Calderón de la Barca, Pedro (EN)

Calderón de la Barca Pedro, *17 January 1600 Madrid, †25 Nay 1681 Madrid, Spanish playwright. Calderón’s creative activity coincided with the reign of Philip IV, a great lover of theatre. Już w latach 20 As early as the 1620s, Calderón became court poet, and after the death of Lope de Vega (1635), he became the main supplier of repertoire for the royal theatres and, from 1648, the exclusive supplier of autos sacramentales. After a turbulent youth and years of military service, he joined the Franciscan order in 1651 and was appointed chaplain of Toledo Cathedral in 1653. He left behind some 200 stage works (including about 80 autos sacramentales); in addition to historical and mythological dramas, he wrote philosophical and poetic dramas with elements of realist comedy (servant characters), religious dramas with erotic themes, and moralising comedies alongside cloak-and-dagger comedies.

Calderón’s work was of great importance for the development of dramatic music in Spain, and is associated with the beginnings of opera in the country. The poet treated music as an important element of stage performance, both in terms of dramaturgy and scenography. In his works – both in his autos sacramentales (one-act religious allegorical plays performed after the Corpus Christi procession on mobile stages) and in his comedies – music serves a variety of functions: structural, decorative, moralising (choral parts in the final apotheoses), as well as symbolic (e.g., solo voice or offstage choir as the voice of God, recitative for mythological gods, songs in popular style representing the human world). In his stage directions, Calderón specified the type of music to be used, indicated the sung prologue (known as a loa), and contrasted recitative and song sections (for example, in the auto El divino Orfeo [1663], Orpheus, representing the Word of God, recites passages from Scripture, while Eurydice, representing human nature, sings a song). He incorporated choruses, illustrative instrumental passages, and dances (for instance, the galliard dance lesson in El maestro de danzar), which were particularly employed in courtly comedies set during the Italian Carnival (e.g., Dicha y desdicha del nombre, El encanto sin encanto). On stage, performers often play instruments and sing, sometimes in groups, and the poetry includes echo effects suggesting corresponding compositional techniques. The ratio of musical parts to spoken parts increases significantly in mythological dramas written after 1650 (e.g. El golfo de las sirenas 1657, El laurel de Apolo 1658, Eco y Narciso 1661), known as zarzuelas (the precursor to Spanish opera). Calderón is often considered the creator of the zarzuela (El jardín de Falerina, 1648, music by J. Peiró). The difference between the 17th-century zarzuela and musical comedy is not stylistic, but purely external; the different terminology comes from the fact that the stage works with music written by Calderón after 1650 on commission from the royal court, generally referred to as fiestas reales, had the place of performance highlighted in their titles: en el Buen Retiro (the royal palace in Madrid) or de la Zarzuela (the royal hunting lodge with a theatre stage). In light of the latest research (J. Sage), the zarzuela is considered to be the equivalent of the Italian dramma per musica; Calderón himself states in the introduction to El laurel de Apolo that he wrote this work in the style of Italian drama, and two years later he created the texts for the first Spanish operas: La púrpura de la rosa (in one act, composer unknown, 1660) and Celos aun del aire matan (in three acts, music by J. Hidalgo, 1660). The recitar cantando technique is also employed in La estatua de Prometeo (music by J. Hidalgo, ca. 1672). In general, the names of composers who wrote music for Calderón’s secular plays remain unknown; only a few pieces of Hidalgo’s music have survived. By contrast, the music for the autos sacramentales was composed by C. Galán, J. Romero, and others, in addition to Hidalgo. Calderón enjoyed great renown among his contemporaries, and the poet’s popularity is evidenced by the fact that some songs from his dramatic works were widely sung in Spain.

During the Romantic period, Calderón’s work once again served as an inspiration for developments in music. The Romantics (A.W. Schlegel, Goethe, Shelley, Słowacki) delved into the philosophical meaning of Calderón’s dramas. The emphasis on the individual, the psychological conflict between passion and intellectual reflection, the fluidity of the boundaries between reality and illusion, the supremacy of universal ideas, meditation on the transience of life, the struggle for ideals, loneliness, mysticism, fantasy – all these aspects of Calderón’s work were close to the aesthetic ideology of Romanticism. Calderón became, alongside Shakespeare, Goethe and Dante, a poet of his era; his plays, translated by eminent Romantic poets, were staged in various countries. Calderón’s plays attracted the interest of 19th- and 20th-century composers (E.T.A. Hoffmann, F. Schubert, R. Strauss, W. Egk and others); overtures, stage music and operas based on the plots of El mágico prodigoso, El major encanto Amor, La dame duende and others were written. Calderón’s most outstanding work, a play with a multi-layered philosophical meaning – La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) – had a particularly strong influence on music; it inspired the creation of operas (L. Schlosser 1839, G. Malipiero 1941), overtures (F. Draeseke 1866–88, V. Tommasini 1901, E. Křenek 1925), and incidental music (A. Klughard 1869, L. Madetoja 1930). Calderón’s influence is also evident in Wagner’s dramatic output, his idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the concept of the inner monologue, musical symbolism, and the technique of leitmotifs. The significance of the literary legacy of Calderón, author of the author of the maxim “in the theatre of the world, all are actors” for musical thought calls for detailed and comprehensive study.

Literature: A. Farinelli Apuntes sobre Calderón y la música en Alemania, w: Cultura española, vol. 1, Madrid 1907; A. Farinelli Wagner e Calderón, in: «Nuova antologia» CCCLXXI, 1934; O. Ursprung “Celos aun del aire matan. Text von Calderón Musik von Hidalgo, die älteste erhaltene spanische Oper, in: commemorative book for A. Schering, Berlin 1937; J. Sage Calderón y la música teatral, “Bulletin hispanique” LVIII, 1956; M. Strzałkowa Calderón w Polsce, in: Studia polsko-hiszpańskie, Kraków 1960; N.D. Shergold and J.E. Varey Los autos sacramentales en Madrid en la epoca de Calderón, 1637–1681, Madrid 1961; E.M. Wilson and J. Sage Poesias líricas en las obras dramáticas de Calderón, London 1964; J. Subira Calderón de la Barca, libretista de ópera. Consideraciones literario-musicales, “Anuario musical” XX, 1965; A.M. Pollin Calderóns “Falerina” and Music, “Music and Letters” XLIX, 1968; J. Sage Texto y realización de “La estátua de Prometeo” y otros dramas musicales de Calderón, in: Hacia Calderón Coloquio anglogermano Exeter 1969’, Z. Karczewska-Markiewicz Calderón de la Barca, Warsaw 1970; J. Sage Nouvelles lumières sur la genese de l’opera et la zarzuela en Espagne, in: “Baroque. Revue Internationale” V, 1972; J. Maragall Influencia de Calderón en la obra de Wagner, “Rivista wagneriana y de información musical”, January 1973; J. Sage The Function of Music in the Theatre of Calderón, in: Pedro Calderón Comedias. A Facsimile Edition, XIX, ed. J.E. Varey, London 1973; E. Cotarelo y Mori Ensayo sobre la vida y obras de Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Madrid 1924; M. Querol La música en el teatro de Calderón, Barcelona 1981; L. Gentili Mito e spettacolo nel teatro cortigiano di Calderón de la Barca (“Fortunas de Andromeda y Perseo”), Rome 1991.