussed when visiting the Coto Donaña, ‘Maja desnuda’ and ‘Maja vestida.’

  It is in the downstairs rooms that Goya’s work seems most impressive, for only here can one see this virile, tough artist at his best: his etchings on the horrors of war, the bullfight series, the famous black paintings. Here also are those exquisite scenes of picnics and parties in the outskirts of Madrid, and the little landscapes that seem to be from another artist, so delicate and poetic are they.

  The most famous of the Goyas are those showing the brutality of life, and none excels ‘The Third of May,’ in which soldiers are shooting down unarmed citizens against a leaden sky showing the spires of a nearby town. This powerful work might almost be termed a summary of Goya’s social philosophy, but it is also a masterful work of art.

  Concerning the black Goyas, I am embarrassed. On my first visit to the Prado, years ago, I was repelled by this series of fourteen gloomy works in which dark paint predominates. I had not heard of them before and was unprepared for their power. On my second and third visits I also failed to appreciate them, but then I read an essay by Dr. Sánchez Cantón (this was one of the things I had wanted to speak with him about) and I began to understand why experts praised these works so highly; today a painting in comparable style, ‘El Coloso o El Pánico,’ has become one of my favorite Goyas. It shows a brooding landscape with turbulent sky, a low mountain range flecked by purple clouds, and a valley down which cattle and covered wagons and people are fleeing in obvious panic, driven onward by a terrifying apparition. At the head of the valley, his legs hidden behind the mountains, rises a colossal nude figure, bearded and with enormous arms which he brandishes boxer-style. He is thousands of feet high and is obviously infuriated by some unseen thing which has attacked him. With one hand he could crush all the fleeing people. The total scene is so bizarre and the flight so headlong that the picture remains a masterpiece of terror, as psychologically bewildering as it is artistically exciting.

  There are many such Goyas in the Prado, some so revolting as to repel the average viewer, but when one is surfeited with them he finds a small painting, perhaps the last that Goya did, a beautiful work in grays and blues depicting the young French woman who used to deliver milk to his home when he was living at Bordeaux. It was painted, the signature states, when Goya was eighty-one, and like the ‘Medici Gardens’ of Velázquez seems as modern as any work by Cézanne or Renoir. It is a marvelous thing, a true portrait of one real milkmaid, yet an evocation of all the women Goya loved throughout his life.

  Whenever I visit the Prado I am tantalized by the fact that in 1870, during a troubled period, some dozen topquality Goyas were stolen from the museum. They have never been recovered, but Spanish experts believe they are in existence somewhere. So at any time some lucky seeker, rummaging through old stacks of paintings may discover one of the missing Goyas and find himself half a million dollars richer.

  El gran flanero.

  I end each visit to the Prado by going to a remote room on the ground floor which houses a mysterious statue. It shows a young woman, handsome rather than beautiful, wearing a curious headdress, and was found in 1897 buried on a farm near Elche in eastern Spain. In some way that has not been explained to me it reached the Louvre, where it was recognized as a major work of art, probably the best statue ever carved in Spain, but remained unidentified. When was it carved? Not a clue, but it seems unquestionably old. Who carved it? Not a clue, but guesses have oscillated between a pre-Roman artist and a pre-Renaissance. Who is the woman? Not a clue, but she must have been a person of rank, for the headdress is extraordinary. The statue found its way back to Spain as part of that deal in which the Louvre traded its Soult Murillo for a Velázquez, and as the significance of this statue becomes recognized, critics begin to modify their earlier objections: ‘It’s still true that to swap a Velázquez for a Murillo is insanity, but if you get the Dama de Elche thrown in, it’s not so bad.’

  Present judgment inclines toward a theory that this enigmatic statue was carved by Iberians either a few centuries before Christ or a few after, and I have inclined toward the former, but I was startled by the most recent speculation: ‘Probably not a woman at all. More likely a young king dressed in ritual battle gear.’ When you’re next in the Prado, judge for yourself. It will be worth the effort, for this is one of the world’s most compelling statues.

  In my wanderings about Madrid I kept running into a gentleman who intrigued me. I did not know who he was, but at the bullfights there he would be. In the cafés, at the theater, strolling along the promenades he appeared, always grave, bald, handsome. He looked like a Spanish Charles Boyer and conducted himself in the same courtly manner. He never seemed to make noise but he did exert an authority which was acknowledged by those who came within his circle. I often wondered who he was, for in his combination of studied dress and casual manner he seemed to me Madrid’s essential man-about-town, and I knew I would enjoy meeting him.

  I did so in a curious way. Front-row tickets for the special series of bullfights held in May were impossible to get, but a Spanish friend showed me how to butter up one of the attendants—fifty pesetas a day, whether anything happened or not—and this fellow would keep an eye on the front row and slip me into any seat left vacant. Some days it worked; some days it didn’t; but at one important fight there were two seats vacant and I was summoned to one of them. The man who got the other was this gentleman I’d been seeing about the city.

