La Revoltosa

The género chico enters the present

Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela launched Project Zarza in the 2016/17 season to bring lyric theatre closer to new generations. For that purpose, it commissioned Guillem Clua to create a free adaptation of one of the género chico’s most popular works: La Revoltosa. Preserving Ruperto Chapí’s immortal original music, the libretto was updated from beginning to end, moving the action to present-day Madrid and filling the sainete with social networks and new technologies, while its characters entered into an explicit dialogue with the classic from which it emerged.

La Revoltosa is a one-act lyric sainete about the love between Felipe and Mari Pepa, two neighbours in a Madrid tenement courtyard at the end of the nineteenth century who seem, to everyone, unable to stand each other. But reality is quite different. Behind their quarrels and disputes lies a mutual love that neither dares to acknowledge. Meanwhile, Mari Pepa’s three suitors—Tiberio, Cándido and Atenedoro—will do everything they can to arrange secret meetings with her, hiding them from their respective partners: Soledad, Gorgonia and Encarna. The three women devise a plan to teach the men a lesson, ultimately revealing the true feelings of the central couple.

In the original, the action takes place during a street festival in a neighbourhood of the capital and faithfully reflects the customs and chulapa tradition of its time. In Guillem Clua’s free adaptation, the love-and-jealousy story of Felipe and Mari Pepa leaves behind the traditionalism and tenements of 1897 to speak, 120 years later, about Twitter and Facebook. In 2017, the meeting place is no longer the neighbours’ courtyard but the social network. That is where all the characters’ passions converge. This focus on the virtual world became one of the foundations of the new version. Mari Pepa’s “rebellious” nature and much-criticised exhibitionism move into Instagram photos and Snapchat live videos. These windows opening on phone and computer screens let us glimpse the protagonist’s private life and awaken the jealousy of a somewhat old-fashioned Felipe.

Another cornerstone of the update has been a thorough reconsideration of the roles of men and women in the sainete. The original ending, like many of its comic moments, is based on a deeply sexist conception of the couple, one that was very much a product of its time. The new version reflects on this and questions an ending in which the three women forgive their husbands after a mild reprimand. Likewise, Mari Pepa does not allow Felipe to dictate her behaviour; she remains strong and independent so that she can live love as an equal with her partner, whoever that partner may be.

All these changes are explicitly analysed by the performers throughout the show. At several points, the author puts questions about the need and legitimacy of changing the original libretto into the characters’ mouths. One of them, Señor Candelas, even refuses to adapt to the new version and remains faithful to the libretto by José López Silva and Carlos Fernández Shaw. It is in this dialogue that the original coplas, guajiras and seguidillas find their place, and where the original La Revoltosa finds its place too. The aim was to appeal to younger audiences without turning its back on the classic from which it sprang: to create an intergenerational zarzuela. That was also the intention of José Luis Arellano, the show’s director. “With a title like this, you feel a lot of fear, respect and affection, but for me there was a very important double beacon: to be respectful of our grandparents while also respecting young people, and to bring zarzuela closer to them not as if they were fools, but by doing what a librettist of the time would have done: telling them now what interests them,” he said.