Gatherings From Spain

SPANISH TRAGEDY

It was from Spain also that Europe copied the arrangement of the modern theatre; the first playhouses there were merely open covered court-yards, after the classical fashion of Thespis. The patio became the pit, into which women were never admitted. The rich sat at the windows of the houses round the court; and as almost all these in Spain are defended by iron gratings, the French took their term, loge grillée, for a private box. In the centre of the house, above the pit, was a sort of large lower gallery, which was called la tertulia, a name given in those times to the quarter chosen by the erudite, among whom at that period it was the fashion to quote Tertulian. The women, excluded from the pit, had a place reserved for themselves, into which no males were allowed to enter – a peculiarity based in the Gotho-Moro separation of the sexes. This feminine preserve was termed la cazuela, the stewing pan, or la olla, the pipkin, from the hodgepotch admixture, as it was open to all ranks; it was also called “la jaula de las mugeres,” the women’s cage – “el gallinero,” the henroost. All went there, as to church, dressed in black, and with mantillas. This dark assemblage of sable tresses, raven hair, and blacker eyes, looked at the first glance like the gallery of a nunnery; that was, however, a simile of dissimilitude, for, let there be but a moment’s pause in the business of the play, then arose such a cooing and cawing in this rookery of turtle-doves, – such an ogling, such a flutter of mantillas, such a rustling of silks, such telegraphic workings of fans, such an electrical communication with the Señores below, who looked up with wistful glances on the dark clustering vineyard so tantalizingly placed above their reach, as effectually dispelled all ideas of seclusion, sorrow, or mortification. This unique and charming pipkin has been just now done away with at Madrid, because, as there is no such thing at Covent Garden, or Le Français, it might look antiquated and un-European.

The theatres of Spain are small, although called Coliseums, and ill-contrived; the wardrobe and properties are as scanty as those of the spectators, Madrid itself not excepted; when filled, the smells are ultra-continental, and resemble those which prevail at Paris, when the great people is indulged with a gratis representation; in the Spanish theatres no neutralizing incense is used, as is done by the wise clergy in their churches. If the atmosphere were analysed by Faraday, it would be found to contain equal portions of stale cigar smoke and fresh garlic fume. The lighting, except on those rare occasions when the theatre is illuminated, as it is called, is just intended to make darkness visible, and there was no seeing into the henroosts towards which the eyes and glasses of the foxite pittites were vainly elevated.

THE BOLERO

Spanish tragedy, even when the Cid spouts, is wearisome; the language is stilty, the declamation ranting, French, and unnatural; passion is torn to rags. The sainetes, or farces, are broad, but amusing, and are perfectly well acted; the national ones are disappearing, but when brought out are the true vehicles of the love for sarcasm, satire, and intrigue, the mirth and mother-wit, for which Spaniards are so remarkable; and no people are more essentially serio-comic and dramatic than they are, whether in Venta, Plaza, or church; the actors in their amusing farces cease to be actors, and the whole appears to be a scene of real life; there generally is a gracioso or favourite wag of the Liston and Keeley species, who is on the best terms with the pit, who says and does what he likes, interlards the dialogue with his own witticisms, and creates a laugh before he even comes on.

