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La Revoltosa |
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This material is © Christopher Webber,
Blackheath, London, UK. Last updated June 29th
2009
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La Revoltosa
by Ruperto
Chapí libretto by José López Silva
and Carlos Fernández Shaw
®
recommended
recording
Three years after Bretón launched La verbena de la Paloma, his great rival
Chapí produced a highly effective counter-thrust with La
Revoltosa (Madrid, Teatro Apolo, 25th November 1897.) These two masterly
sainetes are the inseparable heavenly twins of zarzuela, comparable in
popularity to their Italian equivalents Cavalleria Rusticana and
Pagliacci - though it might be argued that the Spanish works surpass the
Italians in originality, theatricality and substance. La Revoltosa
shares with La verbena a contemporary slum
setting, a combative central passion between two well-suited lovers, and a rich
farcical underlay of Madrileño low-life lechery. |

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Placido Domingo Snr.and Pepita Embil, parents of the great
tenor, as Felipe and Mari-Pepa |
By a piquant irony, it seems that much of the music may have
been written with Vega's Verbena
libretto in mind - the text was passed on to Bretón due to contractual difficulties,
much to Chapí's chagrin. The difference between the two great
works is one of musical scale. Bretón's music is integral to the play,
and has muscle enough to stand by itself. The score of La Revoltosa
lasts only 35 minutes, and a fair amount of that is given over to orchestral
interludes and street music. It has a delicious libretto, brilliantly combining
Shaw's poetic sensibility with López Silva's boisterous
street argot - but it needs the stage to bring it to full life. Nonetheless,
Chapí's atmospheric music has wit and huge vitality, so La
Revoltosa has enjoyed constant and well-merited popularity. It has been the
inspiration for several films, as well as providing the template for a whole
hatful of highly enjoyable género chico imitations. |
Scene 1 -
the courtyard of a tenement building in the poor quarter of Madrid, on the
night of the verbena. After a spirited orchestral Preludio,
based on the main musical themes of the zarzuela, the curtain rises on the
courtyard. We meet three couples, the tailor Cándido and Gorgonia,
Tiberio and Encarnacion, Atenedoro and Soledad - and a highly attractive,
provocative young woman called Mari-Pepa. Without really intending to, she has
teasingly alienated the affections of the three males, who vie for her favours
in reasonably friendly rivalry. Their wives, led by the outspoken Gorgonia, are
not surprisingly on the warpath against this girl they call La Revoltosa
("troublemaker".) Her other admirers amongst the residents include the local
officer of the Guardia, old Signor Candelas, and an unattached young
man, Felipe.
Cándido, Atenedoro and Tiberio are playing cards with
Felipe in the cool of the evening, delicately evoked by the orchestra. As soon
as they think their wives are out of the way, Atenedoro gets out his guitar and
begins a Serenade at Mari-Pepa's window (Canto y Seguidillas: "Al pie
de tu ventana".) Gorgonia overhears the men and shouts at them to shut up,
and the chorus take up her mockery. When Mari-Pepa herself emerges onto a
balcony and throws some of the sarcasm back into the women's faces, things
threaten to turn nasty. Felipe tries to calm things down, but the jibes turn
into a general verbal altercation between all the men and the women generally.
Candelas emerges from his room in full uniform, and breaks up the racket,
ordering everyone to disperse. He pompously lectures the card-players about
their marital duty, is soundly jeered at and leaves indignantly. The men
continue to play, the women light the lamps outside their houses and bid each
other good night.
Felipe mocks his neighbours for their obsession with a worthless,
amoral cat like Mari-Pepa when they have such beautiful, intelligent and loving
wives (or fiancées - Atenedoro is still only engaged to his Soledad.)