  ‘I am Manolo Torres,’ he said quietly. So this was he, Madrid’s legendary bon vivant, a man with a most unusual reputation. Everyone knew him. I’d read three or four long newspaper stories telling how he was held in affection by different strata of Madrid’s society, but the thing that all remembered best was that he made flan (egg custard).

  ‘I read about your flan,’ I said.

  He smiled with genteel embarrassment. ‘I do most things poorly,’ he said, ‘but flan I make as only the angels do.’

  It had become a custom in Madrid for Don Manolo to make up a large batch of his special flan each noontime, and there were many important figures who had developed the superstition of never making a significant decision before having had a good-luck flan with Don Manolo. Was a bullfighter flying to Mexico for six fights? Better share a flan with Don Manolo. Was the impresario opening a new musical comedy? Better ensure good reviews by taking a cup of Don Manolo’s flan. Cartoonists, politicians, athletes and especially those in the theater relied on Don Manolo’s mag
ic to bring them luck.

  ‘How do you make it?’ I asked between fights.

  Don Manolo’s face became ecstatic, one of the few times I was ever to see him betray enthusiasm. ‘If when you return to América del Norte you wish to make true Spanish flan, proceed in this manner. In each of six molds put a spoonful of sugar and melt it over the fire until it covers the bottom and almost reaches the point of caramel. Take it off the fire. In a bowl beat three whole eggs and the yolks of three more. Grate some lemon rind. Mix one soup spoon of sugar, not too full, for each of the egg yolks, in this case six. Add milk sufficient to fill the molds, which you now put in the Mary’s bath.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Baño de María. It means you don’t put the molds directly against the heat but with their feet in water. And the flame mustn’t be too strong. It should be low. When the mixture seems to have become like gelatin, that is, after about an hour, put the molds in the oven or even better in a little electric stove so you can brown the crust. Then move them to the refrigerator, but don’t eat them until you have a guest who has a delicate palate. Estupendo!’

  It was a strange thing. I came to know Don Manolo and also read a lot about him but never discovered what he did for a living. It was known that from the age of twenty-four he had gone to the theater every night save when kept in bed by illness. ‘Cinema, opera, comedies, tragedies,’ he said. ‘It’s been all the same to me. I am afflicted with the theater. But especially zarzuela.’

  I caught my breath. Ever since that first night in Castellón de la Plana, when the man working the barges had taken me to the theater during feria and I had seen my first zarzuela, I had wanted to talk with some expert who knew something of this unique musical form, but in all the years of casual inquiry in both Mexico and Spain, Don Manolo was the first I had met. It was not possible that day to speak with him as much as I would have wished, but later I was able to do so, and I will share his comments in a moment.

  The Spanish zarzuela was one of four distinct yet comparable theatrical forms which grew up spontaneously during the last half of the nineteenth century, only to subside in the twentieth, and each seems to have arisen in response to a similar need, even though the four audiences voicing the need were dissimilar.

  In England it was the evening of music-hall acts which developed, with its broad mixture of comedy, dance and song. In Vienna the same impulse gave birth to the operetta, which utilized the above three ingredients but added a story. In the United States the best we could do with these ingredients was the sui generis minstrel show. It was in Madrid that this type of popular art found its artistic apex in the zarzuela, which was a playlet, half spoken, half sung, with dancing, comedy and delightful music.

  I have often tried to find the name of that first zarzuela I saw in Castellón, but with no luck. All I know is that it had a lasting effect. When the curtain opened and a costumed chorus sang about how pleasant it was to live in Madrid, I settled back for a typical evening of Viennese operetta, but soon a soprano sang an aria of startling dimension, and she was followed shortly by a contralto and a tenor who sang a duet that could have been written by Verdi. But just as quickly the chorus took over to chant something about taking a walk in the park, and I heard no more opera. In other words, in each of the best zarzuelas two or three operatic numbers will explode through the theater for several minutes, after which things subside to routine comedy or folk tragedy.

  Most Americans who enjoy good music remain ignorant of the zarzuela, and that is a pity, because Spain today offers more than eighty different zarzuelas in recordings, including some in stereo if preferred. There are also a few records of high quality offering anthologies of choral numbers, the best duets or the best solos for various voices, and these are excellent. For example, if one heard fifteen or twenty of the best duets he would be confused as to their origin; they are equal in intensity, drama and vocalization to the best of Italian or French opera. It is difficult to convince Americans of this, but two summers ago when Andre Kostelanetz wanted to introduce some sparkle into his series with the New York Philharmonic he offered a soprano singing selections from La revoltosa, and the New York audience was delighted. The singers of zarzuela are also of top operatic quality. One year I heard Pilar Lorengar doing zarzuela in Madrid, the next year Don Giovanni in Tel Aviv. The tenor Alfredo Kraus has made a similar jump. Not long ago in a zarzuela in Toledo, I heard a soprano who was eligible for work in any opera house in Italy or Germany. It is in the lack of scope and sustained musical narration that zarzuela suffers when compared to opera, and this deficiency takes some explaining. The composers demonstrated that they could write as good music as their competitors in other nations; the librettists often wrote better; and the performers were as good. I suppose it was the public that was defective, preferring the brief and incidental to the sustained and generic. There is also a noticeable lack of mature dramatic themes—all Donizetti and no Wagner—so that today the typical zarzuela seems as old-fashioned as an antimacassar.

