El Amor Brujo

El amor brujo (Love, the Magician, literally, Spell-bound Love or The Bewitched Love, sometimes translated as Wedded by Witchcraft) is a ballet composed in 1914-1915 by Manuel de Falla to a libretto by Gregorio Martínez Sierra. In 1916, Falla arranged a rendition of the work for sextet and small orchestra and the following year he made a concert version, also for small orchestra. Later, he fashioned a piano suite from it and finally, a second ballet version (1925) that features expanded orchestration, elimination of the narration, small cuts and plot changes, and a different order to the numbers.

The work is distinctively Andalusian in character with the songs in the Andalusian Spanish dialect of the Gypsies. The music contains moments of remarkable beauty and originality; it includes the celebrated "Danza ritual del fuego" (Ritual Fire Dance), "Canción del fuego fatuo" (Song of Wildfire, or Song Of The Will-o'-the-Wisp) and the "Danza del terror" (Dance of Terror).

El amor brujo was commissioned in 1914 as a gitanería (gypsy piece) by Pastora Imperio, a renowned flamenco gypsy dancer. It was scored for cantaora voice, actors and chamber orchestra and performed at the Teatro Lara, Madrid, on 15 April 1915, unsuccessfully.

The following year, Falla revised the work by cutting its length, enlarging the orchestration, removing the dialogue and reducing the vocal part to three short songs for mezzo-soprano. This version was performed on 28 March 1916, by the Madrid Symphony Orchestra under Enrique Fernández Arbós.

In 1924 Falla finished a transformation of El amor brujo into a one-act 'ballet pantomímico'; it is in this version that the work is best known to this day. Published by Chester, the ballet was given in Paris the next year (1925) and by the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company at Philadelphia's Metropolitan Opera House on 17 March 1927, with mezzo-soprano Kathryn Noll and conductor Alexander Smallens.

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