NATIONAL DANCES

The orchestra is very indifferent; the Spaniards are fond enough of what they call music, whether vocal or instrumental; but it is Oriental, and most unlike the exquisite melody and performances of Italy or Germany. In the same manner, although they have footed it to their rude songs from time immemorial, they have no idea of the grace and elegance of the French ballet; the moment they attempt it they become ridiculous, for they are bad imitators of their neighbours, whether in cuisine, language, or costume; indeed a Spaniard ceases to be a Spaniard in proportion as he becomes an Afrancesado; they take, in their jumpings and chirpings, after the grasshopper, having a natural genius for the bota and bolero. The great charm of the Spanish theatres is their own national dance – matchless, unequalled, and inimitable, and only to be performed by Andalucians. This is la salsa de la comedia, the essence, the cream, the sauce piquante of the night’s entertainments; it is attempted to be described in every book of travels – for who can describe sound or motion? – it must be seen. However languid the house, laughable the tragedy, or serious the comedy, the sound of the castanet awakens the most listless; the sharp, spirit-stirring click is heard behind the scenes – the effect is instantaneous – it creates life under the ribs of death – it silences the tongues of countless women – on n’écoute que le ballet. The curtain draws up; the bounding pair dart forward from the opposite sides, like two separated lovers, who, after long search, have found each other again, nor do they seem to think of the public, but only of each other; the glitter of the gossamer costume of the Majo and Maja seems invented for this dance – the sparkle of the gold lace and silver filigree adds to the lightness of their motions; the transparent, form designing saya of the lady, heightens the charms of a faultless symmetry which it fain would conceal; no cruel stays fetter her serpentine flexibility. They pause – bend forward an instant – prove their supple limbs and arms; the band strikes up, they turn fondly towards each other, and start into life. What exercise displays the ever-varying charms of female grace, and the contours of manly form, like this fascinating dance? The accompaniment of the castanet gives employment to their upraised arms. C’est, say the French, le pantomime d’amour. The enamoured youth persecutes the coy, coquettish maiden; who shall describe the advance – her timid retreat, his eager pursuit, like Apollo chasing Daphne? Now they gaze on each other, now on the ground; now all is life, love, and action; now there is a pause – they stop motionless at a moment, and grow into the earth. It carries all before it. There is a truth which overpowers the fastidious judgment. Away, then, with the studied grace of the French danseuse, beautiful but artificial, cold and selfish as is the flicker of her love, compared to the real impassioned abandon of the daughters of the South! There is nothing indecent in this dance; no one is tired or the worse for it; indeed its only fault is its being too short, for as Molière says, “Un ballet ne saurait être trop long, pourvu que la morale soit bonne, et la métaphysique bien entendue.” Notwithstanding this most profound remark, the Toledan clergy out of mere jealousy wished to put the bolero down, on the pretence of immorality. The dancers were allowed in evidence to “give a view” to the court: when they began, the bench and bar showed symptoms of restlessness, and at last, casting aside gowns and briefs, both joined, as if tarantula-bitten, in the irresistible capering – Verdict, for the defendants with costs.

This Baile nacional, however adored by foreigners, is, alas! beginning to be looked down upon by those ill-advised señoras who wear French bonnets in the boxes, instead of Spanish mantillas. The dance is suspected of not being European or civilized; its best chance of surviving is, the fact that it is positively fashionable on the boards of London and Paris. These national exercises are however firmly rooted among the peasants and lower classes. The different provinces, as they have a different language, costume, &c., have also their own peculiar local dances, which, like their wines, fine arts, relics, saints and sausages, can only be really relished on the spots themselves.

PRIVATE DANCES

The dances of the better classes of Spaniards in private life are much the same as in other parts of Europe, nor is either sex particularly distinguished by grace in this amusement, to which, however, both are much addicted. It is not, however, yet thought to be a proof of bon ton to dance as badly as possible, and with the greatest appearance of bore, that appanage of the so-called gay world. These dances, as everything national is excluded, are without a particle of interest to any one except the performers. An extempore ball, which might be called a carpet-dance, if there were any, forms the common conclusion of a winter’s tertulia, or social meetings, at which no great attention is paid either to music, costume, or Mr. Gunter. Here English country dances, French quadrilles, and German waltzes are the order of the night; everything Spanish being excluded, except the plentiful want of good fiddling, lighting, dressing, and eating, which never distresses the company, for the frugal, temperate, and easily-pleased Spaniard enters with schoolboy heart and soul into the reality of any holiday, which being joy sufficient of itself lacks no artificial enhancement.

Dancing at all is a novelty among Spanish ladies, which was introduced with the Bourbons. As among the Romans and Moors, it was before thought undignified. Performers were hired to amuse the inmates of the Christian hareem; to mix and change hands with men was not to be thought of for an instant; and to this day few Spanish women shake hands with men – the shock is too electrical; they only give them with their hearts, and for good.