  ‘I like it that way!’ Don Manolo says. ‘I don’t want some clever hack to update the jokes or to place the action in modern Barcelona. The zarzuela is nineteenth-century Madrid and its charm lies in its authenticity. Leave it alone.’

  I asked him if he enjoyed zarzuela as much today as when he first saw it. ‘Of course! It’s engrained in my life. It’s me and I respond to it.’

  When I asked him what had arisen to take its place, since it was so dated, he became angry and said flatly, ‘The zarzuela will never be replaced by anything. In its day it was Spain, and Spain is not replaceable.’

  I pointed out that since zarzuela is not presented much any more, something must have taken over the theaters which it used to occupy. What did Don Manolo think of the modern revue? ‘Please don’t ask me even to attempt such a comparison. The real zarzuela was music, book, setting, a bite of real life. The revue? Beautiful girls and snappy jokes.’

  I asked what it had been in the zarzuela that had pleased him most, the dramatic action or the music, and he said, ‘There you have the secret. Zarzuela was a perfect blend of each, and any that were deficient in either have died out. I would, however, grant that even if they alter the words too much you can still enjoy the music’

  Then came the two questions which I had been wanting to ask someone for so long: What zarzuelas had he liked as a boy? And which of the old classics still had most life in them? Of those he had seen when he was beginning to attend the theater two stood out, Molinos de viento (Windmills) and Los cadetes de la reina (The Cadets of the Queen). I had not seen either, but judged from the titles that they had played in Don Manolo’s growing up the role that The Student Prince had in mine, except that the music was better.

  Of the classics, Don Manolo mentioned four which among them cover the main aspects of zarzuela. La viejecita (The Little Old Lady, 1897) represents about two-thirds of the plays in that it is merely a frothy entertainment which cannot be taken seriously except for the lilt of its music. In this case it is Brandon Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt (1892) set to music, and is a frolic because it calls for the hero, an infantry officer, to be played by a beautiful soprano so that later on she can masquerade as the old lady. Spanish theater has many roles in which actresses appear as men, to the delight of the audience; since Spain is so essentially a man’s country and since the honor of manhood is so stressed, audiences find it refreshing to witness scenes in which mere girls can be better men than the pompous males. I am sure there must be something darkly Freudian about this, but when set to music it is fun.

  La revoltosa (The Rebel, 1897) is typical of those zarzuelas which offer a cross section of life in the Madrid streets; of the dozen best zarzuelas, I suppose eight or nine deal with such subject matter, so that the zarzuela could properly be said to be a product of Madrid. This version deals with a high-spirited girl growing up in a Madrid semi-slum and with how she defends herself from the older men who bear down upon her while she tries to decide what to do
with the young man who wants to marry her. Some of the music, especially the duet between Mari-Pepa and Felipe, is of high quality.

  Gigantes y cabezudos (Giants and Big-headed Dwarfs, 1898) represents the zarzuelas which were not content to mimic Madrid life but which went afield to report on the local color of Spain’s various regions. There are those who feel that when the zarzuela does so wander it loses quality, but this one is something quite special and lovely. A good translation of the title, since it refers to figures who appear during festival, might be something like Halloween. The action occurs in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, where an illiterate girl who works among the vendors in a marketplace receives letters from her soldier-lover in Cuba. A rascally sergeant from Andalucía makes believe that he too has received letters from her soldier and reads them to her, inventing a series of outrageous lies about the young man—he has married a girl overseas, he has been killed in battle—intending to win the girl for himself. The whole thing works out, of course, but what endeared this zarzuela to the Spanish public was the time and circumstance of its birth. It was the tragic year of 1898, when Spain’s military, shot through with corruption, came face to face with a well-disciplined opponent at Manila Bay and Cuba. Suddenly the façade of Spanish life broke away to show the crumbling structure beneath, and the shock would never be forgotten. Symbolic of the trauma that jolted Spain was the fate that overtook the hero of the Cuban War, Eloy Gonzalo, whose statue we saw at the Rastro. After defying Yankee guns with rare bravado he died senselessly of malaria. In that doleful year the theatergoers of Madrid trooped out to see one more new zarzuela, Gigantes y cabezudos, and the first scene was the light comedy to which they were accustomed, but then came a brief entr’acte. The stage was empty save for a painted backdrop depicting the Río Ebro, behind which could be seen the outline of La Seo, Zaragoza’s unique Moorish-looking cathedral. Onto a bridge came a group of soldiers straggling back from defeat in the New World. They stopped, looked at their beloved cathedral and sang.