(b Viveda, nr Santander, 17 Jan 1600; d Madrid, 25 May 1681). Spanish dramatist, poet and librettist. He studied at the Jesuit Colegio Imperial in Madrid (1609–14), at the University of Alcalá de Henares (1614) and at the University of Salamanca (1615–19/20). He was knighted by King Philip IV in 1637 and between 1640 and 1642 fought in two campaigns in the military Order of Santiago during the Catalonian Revolt. In the years between his university studies and his ordination as a Franciscan priest in 1651, Calderón's comedias (tragi-comedies in polymetric verse) were performed in the public theatres in Madrid and at court in private performances known as particulares. From 1635 Calderón also provided spectacle plays for the court. His early spectacle plays, El mayor encanto amor (1635), Los tres mayores prodigios (1636) and Auristela y Lisidante (1637), included the performance of well-known songs and did not depart from the musical practice already conventional for the Spanish comedia. These plays were staged by the Florentine Cosimo Lotti for the king and his court. Calderón's texts, and an important autograph letter in which the dramatist rejected much of Lotti's plan for El mayor encanto amor, make clear that from the start Calderón did not follow the Italian artist in thinking of a spectacle play as a static, non-dramatic entertainment after the manner of an intermedio.
By the middle of the 17th century Calderón was recognized as the leading and official court dramatist. In 1651, when he became a priest, he ceased writing comedias for the public stage in order to devote himself fully to court dramas and autos sacramentales; both genres included music in performance. The elaborate dramatic mythological plays he wrote for the court, including La fiera, el rayo y la piedra (1652), Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo (1653), La estatua de Prometeo (c1670) and Fieras afemina amor (1670 or 1672), can be classified as semi-operas, in that they include fully-sung scenes with sung dialogue (and recitative) for the gods and goddesses of antiquity. Other plays, such as the pastoral Eco y Narciso (1661), the chivalric El jardín de Falerina (often cited as 1648, but probably much later) and Ni amor se libra de amor (1662), on the story of Cupid and Psyche, do not contain operatic scenes but employ many songs and instrumental music integral to the plot.
Although a few other dramatists were also writing court plays with extensive musical scenes, Calderón was responsible for the invention of the zarzuela. His first text in this genre was El laurel de Apolo of 1657. The composer who collaborated with Calderón and other writers in the development of the court musical plays after 1644 was Juan Hidalgo, harpist and principal composer of secular music at court. Calderón's two opera librettos, La púrpura de la rosa (written in 1659 and first performed in 1659 or 1660) and Celos aun del aire matan (1660), were first set as fully-sung operas by Juan Hidalgo, although no score survives attributing the music for the 1660 performance to Hidalgo. The surviving score of La púrpura de la rosa was prepared for use in Lima in 1701 and it is ascribed to Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco.
Calderón supplied the texts of the allegorical one-act religious plays known as autos sacramentales, performed in Madrid from 1648 until his death. These were given annually for the festival of Corpus Christi in open-air performances in city plazas, with costumes and scenery constructed in special large movable carts. The texts of his 80 autos sacramentales draw on many sources (the Bible, patristic texts, scholasticism, liturgical tradition, sacred and secular poetry, humanist lore, popular songs and contemporary theatre), whose elements Calderón treated with exquisite poetic virtuosity in the service of moral and religious dogma. As in the court plays, the autos sacramentales were produced with spectacular visual effects and music. While some of the autos include elaborately musical scenes like those in the semi-operas (the autos Andrómeda y Perseo, El divino Orfeo and El jardín de Falerina, for example), others call for well-known and popular songs within the practice of the standard secular plays (comedias). The music for the Madrid performances of the autos was performed by the musicians and singers in the acting troupes, as was the music of the court plays (although continuo players from the court's musical establishment performed in the latter but not in the autos). Many composers in addition to Juan Hidalgo composed songs for the autos, including Cristóbal Galán, Juan Romero, Gregorio de la Rosa, Juan Serqueira de Lima, Manuel de Villaflor and later José Peyró. In addition to comedias, autos, court plays and opera librettos, Calderón contributed short comic pieces and skits performed with the autos and between the acts of the comedias.
See also Auto.