MORRIS DANCES

The lower classes, who are a trifle less particular, and among whom, by the blessing of Santiago, the foreign dancing-master is not abroad, adhere to the primitive steps and tunes of their Oriental forefathers. Their accompaniments are the “tabret and the harp;” the guitar, the tambourine, and the castanet. The essence of these instruments is to give a noise on being beaten. Simple as it may seem to play on the latter, it is only attained by a quick ear and finger, and great practice; accordingly these delights of the people are always in their hands; practice makes perfect, and many a performer, dusky as a Moor, rivals Ethiopian “Bones” himself; they take to it before their alphabet, since the very urchins in the street begin to learn by snapping their fingers, or clicking together two shells or bits of slate, to which they dance; in truth, next to noise, some capering seems essential, as the safety-valve exponents of what Cervantes describes, the “bounding of the soul, the bursting of laughter, the restlessness of the body, and the quicksilver of the five senses.” It is the rude sport of people who dance from the necessity of motion, the relief of the young, the healthy, and the joyous, to whom life is of itself a blessing, and who, like skipping kids, thus give vent to their superabundant lightness of heart and limb. Sancho, a true Manchegan, after beholding the strange saltatory exhibitions of his master, in somewhat an incorrect ball costume, professes his ignorance of such elaborate dancing, but maintained that for a zapateo, a knocking of shoes, none could beat him. Unchanged as are the instruments, so are the dancing propensities of Spaniards. All night long, three thousand years ago, say the historians, did they dance and sing, or rather jump and yell, to these “howlings of Tarshish;” and so far from its being a fatigue, they kept up the ball all night, by way of resting.

The Gallicians and Asturians retain among many of their aboriginal dances and tunes, a wild Pyrrhic jumping, which, with their shillelah in hand, is like the Gaelic Ghillee Callum, and is the precise Iberian armed dance which Hannibal had performed at the impressive funeral of Gracchus. These quadrille figures are intricate and warlike, requiring, as was said of the Iberian performances, much leg-activity, for which the wiry sinewy active Spaniards are still remarkable. These are the Morris dances imported from Gallicia by our John of Gaunt, who supposed they were Moorish. The peasants still dance them in their best costumes, to the antique castanet, pipe, and tambourine. They are usually directed by a master of the ceremonies, or what is equivalent, a parti-coloured fool, Μωρος; which may be the etymology of Morris.

GADITANIAN GIRLS

These comparsas, or national quadrilles, were the hearty welcome which the peasants were paid to give to the sons of Louis Philippe at Vitoria; such, too, we have often beheld gratis, and performed by eight men, with castanets in their hands, and to the tune of a fife and drum, while a Bastonero, or leader of the band, clad in gaudy raiment like a pantaloon, directed the rustic ballet; around were grouped payesas y aldeanas, dressed in tight bodices, with pañuelos on their heads, their hair hanging down behind in trensas, and their necks covered with blue and coral beads; the men bound up their long locks with red handkerchiefs, and danced in their shirts, the sleeves of which were puckered up with bows of different-coloured ribands, crossed also over the back and breast, and mixed with scapularies and small prints of saints; their drawers were white, and full as the bragas of the Valencians, like whom they wore alpargatas, or hemp sandals laced with blue strings; the figure of the dance was very intricate, consisting of much circling, turning, and jumping, and accompanied with loud cries of viva! at each change of evolution. These comparsas are undoubtedly a remnant of the original Iberian exhibitions, in which, as among the Spartans and wild Indians, even in relaxations a warlike principle was maintained. The dancers beat time with their swords on their shields, and when one of their champions wished to show his contempt for the Romans, he executed before them a derisive pirouette. Was this remembered the other day at Vitoria?

But in Spain at every moment one retraces the steps of antiquity; thus still on the banks of the Bætis may be seen those dancing-girls of profligate Gades, which were exported to ancient Rome, with pickled tunnies, to the delight of wicked epicures and the horror of the good fathers of the early church, who compared them, and perhaps justly, to the capering performed by the daughter of Herodias. They were prohibited by Theodosius, because, according to St. Chrysostom, at such balls the devil never wanted a partner. The well-known statue at Naples called the Venere Callipige is the representation of Telethusa, or some other Cadiz dancing-girl. Seville is now in these matters, what Gades was; never there is wanting some venerable gipsy hag, who will get up a funcion as these pretty proceedings are called, a word taken from the pontifical ceremonies; for Italy set the fashion to Spain once, as France does now. These festivals must be paid for, since the gitanesque race, according to Cervantes, were only sent into this world as “fishhooks for purses.” The callees when young are very pretty – then they have such wheedling ways, and traffic on such sure wants and wishes, since to Spanish men they prophesy gold, to women, husbands.

