Zarzuela: Spanish Operetta, American Stage (review)

Zarzuela: Spanish Operetta, American Stage. By Janet L. Sturman. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000. (Music in American Life.) [x, 243. ISBN 0-252-02596-2. $29.95.]

The zarzuela is the only musical genre named after a bush. Well, in a manner of speaking. Its long and intriguing history began in the seventeenth century at the theater of the Palacio de la Zarzuela outside of Madrid. The palace was surrounded by bramblebushes (zarzas), and hence its name and that of the musico-theatrical entertainment that came into being there.

The zarzuela is terra incognita to most audiences and scholars outside the Spanish-speaking world. Like many regional styles of musical theater dependant on spoken dialogue, it has not proven very exportable. In recent decades, under the direction of José Tamayo and featuring Plácido Domingo, the Antología de la Zarzuela has cultivated wider audiences by presenting shows featuring selected numbers from various works. But performances of entire zarzuelas would seem to have been infrequent or virtually nonexistent outside of Spain and Latin America. Or were they? Did the Spanish zarzuela have a career beyond those areas, and if so, of what kind?

This is a question that Janet Sturman, assistant professor of music at the University of Arizona, set out to answer. In fact, Sturman poses many questions in her text and, using a variety of methods, comes to some deeply insightful conclusions. She makes extensive use of interview material revealing attitudes and expectations of concertgoers, as well as their ethnicity and the changing demographics of the zarzuela public. The text is enhanced by tables dealing with demographics and by photographs of performance venues. Three appendixes detail zarzuela productions on the New York stage over the last century and at various theaters.

Sturman, an ethnomusicologist, is chiefly interested in examining the zarzuela's role in contemporary Hispanic society in the United States, especially (though not exclusively) New York City. What kinds of audiences attend these performances, which zarzuelas are most popular, how are they produced, and by whom? Her "crossover" approach, combining elements of historical musicology and ethnomusicology, is the only one capable of grappling with this complex subject.

The zarzuela's florescence took place from 1850 to 1950. Works were performed and composed not only in Spain but also in Latin America, particularly Mexico and Cuba. Zarzuela performance also has deep roots in the United States. In the Southwest, traveling troupes presented productions from El Paso to Los Angeles. But other urban centers had large numbers of Hispanics, especially New York City. Several theaters there staged zarzuelas, the golden age coming in the early part of the twentieth century, when there was a large population of Hispanics attending the theater. Today the principal venues include the Repertorio Español, under the leadership of René Buch, and the Thalia Spanish Theatre, under Silvia Brito.

According to Sturman, zarzuelas continue to attract primarily those "patrons who know Spanish and are of Hispanic descent" (p. 90). But "the average zarzuela patron is not the average Hispanic American" (p. 88) in terms of education and income, being above the norm in those categories. It is a mark of status to attend zarzuelas, and though the average patrons may be of Latin American ancestry (Cuban, for example), they feel a "stronger affiliation with Spanish culture" (p. 98). In fact, "zarzuela productions do much more than project identity. They actually create [it]" (p. 158). They are "a unifying force within New York's pan-Hispanic population . . . [allowing] presenters and audiences to invoke a peninsular identity, as remote or imaginary as that may be in reality" (pp. 85-86).

For zarzuela aficionados and anyone interested in Hispanic culture in the United States as seen through the lens of musical theater, this book is a sheer delight. The zarzuela represents not only the flowering of Spanish musical genius in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also the vibrant Hispanic presence in this country and the important position it occupies in our cultural history...