Married Temptresses in Falla and Lorca

Abstract

Wives’ coquetry abounds in the musical comedy of Falla and the poetry and theatre of Lorca, with such flirtatiousness always displaying female fantasy. In this comparative study between literature and music, it requires little imagination in the lewd ballad, ‘El molinero de Arcos’, for the deceived wife to conceive the double adultery as comedy. Comic theatricality dominates Alarcón's novella El sombrero de tres picos, avoiding its source's lewdness and satirizing authoritarianism. In Alarcón, Frasquita's grace and musicality inspire Falla's pantomime El Corregidor y la Molinera and its revised version, the ballet El sombrero de tres picos. Both compositions translate into music Alarcón's love triangle between the manly miller, the supple but heavy-set Frasquita, and the craven Corregidor in her play within the play. Lorca too closely imitates this internal play device in his unfinished opera libretto Lola, la comedianta, bearing Falla's self-imitating musical suggestions. However, Lorca's ‘La casada infiel’ relies on more mature borrowings from ‘El molinero de Arcos’ and Falla's ballet. Finally, Falla's puppet opera El retablo de maese Pedro inspires Lorca's La zapatera prodigiosa, climaxing in its own play within a play.