GIPSY DANCE

The scene of the ball is generally placed in the suburb Triana, which is the Transtevere of the town, and the home of bull-fighters, smugglers, picturesque rogues, and Egyptians, whose women are the premières danseuses on these occasions, in which men never take a part. The house selected is usually one of those semi-Moorish abodes and perfect pictures, where rags, poverty, and ruin, are mixed up with marble columns, figs, fountains and grapes; the party assembles in some stately saloon, whose gilded Arab roof – safe from the spoiler – hangs over whitewashed walls, and the few wooden benches on which the chaperons and invited are seated, among whom quantity is rather preferred to quality; nor would the company or costume perhaps be admissible at the Mansion-house; but here the past triumphs over the present; the dance which is closely analogous to the Ghowasee of the Egyptians, and the Nautch of the Hindoos, is called the Ole by Spaniards, the Romalis by their gipsies; the soul and essence of it consists in the expression of certain sentiment, one not indeed of a very sentimental or correct character. The ladies, who seem to have no bones, resolve the problem of perpetual motion, their feet having comparatively a sinecure, as the whole person performs a pantomime, and trembles like an aspen leaf; the flexible form and Terpsichore figure of a young Andalucian girl – be she gipsy or not – is said by the learned, to have been designed by nature as the fit frame for her voluptuous imagination.

OPERA IN SPAIN

Be that as it may, the scholar and classical commentator will every moment quote Martial, &c., when he beholds the unchanged balancing of hands, raised as if to catch showers of roses, the tapping of the feet, and the serpentine, quivering movements. A contagious excitement seizes the spectators, who, like Orientals, beat time with their hands in measured cadence, and at every pause applaud with cries and clappings. The damsels, thus encouraged, continue in violent action until nature is all but exhausted; then aniseed brandy, wine, and alpisteras are handed about, and the fête, carried on to early dawn, often concludes in broken heads, which here are called “gipsy’s fare.” These dances appear to a stranger from the chilly north, to be more marked by energy than by grace, nor have the legs less to do than the body, hips, and arms. The sight of this unchanged pastime of antiquity, which excites the Spaniards to frenzy, rather disgusts an English spectator, possibly from some national malorganization, for, as Molière says, “l’Angleterre a produit des grands hommes dans les sciences et les beaux arts, mais pas un grand danseur – allez lire l’histoire.” However indecent these dances may be, yet the performers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout; young girls go through them before the applauding eyes of their parents and brothers, who would resent to the death any attempt on their sisters’ virtue.

During the lucid intervals between the ballet and the brandy, La caña, the true Arabic gaunia, song, is administered as a soother by some hirsute artiste, without frills, studs, diamonds, or kid gloves, whose staves, sad and melancholy, always begin and end with an ay! a high-pitched sigh, or cry. These Moorish melodies, relics of auld lang syne, are best preserved in the hill-built villages near Ronda, where there are no roads for the members of Queen Christina’s Conservatorio Napolitano; wherever l’académie tyrannizes, and the Italian opera prevails, adieu, alas! to the tropes and tunes of the people: and now-a-days the opera exotic is cultivated in Spain by the higher classes, because, being fashionable at London and Paris, it is an exponent of the civilization of 1846. Although the audience in their honest hearts are as much bored there as elsewhere, yet the affair is pronounced by them to be charming, because it is so expensive, so select, and so far above the comprehension of the vulgar. Avoid it, however, in Spain, ye our fair readers, for the second-rate singers are not fit to hold the score to those of thy own dear Haymarket.

MUSIC IN VENTAS

The real opera of Spain is in the shop of the Barbero or in the court-yard of the Venta; in truth, good music, whether harmonious or scientific, vocal or instrumental, is seldom heard in this land, notwithstanding the eternal strumming and singing that is going on there. The very masses, as performed in the cathedrals, from the introduction of the pianoforte and the violin, have very little impressive or devotional character. The fiddle disenchants. Even Murillo, when he clapped catgut under a cherub chin in the clouds, thereby damaged the angelic sentiment. Let none despise the genuine songs and instruments of the Peninsula, as excellence in music is multiform, and much of it, both in name and substance, is conventional. Witness a whining ballad sung by a chorus out of work, to encoring crowds in the streets of merry old England, or a bagpipe-tune played in Ross-shire, which enchants the Highlanders, who cry that strain again, but scares away the gleds. Let therefore the Spaniards enjoy also what they call music, although fastidious foreigners condemn it as Iberian and Oriental. They love to have it so, and will have their own way, in their own time and tune, Rossini and Paganini to the contrary notwithstanding. They – not the Italians – are listened to by a delighted semi-Moro audience, with a most profound Oriental and melancholy attention. Like their love, their music, which is its food, is a serious affair; yet the sad song, the guitar, and dance, at this moment, form the joy of careless poverty, the repose of sunburnt labour. The poor forget their toils, sans six sous et sans souci; nay, even their meals, like Pliny’s friend Claro, who lost his supper, Bætican olives and gazpacho, to run after a Gaditanian dancing-girl.

