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 Jose Tamayo and featuring Placido Domingo, the Antologia 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 ethnomusieology, is the only one capable of grappling with this complex subject.

The zarzuela's florescence took ...