Editions: P. Calderón: Obras completas, ed. A. Valbuena (Madrid, 1952–6)P. Calderón: Comedias: a Facsimile Edition … with Textual and Critical Studies, ed. D.W. Cruickshank and J.E. Varey (London, 1973)
composers named are those of the earliest known settings
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Secular stage (extracts ed. in MME, xxxix and Stein, 1993, also Pedrell, 1897–8, Subirá, 1933, Pitts, 1968, Stein, 1986; see also Stein, 1993, pp.361–407): El jardín de Falerina (fiesta … de la zar), ?1648 (anon; and J. Peyró, ? early 18th century); Los cabellos de Absalón, ?1650, 1 song ed. in Caballero (1997); Darlo todo y no dar nada (comedia), 1651 (later setting, ? late 17th century); La fiera, el rayo y la piedra (fiesta), 1652; Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo (fábula), 1653, ?Hidalgo/R; El golfo de las sirenas (fiesta de la zar, égloga piscatoria), 1657; El laurel de Apolo (fiesta de la zar), Hidalgo, 1657; Los tres afectos de amor (fiesta), 1658; La púrpura de la rosa (fiesta de la zar, 1), Hidalgo, 1659–60 (Torrejón y Velasco, 1701), ed. R. Stevenson (1976), A. Cardon, D. Cruickshank and M. Cunningham (1990) and L.K. Stein (1999) |
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Celos aun del aire matan (fiesta … cantada, comedia, 3), Hidalgo, 1660, ed. M.D. Stroud (1981) and Stein (forthcoming); Eco y Narciso (zar), 1661; Apolo y Climene, 1661–2; Ni amor se libra de amor (zar), Hidalgo, 1662; Faetonte (comedia), 1662, rev. as El hijo del sol Faetón, 1669–70; Fieras afemina amor (zar), 1670/72; La estatua de Prometeo (fiesta, comedia), Hidalgo, c1670; Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa (fiesta, comedia), Hidalgo, 1680; La sibila del oriente, n.d. (1682); Agradecer y no amar, anon; Las armas de la hermosura, anon; La banda y la flor, anon; Basta callar (Peyró, early 18th century); El Conde Lucanor (Peyró, early 18th century); La exaltación de la cruz, anon; Fineza contra fineza (Peyró, early 18th century); La hija del aire (Peyró, early 18th century); El mayor monstruo del mundo, anon; El monstruo de los jardines, anon; Mujer, Ilora y vencéras, anon; El secreto a voces, anon |
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Autos sacramentales (extracts ed. in Subirá, 1967, Sage, 1953 and Querol, 1981): El primer refugio del hombre, Hidalgo, 1661 (Peyró, early 18th century); El primer balsón de España, Hidalgo, 1661; Las órdenes militares, Hidalgo, 1662; Mística y real Babilonia, Hidalgo, 1662; Las espigas de Ruth, Hidalgo, 1663; El divino Orfeo, Hidalgo, 1663; La immunidad del sagrado, C. Galán, 1664; A María el corazón, Galán, 1664; El viático cordero, Hidalgo, 1665; Psiquis y Cupido para Madrid, Hidalgo, 1665; El santo rey don Fernando, Galán, 1671; No hay instante sin milagro, 1672; ?Quién hallará mujer fuerte?, 1672; El arca de Dios cautiva, ?G. de la Rosa and G. Real, 1673; La vida es sueño, ?G. de la Rosa and G. Real, 1673 |
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La nave del mercader, Galán, 1674; La viña del Señor, Galán, 1674; El nuevo hospicio de pobres, Galán, 1675; El jardín de Falerina, Galán, 1675; Los alimentos del hombre, J. Romero, 1676; La serpiente de metal, Romero, 1676; El árbol del mejor fruto, Romero, 1677; 1 other auto sacramental, Romero, 1677; El tesoro escondido, Romero, 1679; El segundo blasón de Austria, Romero, 1679; Andrómeda y Perseo, ?Romero, 1680; El indulto general, ?Romero, 1680; El cordero de Isaías, M. de Navas, 1681; La devina Filotea, Navas, 1681; El lirio y la azucena (Peyró, early 18th century); Primero y segundo Isaac |
