Spanish Opera
Enrique Granados’s one-act opera Goyescas received its world premiere at the Met in 1916, the first opera in Spanish that the company ever presented. Initially programmed on a double bill with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, it was later paired with Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.
The First World War had prevented the planned premiere of Goyescas in Paris. The war’s more tragic consequences resulted in a German submarine sinking the ship carrying the composer across the English Channel after his return from New York in 1916.
Works in Spanish have been rare at the Met. Following Goyescas, only Manuel de Falla’s La Vida Breve, El Amor Brujo, and Atlántida have been given, the latter two in concert offsite at Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall). A new era is dawning with Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas having its Met premiere this season.
Granados’s Goyescas
A scene from Goyescas with, left to right, soprano Anna Fitziu, tenor Giovanni Martinelli, mezzo-soprano Flora Perini, and baritone Giuseppe De Luca. Fitziu made her Met debut as Rosario in Goyescas, but it was the men in the cast, Martinelli and De Luca, who were destined for long, storied Met careers. Martinelli, who debuted in 1913 in the shadow of tenor Enrico Caruso, would remain a leading tenor with the company until 1945. De Luca sang from 1915 to 1940. Both men sang more than 900 performances each.
Photo: White Studio
In the second scene of Goyescas, Fernando challenges Paquiro to a duel. New York Times critic Richard Aldrich found that, “This music has a haunting power. It would be too much to say that the opera is a great contribution to modern art, or even that it approaches greatness; but it is genuine and vital.”
Photo: White Studio
Left: Noted writer of the Harlem Renaissance James Weldon Johnson, the first African American to be contracted by the Met, crafted the English-language translation of Goyescas. Johnson, fluent in Spanish, had served as American ambassador to Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Photo: Patton Studio; Source: James Weldon Johnson and Grace Nail Johnson Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Right: Librettist Fernando Periquet, at left, and Met stage manager Jules Speck consulting with Goyescas composer Enrique Granados, at right. New York’s Spanish population enthusiastically applauded Granados at the premiere, but his opera only received five performances at the Met and has never been revived.
Photo: White Studio
New Opera at the Met: Then and Now
Spanish Opera