Barbieri: El barberillo de Lavapiés

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra;
BBC Chorus;
Robinson, Stanford

CC 9115

Sourced from the Itter Broadcast Collection. • Like his English contemporary, Barbieri – sometimes styled ‘The Spanish Glinka’, for his importance to Madrid’s operatic development – drew on a potent mix of ingredients ranging from Mozart, French opéra comique and Italian opera through to the popular music of his time and place. El barberillo boasts a brilliant, tuneful score, and a libretto by Luis Mariano de Larra that is witty, well-structured and passionate. Although not Barbieri’s ‘breakthrough work’, El barberillo is Barbieri at his perfect best. The title plays on his own name, while inevitably evoking another famous Spanish barber, Rossini’s from Seville. It is as if Barbieri was issuing a challenge, proclaiming that Madrid was now an operatic match for any city in Europe. The gambit succeeded: the huge success of El barberillo supplied the cornerstone for a long-lived musical stage tradition (and economic goldmine) which lasted beyond the 1936 Spanish Civil War.

CD x 2

Muzyka klasyczna

Cameo Classics

04-11-2019

5020926911520