Coro de Madrigalistas / Temporada virtual / Shakespeare y Cervantes: 400 años (Maig 2024)
El 2016, el món va prendre nota de les morts de fa 400 anys de William Shakespeare i Miguel de Cervantes, dos dels gegants més grans de la història de la literatura occidental. El dramaturg i el novel·lista tenien poc en comú a excepció de la seva extraordinària inventiva, la universalitat del seu atractiu i l’aparent coincidència de les seves dates de mort gairebé idèntiques (de fet, Anglaterra utilitzava el calendari Julià i Espanya el calendari gregorià en aquell moment, així que les dates eren en realitat de deu dies de diferència). Hi va haver, però, un possible punt de contacte tantificant. Es va creure que una obra escrita per Shakespeare (amb el dramaturg John Fletcher) i interpretada el 1613, The History of Cardenio, es va basar en incidents en la història d’un personatge de la ja celebrada novel·la de Don Quixot de Cervantes. El manuscrit de l'obra, però,mai va ser descobert.
Shakespeare.
El 23 d'abril de 1616, el poeta i dramaturg anglès William Shakespeare va morir a la seva ciutat natal de Stratford-upon-Avon a l'edat de 52 anys. La seva mort va ocórrer al voltant del seu aniversari (encara es desconeix la data exacta del seu naixement). ha estat la font d'una llegenda posterior que va caure malalt i va morir després d'una nit de beguda intensa amb altres dos escriptors, Ben Jonson i Michael Drayton. Tot i que Shakespeare havia assolit certes acceleracions i èxits financers durant la seva vida, l'escriptura per a l'escenari no era encara en el moment de la seva mort com una recerca artística seriosa i el seu enterrament modest a la Holy Trinity Church va ser més adequat per un jubilat local benestant que una celebritat. Tanmateix, als pocs anys de la seva mort, els amics i admiradors de Shakespeare van començar a posar les bases de la seva immortalitat literària.El 1623 John Heminge i Henry Condell van muntar les seves obres de teatre en una única edició de gran format. Aquella edició es va conèixer com a Primer Foli, un dels textos més famosos de la literatura anglesa. Anticipant-se que el món acabaria reconeixent el geni de Shakespeare, Jonson –una figura literària important per si mateixa– va proclamar en la prefaci del foli que el seu amic era un escriptor “no era d’època, sinó de tots els temps!” Els quatre segles posteriors a la mort de Shakespeare han confirmat la valoració de Jonson. El "Bard of Avon" ocupa un lloc en la història com un dels majors escriptors que ha viscut i la seva obra continua interpretant-se, llegint-se i ensenyant a tot el món. El llegat de Shakespeare també va evolucionar per mantenir-se al dia dels canvis; per exemple, als segles XX i XXI, les seves obres teatrals es van adaptar a centenars de llargmetratges.
In 2016 Shakespeare was lavishly honoured. The Globe Theatre in London organized The Complete Walk—a 4-km (2.5-mi) course that included 37 short films, each of which explored one Shakespearean play; the project was to be exported to cities in several other countries. The Royal Opera House live-streamed performances from opera and ballet adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. The British Council offered interactive options, including films and the opportunity for members of the public to create a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A free six-week MOOC (massive open online course) on the life and works of Shakespeare was also offered. In the U.S. the Folger Shakespeare Library developed a traveling exhibition intended to take a copy of the First Folio to each state.
Cervantes.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes died in Madrid on April 22, 1616. He was buried the next day in a convent. When the convent was rebuilt decades later, Cervantes’s remains were moved, but at some point their exact location became unknown. The grave of Spain’s greatest writer had essentially vanished. Cervantes himself was by no means forgotten, however. Cervantes became a war hero in the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, during which he received two gunshot wounds in the chest and a third that rendered his left hand useless, a disability that earned him the nickname “el Manco de Lepanto.” In 1575 a ship on which he was traveling was attacked by Barbary pirates, and as a result, Cervantes spent five years as a slave in Algiers. He began writing in 1585, trying his hand—with limited success—first at the fashionable genre of pastoral romance and later as a playwright and as a poet. His attempts to support himself as a commissary of provisions and as a tax collector were disastrous; he was twice imprisoned for discrepancies in his bookkeeping. However, the first part of his novel Don Quixote was instantly popular when it was published in 1605. Over the next six years, the work was reprinted across mainland Europe. The publication jumped the English Channel, was translated, and appeared in London in 1612. Two decades after he began writing, Cervantes had found a ravenous audience, so he started a Part II. He had not yet completed that work when a bogus sequel by an unknown author was published in 1614. That perfidy proved to be of no consequence, however; Cervantes’s own Part II was published in 1615, and it quickly spread across Europe and to England. Cervantes enjoyed few benefits from the success of Don Quixote. Because he had sold the publishing rights to his work, he made little money from Part I, and he died less than a year after Part II was released. Yet the novel flourished, in Spanish and particularly in translation. Its central characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, became familiar to generations of readers. By the 20th century, scholars were flattering Don Quixote by subjecting it to every sort of analysis, from which the novel emerged gleaming and resilient. It remained a good, if troubling, story—funny, affecting, and wayward, with paroxysms of violence and suffering that continued to shock. In March 2015 Cervantes suddenly rose from his grave. Spanish researchers announced their discovery of bones that they thought were his. Scientific testing confirmed the hunch, and Cervantes’s remains were reburied in June. The rediscovery of his bones, however, seemed superfluous. Cervantes had proved centuries earlier that he did not require his body to survive.
Cervantes was celebrated in Spain and elsewhere as the inventor of the modern novel. Tours of his hometown, Alcalá de Henares, offered a greater understanding of the writer. The National Dance Company of Spain performed Ballet Don Quixote in various Spanish cities, beginning in Valencia. Students at the University of Málaga gave a reading of the first chapter of Don Quixote in 18 different languages. An exhibition at the National Library in Madrid offered an overview of Cervantes’s work and its worldwide influence. In addition, the Cervantes Institute, the embassy of Spain, and the Film Development Council of the Philippines presented a series of films based on the writings of Cervantes, which were not limited to his immortal novel. An exhibit, Don Quixotes Around the World, which focused on the many translations into some 140 different languages of the novel and its dissemination around the world, began in Madrid and traveled to several other cities during the year.
