In the shadow of Carmen: Otero, Guerrero, Tortajada, and pantomime on the cosmopolitan stage

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/cmib.92794
Keywords: Spanish dance, pantomime, music hall, Otero, Tortajada, Guerrero

Abstract

The Belle-époque fascination with exotic dance made stars of a new generation of Spanish dancers on the cosmopolitan music hall stage. Gaining their first international exposure in Paris, La Belle Otero, La Tortajada, and Rosario Guerrero carried the fashion for Spanish dance across the world, from the 1890s through to the outbreak of World War I. However, they responded to the changing landscape of music hall entertainment in the first decade of the twentieth century by creating vehicles for their talents in the dramatic genre of pantomime, infused with Spanish dance and song. These acts drew inspiration from the most pervasive embodiment of the stereotype of Spanish women as sensual, inconstant femmes fatales, the character of Carmen.

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Author Biographies

Michael Christoforidis, University of Melbourne

Michael Christoforidis is a Professor in Musicology at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish music and dance, and its impact on Western culture. Other research interests include the impact of the visual arts upon musical modernism, issues of national identity and exoticism in music, and the history of the acoustic guitar. He has published two monographs: Manuel de Falla and Visions of Spanish Music (Routledge, 2017) and Carmen and the Staging of Spain (with Elizabeth Kertesz, Oxford University Press, 2018).

Elizabeth Kertesz, University of Melbourne

Elizabeth Kertesz is a Senior Research Fellow at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. She has written extensively on the English composer Ethel Smyth, and in 2018 she published a monograph with Michael Christoforidis, entitled Carmen and the Staging of Spain (Oxford University Press). Her current research interests focus on Spanish-themed music, entertainment and film from the Belle Epoque into the first half of the twentieth century, and the engagement of visual artists with music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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Published
2024-12-19
How to Cite
Christoforidis M. y Kertesz E. (2024). In the shadow of Carmen: Otero, Guerrero, Tortajada, and pantomime on the cosmopolitan stage. Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana, 37, 33-55. https://doi.org/10.5209/cmib.92794
Issue
Vol. 37 (2024)
Section
Dossier

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