Thirty-ninth Caracolá lebrijana – Lebrija

Thirty-ninth
Caracolá Lebrijana

Saturday, July 17th, 2004.
11:00pm. San Francisco Convent, Lebrija (Sevilla)

If this year’s Potaje de Utrera was an extravaganza
worthy of Hollywood, artistic considerations aside, the organizers
of the thirty-ninth edition of the Caracolá de Lebrija
went in the direction of an excessively homegrown batch of
performers on the bill. Anyone who doesn’t think so
has only to ask the hoards of people who stayed away this
year. And there was no football match on TV.

At the appointed hour not half the seats were occupied in
the spacious athletic field of the San Francisco Convent,
which normally is a bee-hive of activity for the Caracolá,
nearly rivaling the Jerez Fiesta de la Bulería. The
great majority of audience members were from town, no surprise
considering the chauvinist orgy about to unfold. These are
of course considerations not relevant to the individual artists’
performances, but they are nonetheless important issues in
this fourth year of the second millennium when new formulas
are being sought to avoid the disappearance of cante festivals.

Is there anyone able to explain
why festivals must
continually grow until they become ungainly monsters?

Manuel de Paula	Arcángel

The first singer from Lebrija to come on stage was the little-known
José Sánchez Ruiz “Pepe Montaraz”,
a singer in whose honor there exists one of the town’s
most active flamenco clubs. With a pleasantly rough voice,
typical of the so-called “festival era” of the
nineteen-sixties and seventies to which this man belongs,
he demonstrated his great knowledge of cante with caracoles,
tientos tangos including those of Triana, malagueñas
of el Canario, el Mellizo and Trini, soleá de Triana
and fandangos, accompanied on the guitar by Carbonero de Jerez.

To introduce another Lebrija singer, Inés Bacán,
emcee Manuel Curado spoke some moving words about her late
brother Pedro whose absence the lady seems to be mourning
with each note she sings. With a crude sound that was almost
painful to experience she made her way through soleá
and siguiriyas, short on technique, long on feeling. Bulerías
in the Lebrija style to end, and every step of the way the
splendid guitar of Antonio Moya, Pedro Bacán’s
most important disciple.

Manuel Valencia Carrasco, “Manuel de Paula” is
another Lebrija singer few outsiders are familiar with. His
star rose briefly in the nineteen-seventies when he made a
record with contemporary touches as was the order of the day,
disappearing from the public eye not long afterwards. With
the guitar of his cousin Antonio Malena, he sang soleá.
taranto, fandangos with neither light nor amplification due
to a massive power outage, bulerías with pure Lebrija
touches and the “romance” sound typical of this
town’s cante.

Esperanza is a work in progress,
but with
each performance she is more convincing.

Esperanza Fernández was the first non-local figure
of the night, but her strong family ties with Lebrija through
the Peñas, and her artistic collaboration with pianist
Dorantes, caused her to be received as a daughter of Lebrija.
She had some fine moments which seemed to belie her confession
that she was “a little nervous since it was the first
time on stage alone at the Caracolá”. Esperanza
is a work in progress, but with each performance she is more
convincing. The Granada guitar of Miguel Ángel Cortés
accompanied her alegrías including some styles of Pinini,
in the little-used “A” position. Soleá
and siguiriya with alternative tuning. This practice known
as “scordatura”, so fashionable among the new
generation of guitarists, consists of tuning the strings in
an unaccustomed way, in this particular case giving an agreeably
grave resonance which added dimension and color without going
out of character. Bulerías with dance included rounded
off this woman’s performance and brought the audience
to its feet.

Inés Bacán & Antono Moya	Concha Vargas

Arcángel, the singer from Huelva, has this year undergone
the final transformation from young hopeful, to established
star. His dance card is full, the price tag is high and the
number of his fans constantly on the rise. With the musical
backup of Miguel Ángel Cortés he employed his
fascinating sweet voice to interpret alegrías which
included those of Córdoba, and tangos with verses more
common to tientos, perfectly adapted. For siguiriyas he managed
to find a somewhat less sweet delivery to demonstrate his
wide knowledge of this cante, but without quite raising any
of the audience’s gooseflesh. As is always the case
with this young singer, he best moment was in fandangos de
Huelva, with all the flavor of his home-town and plenty of
technique to get the job done.

After
intermission, Miguel Peña Vargas “El Funi”.
The much-admired singer and dancer of festive forms who conserves
his youth, elegant dance style and white scarf around the
neck, delighted his audience with a series of cantes, most
notably “romance”, a form cultivated by the Peña
family, and his renowned personal touch for bulerías.

The aggressive flamenco projection of dancer Concha Vargas,
also from Lebrija, for “romance” with the accompaniment
of Antonio Moya and the fresh but knowledgeable cante of brother
and sister María Peña and Jesús de la
Frasquita from Utrera rounded out and wrapped up the night.

Is there anyone able to explain why festivals must continually
grow until they become ungainly monsters rivalling an Oscar
presentation? Can we not be offered a greater variety of artists,
both young and veteran, famous without being super-stars?
Can festivals not be held in more traditional settings? Is
there no way for once and for all to keep cante festivals
from disappearing altogether?

Text & photos: Estela
Zatania

More information:

XXXVIII
Caracolá lebrijana – Lebrija