ES (C. Vian)
F. Pedrell: Teatro lírico español anterior al siglo XIX (La Coruña, 1897–8), iii–v
J. Subirá: ‘Celos aun del aire matan’: ópera del siglo XVII (Barcelona, 1933)
A. Farinelli: ‘Wagner e Calderón’, Nuova antologia, no.371 (1934), 193–212
J. Sage: The Function of Music in the ‘Autos sacramentales’ of Calderón (diss., U. of London, 1953)
N.D. Shergold and J.E. Varey: Los autos sacramentales en Madrid en la época de Calderón, 1637–1681 (Madrid, 1961)
J. Subirá: ‘Calderón de la Barca, libretista de ópera: consideraciones literario-musicales’, AnM, xx (1965), 59–73
J. Subirá: ‘Músicos al servicio de Calderón y de Comella’, AnM, xxii (1967), 197–208 [see also AnM, iv (1949), 181–91]
R.L. Pitts: Don Juan Hidalgo, Seventeenth-Century Spanish Composer (diss., George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, TN, 1968)
J. Sage: ‘Texto y realización de La estatua de Prometeo y otros dramas musicales de Calderón’, Hacia Calderón: Exeter 1969, ed. H. Flasche (Berlin, 1970), 37–52
J. Mota: ‘Influencia de Calderón en la obra de Wagner’, Monsalvat (1974), March, 327
L.K. Stein: ‘El “Manuscrito Novena”, sus textos, su contexto histórico-musical y el músico Joseph Peyró’, RdMc, iii (1980), 197–234
M. Querol: La música en el teatro de Calderón (Barcelona, 1981)
L.K. Stein: ‘Música existente para comedias de Calderón de la Barca’, Calderón y el teatro español del siglo de oro: Madrid 1981, ii, 1161–72
J. Sage: ‘Music as an Instrumentum Regni in Spanish Seventeenth-Century Drama’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, lxi (1984), 384–90
L.K. Stein: ‘Accompaniment and Continuo in Spanish Baroque Music’, España en la música de occidente: Salamanca 1985, i, 357–70
L.K. Stein: ‘La plática de los dioses: Music and the Calderonian Court Play, with a Transcription of the Songs from La estatua de Prometeo’, in P. Calderón de la Barca: La estatua de Prometeo, ed. M.R. Greer (Kassel, 1986), 13–92
L.K. Stein: Music in the Seventeenth-Century Spanish Secular Theater, 1598–1690 (diss., U. of Chicago, 1987)
L. Gentili: Mito e spettacolo nel teatro cortigiano di Calderón de la Barca (‘Fortunas de Andromeda y Perseo’) (Rome, 1991)
M.R. Greer: The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Princeton, NJ, 1991)
L.K. Stein: ‘Opera and the Spanish Political Agenda’, AcM, lxiii (1991), 125–66
L.K. Stein: ‘Convenciones musicales en el legado de Juan Hidalgo: el aria declamatoria como tonada persuasiva’, F. Bances Candamo y el teatro musical de su tiempo: Oviedo 1992, 117–217
L.K. Stein: Songs of Mortals, Dialogues of the Gods: Music and Theatre in Seventeenth-Century Spain (Oxford, 1993)
L.K. Stein: ‘Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco's La púrpura de la rosa in the Early History of Opera’, Inter-American Music Review, xiv (1994–5), 79–82
C. Caballero: Tonos humanos del barroco en la península ibérica (Valladolid, 1997)
L.K. Stein: ‘De erotische harmonie van La púrpura de la rosa: de eerste opera uit de Nieuwe Wereld herleeft’, Tijdschrift voor oude muziek, xii (1997), 13–16
L.K. Stein: ‘“Este nada dichoso género”: la zarzuela y sus convenciones’, Música y literatura en la península ibérica 1600–1750 (Valladolid, 1997), 185–217
L.K. Stein: ‘“Al seducir el oído …”, delicias y convenciones del teatro musical cortesano’, El teatro cortesano en la España de los Austrias, ed. J.M. Díez Borque, Cuadernos de teatro clásico (Madrid, 1998)
LOUISE K. STEIN