They ridicule him for his failure to appreciate Mari-Pepa's stunning looks and
great body. When she comes down the stairs and starts flirting with the other
three, Felipe throws in his hand and leaves in sneering disgust. The men vie
for Mari-Pepa's favours in a delightful Quarteto: "La
pobrecilla". She teases them mercilessly, playing each one off against the
others as their suggestive insinuations become more and more outrageous. After
working them up into a sexual frenzy, she agrees to give them an answer "soon,"
and goes back inside. The women have had enough. They come back down in a fury,
and try to bully their men back into line. Gorgonia pleads with Candelas to lay
down the law to the destructive trollop, and he agrees to lecture Mari-Pepa,
despite objections from the men. When it comes to the point, however, la
Revoltosa twists the old official round her little finger, and soon has him
more besotted than the rest. The other women, infuriated, give her a
tongue-lashing. Mari-Pepa gives as good as she gets, until Felipe comes out to
restore peace by flattering the wives at la Revoltosa's expense. She, of
course, is thrown by his cool indifference. Meanwhile Gorgonia is hatching a
mysterious plot with Candido's apprentice boy Chupitos, and the scene ends with
the women determined to band together to defeat their dangerous rival and put
the men in their place.
Scene 2 -
Later that evening, outside a doughnut shop. Mari-Pepa is riled by Felipe,
chatting up two young chulapas (shopgirls) over a doughnut. When they
leave, she approaches him and the two of them exchange a brilliant series of
studied taunts and veiled come-ons. They each describe the Lover of their
Dreams, and enjoy their sparring match so much that when they separate, it is
with some reluctance. The next couple to appear on the scene are less happy -
Cándido has been lurking in the doughnut shop following Mari-Pepa, and
he is caught sneaking out by the vigilant Gorgonia. His wheedling and her
incensed fury affords a contrast to the lively wit of the younger pair, until
finally Cándido is dragged back home under a rain of blows. The scene
ends quietly with the distant voice of Soledad, heard singing a fragment of a
street song - pertinently lamenting the treachery of man once woman as given
him all - to the rhythmic clapping of the chorus (Guajira: "Eso le
pasa a las hembras")
Scene 3 -
back in the tenement courtyard that night. The popular Intermedio, a
fast and furious orchestral dance, leads into the final scene. All the
inhabitants are enjoying the evening, singing and dancing. (Coro:
"¡Olé los niños con esbeltez!") Candelas is coming
on to Soledad, and Chupitos is putting Gorgonia's plan into action, secretly
whispering to the eager three and Candelas that Mari-Pepa will meet them
privately in her room at ten o'clock. Soledad sings another two verses of her
song (Guajira: "Cuando clava mi moreno") as the chorus clap and
sing with her. The errant husbands and hypocritical Candelas give various
excuses to hang around outside, whilst Chupitos and the three wives pretend to
go into the street to join their neighbours at the verbena. Felipe appears. He
can't stop thinking of Mari-Pepa, but how far he can trust such a woman? Is she
really as bad as she seems? She comes in suddenly, and taken unawares they drop
all reserve, and admit their true feelings in a warmly sensual - and musically
sophisticated - Dúo: "Por
qué de mis ojos", which moves from hesitant probing to a
triumphant celebration of mutual passion. Soon, however, Felipe's jealousy
reasserts itself, Mari-Pepa's pride is stung - and the two are at one another's
throats again, storming off to their respective rooms.
It is nearly ten o'clock. Chupitos looks round the street door.
Seeing the coast is clear, he ushers the wives back up to Soledad's apartment
to enjoy the fun. (Escena: "No hay nadie, adentro".) The four
Lotharios, sneaking towards Mari-Pepa's room, run up against one another in the
dark, and suspiciously separate again. Felipe, despairing at the thought of
losing his love, comes out in time to spy Candelas creeping back along the
balcony. When the old lecher knocks on Mari-Pepa's door, Felipe goes for him,
and an immense row erupts, involving a frightened Mari-Pepa, Candido, Tiberio
and Atenedoro as well as their three women, Chupitos and all the neighbours,
who run back in to see what the trouble's about. Before Felipe can do murder,
Gorgonia explains - Mari-Pepa is innocent, the whole thing is a plot to trap
their husbands and the disgraceful Guardian of the Peace. The domestic drama is
done, the women look likely to forgive their men, Candelas reasserts his
shredded dignity - and the two relieved young lovers bring down the curtain at
the end of the sainete, with a plea to the audience to "pardon its many
faults."
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