La “esfera de creación” de El final de don Álvaro, de Conrado del Campo: un drama lírico español con esencias románticas

Abstract

This article studies the creation process of El final de don Álvaro, a lyric drama in one act and two tableaus with a libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw and music by Conrado del Campo. To do so, I use the concept of “mediation”, which allows me to analyze, not only the tools employed by the authors during the creation of the piece, but also the influence of the cultural, aesthetic and ideological features of the historical period in which this opera is inserted. The starting point is the delimitation and the personal adaptation of a preexisting theatrical plot: Don Álvaro o La fuerza del sino (1835), by the Duque of Rivas. After that, I analyze the reasons that led the composer to select only the final part of the original argument: the musical potential of its romantic essence. Then, I show how the librettist wrote a text taking into account the necessities of the composer; and, finally, I explore the incidence of the principal musical influence of the moment: Wagnerism, a language that is hybridized with popular chant in order to elaborate a new model of Spanish opera: the national lyric drama.

Keywords

• romanticism
• lyric drama
• mediation
• national opera
• popular music and wagnerism