THE GUITAR

In venta and court-yard, in spite of a long day’s work and scanty fare, at the sound of the guitar and click of the castanet, a new life is breathed into their veins. So far from feeling past fatigue, the very fatigue of the dance seems refreshing, and many a weary traveller will rue the midnight frolics of his noisy and saltatory fellow-lodgers. Supper is no sooner over than “après la panse la danse,” – some muscular masculine performer, the very antithesis of Farinelli, screams forth his couplets, “screechin’ out his prosaic verse,” either at the top of his voice, or drawls out his ballad, melancholy as the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe, and both alike to the imminent danger of his own trachea, and of all un-Spanish acoustic organs. For verily, to repeat Gray’s unhandsome critique of the grand Opéra Français, it consists of “des miaulemens et des hurlemens effroyables, mêlés avec un tintamare du diable.” As, however, in Paris, so in Spain, the audience are in raptures; all men’s ears grow to the tunes as if they had eaten ballads; all join in chorus at the end of each verse; this “private band,” as among the sangre su, supplies the want of conversation, and converts a stupid silence into scientific attention, – ainsi les extrêmes se touchent. There is always in every company of Spaniards, whether soldiers, civilians, muleteers, or ministers, some one who can play the guitar more or less, like Louis XIV., who, according to Voltaire, was taught nothing but that and dancing. Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, one of the most worthless of the multitude of worthless ministers by whom Spain has been misgoverned, first captivated the royal Messalina by his talent of strumming on the guitar; so Gonzales Bravo, editor of the Madrid Satirist, rose to be premier, and conciliated the virtuous Christina, who, soothed by the sweet sounds of this pepper-and-salted Amphion, forgot his libels on herself and Señor Muñoz. It may be predicted of the Spains, that when this strumming is mute, the game will be up, as the Hebrew expression for the ne plus ultra desolation of an Oriental city is “the ceasing of the mirth of the guitar and tambourine.”

In Spain whenever and wherever the siren sounds are heard, a party is forthwith got up of all ages and sexes, who are attracted by the tinkling like swarming bees. The guitar is part and parcel of the Spaniard and his ballads; he slings it across his shoulder with a ribbon, as was depicted on the tombs of Egypt four thousand years ago. The performers seldom are very scientific musicians; they content themselves with striking the chords, sweeping the whole hand over the strings, or flourishing, and tapping the board with the thumb, at which they are very expert. Occasionally in the towns there is some one who has attained more power over this ungrateful instrument; but the attempt is a failure. The guitar responds coldly to Italian words and elaborate melody, which never come home to Spanish ears or hearts; for, like the lyre of Anacreon, however often he might change the strings, love, sweet love, is its only theme. The multitude suit the tune to the song, both of which are frequently extemporaneous. They lisp in numbers, not to say verse; but their splendid idiom lends itself to a prodigality of words, whether prose or poetry; nor are either very difficult, where common sense is no necessary ingredient in the composition; accordingly the language comes in aid to the fertile mother-wit of the natives; rhymes are dispensed with at pleasure, or mixed according to caprice with assonants which consist of the mere recurrence of the same vowels, without reference to that of consonants, and even these, which poorly fill a foreign ear, are not always observed; a change in intonation, or a few thumps more or less on the board, do the work, supersede all difficulties, and constitute a rude prosody, and lead to music just as gestures do to dancing and to ballads, – “que se canta ballando;” and which, when heard, reciprocally inspire a Saint Vitus’s desire to snap fingers and kick heels, as all will admit in whose ears the habas verdes of Leon, or the cachuca of Cadiz, yet ring.