Goyescas

Opera by Enrique Granados (libretto, in Spanish, by F Periquet y Zuaznabar), first produced at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, on 28 January 1916. Much of the material is taken from the piano work below. The story tells how Pacquito and Fernando duel over Rosario, and Fernando dies in her arms.

Granados composed two sets of piano pieces, inspired by paintings of Spanish scenes by Goya, first performed in Paris, France, on 4 April 1914. They comprise: I. Los requiebros/The Compliments, Coloquio en la reja/Colloquy at the Grilled Window, El fandango del candil/The Fandango of the Lantern, and Quejas, ó La maja y el ruiseñor/Plaints, or The Maja and the Nightingale; II. El Amor y la Muerte/Love and Death, and Epilogo: la serenata del espectro/Epilogue: the Spectre's Serenade. (A maja is the feminine counterpart of majo, ‘a fop, a dandy’). Granados also wrote a separate escena goyesca for piano: El pelele (a puppet or straw-man tossed in a blanket).