Alternate Title Falla and Flamenco
Country of Origin Spain
Description On April 17, BAM is proud to present Falla and Flamenco, a thrilling program of three works by Manuel de Falla (1876–1946), considered Spain’s preeminent composer. Imbuing 20th-century music with flamenco’s ancient gypsy tradition, the program includes El Corregidor y la Molinera (The Magistrate and the Miller’s Wife), an early incarnation of the beloved score for Diaghilev’s ballet The Three-Cornered Hat—performed in its U.S. stage premiere.
Featuring cutting-edge, adventurous choreography by Ramón Oller, El Corregidor y la Molinera also has the honor of being Spain’s sole cultural export to the U.S. during its presidency of the European Union. The evening’s program also includes Fantasía Baetica, an audacious piece for solo piano that expresses the raw, unadorned side of flamenco, and Nights in the Gardens of Spain for piano and orchestra—the composer’s beguiling evocation of Andalusia. This event is nothing less than an integrated immersion experience, exploring flamenco and its appropriation by Falla.
Conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez and Artistic Director Joseph Horowitz said of the endeavor: “That El Corregidor y la Molinera—a work little seen even in Spain—has been forgotten is largely an accident of history. Sergei Diaghilev asked Falla to revise this exquisite dance/pantomime with chamber orchestra as a full-scale ballet. The result was The Three-Cornered Hat, which triumphed onstage in Paris in 1919. And yet Corregidor is more than an early, smaller version of Three-Cornered Hat. The second half, especially, is musically distinct, and the chamber scoring offers a delectable alternative to the more lush sonorities of a full instrumental ensemble. Had there been no Three-Cornered Hat, Corregidor would be well-known today … we feel we are seizing an opportunity to reclaim a major Spanish stage work.”
Includes post-concert discussion with Pedro Carboné,, Angel Gil-Ordóñez, Joseph Horowitz, Antonio Muñoz-Molina, Ramón Oller, Brook Zern.
Identifier 2010s.00958
