World Travel Guide

City Guide  - Madrid  - Culture
Culture

With a distinctive dancing style (chotis) and music (zarzuela) of its own, as well as the best Spanish performers and directors, a gem of an opera house, cinemas like palaces, and year-long festivities, Madrid's cultural scene is best described as exuberant.

Ticket prices vary from about Pta700 to Pta3500, with discounts on certain days (dia del espectador) - usually Wednesday and early Sunday performances. While most hotels can book tickets, they will charge for the service. It is cheaper to book directly at the box offices, not all of which accept credit cards. Advance bookings may also be made at savings banks - Tel-entradas, Cajamadrid (tel: (902) 488 488). Tickets for sold-out performances may be purchased - at a price - at Localidades Galicia, Plaza del Carmen (tel: (91) 531 2732). Tickets for performances at the state-owned theatres (the Comedia, Maria Guerrero, Sala Olímpia, Teatro de la Zarzuela and Auditoria Nacional) are available from the box offices at each of the five venues.

Music: Madrid may have been a City of Culture in 1992 but at that time it was without a functioning opera house. Since then, the Teatro Real, Plaza de Oriente (tel: (91) 516 0660), has cast away its scaffolding to reveal one of the most modern opera houses in Europe. The Teatro de la Zarzuela, Calle de Jovellanos 4 (tel: (91) 524 5400), is the major venue for zarzuela, a genre loosely comparable to Viennese operetta but encapsulating the idealised castizo (authenticity) of working-class Madrid. The zarzuela season runs from June to September. Performances are also at the Auditorio Nacional and outdoor La Corrala (six weeks only), Calle Tibulete 12 and Calle Sombrerete 13. On Sunday lunchtimes during the summer concerts are held at the bandstand, Retiro Park.

Theatre: Madrid's dramatic tradition can be traced back to the Golden Age - classical playwrights Lope de Vega (1562-1635), Tirso de Molina (1584-1648) and Calderón de la Barca (1600-81) are still at the core of Madrid's programmes. The season runs from September to June; in summer, many performances are open-air, often part of the Veranos de la Villa festival (see the Special Events section). Most theatres are closed on Monday.

The Compañia Nacional de Teatro Clásico, based in the Teatro de la Comedia, Calle Príncipe 14 (tel: (91) 521 4931), keeps the Spanish classics alive. International and contemporary Spanish drama is performed in the gracious Teatro María Guerrero, Calle Tamayo y Baus 4 (tel: (91) 319 4769), home to the Centro Dramático Nacional. Twentieth-century drama, plus international classics, are performed at the stunning Teatro Español, built in 1745 on the site of a theatre dating back to 1583, Calle Príncipe 25 (tel: (91) 429 6797). Since its opening in 1995, the Teatro de la Abadía, Calle Fernández de los Ríos (tel: (91) 448 1627), has met with great acclaim for its superb performances of international classics. A good introduction to alternative drama is provided by the Sala Triángulo, Calle Zurita 20 (tel: (91) 530 6891) - also host to English productions by the ACT (American and Classical Theatre) and the Madrid Players.

Dance: The Teatro Real and Teatro de la Zarzuela (see the Music section) juggle Spanish and international dance with their commitment to music and opera. Other venues include the Centro Cultural de la Villa, Jardines del Descubrimiento, Plaza de Colón (tel: (91) 575 6080), which regularly hosts seasons by visiting companies and the modern Teatro de Madrid, Avenida de la Illustración s/n (tel: (91) 740 5274 or 730 1750). Ballet Nacional de España (National Ballet of Spain) performs Spanish dance to full houses at the Teatro Albéniz, Calle de la Paz 11 (tel: (91) 531 8311), during the Festival de Otoño (Autumn Festival). Choreographer Nacho Duato has breathed new life into the Compañia Nacional de Danza who tour widely; their brief appearances in Madrid's principal venue, the Teatro Real, are hotly anticipated. Classical ballet is performed at the Teatro de Madrid and Albéniz by Victor Ullate's Ballet de la Comunidad de Madrid.

Flamenco dance has risen in the last twenty years from an outdated genre to a living passion. Traditional flamenco vies with nuevo flamenco (new flamenco) and both are enacted at numerous venues in the city (see the Nightlife section). Madrid's talented flamenco dancers and musicians perform at the Festival Flamenco Cajamadrid in February or March.

Film: Spanish films are on the up and up. The 1997 film, Carne Trémula (Live Flesh) by the country's leading director, Pedro Almodóvar, begins in the last years of the Franco era and then jumps ahead to the booming Madrid of the 1990s, with a cast of prostitutes, drug dealers and cops. His most recent creation Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother) was presented at the 1999 Cannes film festival.

Film-going is a popular activity in Madrid, particularly on a Sunday night. Prior booking is not the norm, so queues are long. The most popular performances start at around 2200; earlier screenings are less busy. Reduced tickets are available - usually on Monday or Wednesday (día del espectador). Most cinemas are clustered around Gran Vía, including the vast Gran Vía at number 66 (tel: (902) 333 231), which has seating for 1000 under sparkling chandeliers. Films are usually dubbed Hollywood fare and homegrown products, but screenings in English - marked as 'VO' (versión original) in listings and local papers - are shown at the large multiplex Ideal Yelmo Complex, Calle Doctor Cortezo 6 (tel: (91) 369 2518).

Cultural events: Each season brings a wave of festivities and parades, where religion, tradition or just sheer energy provide the impetus. Perhaps the most intriguing festival is Carnaval (Carnival), accompanying the traditional masked ball, Entierro de la Sardina (Burial of the Sardine), the week before Lent.

Literary Notes
Madrid has drawn its share of talent. The great novelist Cervantes, author of the classic seventeenth-century novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605), is buried in Calle de Lope de Vega, named in honour of the great lyric poet of Spain's Golden Age of theatre. By a strange twist of fate, Lope de Vega's house is located in Calle de Cervantes. Moving to the twentieth century and the Surrealist movement, Salvador Dalí lived in Madrid as a student, as did film-maker Luis Buñuel and poet-dramatist Federico García Lorca. The literati would huddle together in the barrio literario in Old Madrid and drink together in the now famous Café Gijón. Hemingway was to join the literary crowd as a reporter in Madrid during the Civil War. His ode to bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon, was published in 1932 and For Whom The Bell Tolls was published in 1940. The late twentieth century has brought its own talent, including the 1989 Nobel Prize winner, Camilo José Cela, and feminist writers, Ana María Matute and Adelaida Garcia Morales.



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