Manuel de Falla

Catalogue of Stage Productions of El retablo de maese Pedro

Arranged in chronological order, from the work’s premiere in Paris on 25 June 1923 to the most recent productions, this catalogue focuses solely on stage performances of the work, and does not include concert versions.

It began with the book Cuántas trompetas que suenan…Hark Now the Blasts of the Trumpets… El retablo de maese Pedro, a New Manuel de Falla Takes the Stage (Alfredo Aracil, ed., Granada: Archivo Manuel de Falla, 2023), which presented all the information compiled up to that moment and announced that it would serve as a springboard for a permanently updated database which anyone could contribute to or access on this website.

That initial compilation, begun by Katia-Sofia Hakim and enlarged by Alfredo Aracil, Aurora Fernández Ruiz and Candela Tormo Valpuesta, contained nearly 180 different productions (each performed several times, in most cases) in at least nine different languages and spanning thirty-odd countries. The wide variety of scenic configurations detected in the process posed countless challenges related to the methodology, terminology, organisation, classification and presentation of the collected data.

Each catalogue entry begins with the name of the town or city (written in its original name: Venezia, Genève, Lisboa, Köln for Cologne…) and date of the first performance, followed by the venue (theatre, hall, etc.) and, when applicable, the name of the festival or cycle. If the work was performed in a language other than Spanish, the language is specified in brackets. Next are the names of the different artists involved in the production, arranged by category, in a specific list that varies depending on the information researchers were able to find and how the work was staged.

The catalogue mentions every premiere of a production as well as its subsequent performances, including consecutive shows at the same venue and later representations, often in other locations. For these new performances, which logically have the same stage directors and puppet companies, the music directors’ names are included.

In addition to the complete database, here users will find a search tool for looking up any term (town/city, venue, date, artist, speciality, etc.), a glossary of terms and abbreviations that can be accessed at any point in the search, and a short final chapter, “Other Retablos”, with interesting titbits of information that we have not yet been able to weave into a complete entry.

There are undoubtedly new data and productions waiting to be discovered, and probably some errors to be corrected. And the best way to keep expanding and perfecting this database is to invite anyone with additional information, sources or references to share it with us by writing to archivo@manueldefalla.com

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