(le) poisson rouge

The jácara began its life as a ballad about the ruffians, bravos, pimps, whores, pickpockets and swindlers that made up the small-time criminal underworld of 17th century Madrid and Seville. Sung by actresses at the public theaters, no doubt they were also heard in taverns, plazas and fairs, wherever a good storyteller might hold forth. Cervantes, in El Rufián Dichoso, gives a humorous account of a bravo who shows to a fellow ruffian a jácara he has just composed. The same play contains a scene in which a jácara is accompanied by two guitarists. Jácaras were also written (or re-written) a lo divino, on religious subjects, sometimes set chorally to polyphonic music. But in the case of the simple underworld ballad, accompanied by guitars, harps, and maybe other instruments, it is unclear to what music and in what manner it was sung, since only a few secular jácaras survive with a musical setting. This program explores some of the ways the jácara may have been sung and heard in the Spain of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón, and Quevedo.