Just dropping a quick post to announce that the official programme of the XXV Festival Celestina is already on-line. In 2023, the festival will take place from the 18th to the 27th of August in La Puebla de Montalbán and, as usual, there will be literal underground theatre (it is staged underground, in old cellars), music, dance and many other related activities like a street market and an outdoor cinema. There will also be acting and acrobatics courses for youths.
Of particular interest for the followers of this blog might be the roundtable about Celestina that will take place on the 22th of August 2023, at the Museo La Celestina (topic to be disclosed!). And, for a change, this will be the first time I will be able to attend. Hope to see you there!
An event of celestinesque interest is taking place in Lorient (France), at the Université Bretagne Sud, on the 14th of April 2023.
Organised by François Xavier Guerry (Université Bretagne Sud), it will deal with two of the most discussed topics within the celestinesque scholarship of the last decade: the iconography of Celestina and contemporary interpretations of Celestina.
With regard to the first subject, Guillermo Juberías Gracia (Université Bretagne Sud) will be presenting on «Alcahuetería en la plástica contemporánea, de Goya a Braun-Vega : usos y variaciones de un asunto español», followed by the paper «Celestina selon Picasso : naissance d’une icône moderne» by Timo Kehren (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) and Virginie Dumanoir (Université Rennes 2), who will be talking about «La Célestine en couverture : éditions contemporaines».
The second topic will be addressed by Jéromine François (Université de Namur, NaLTT), who will read her paper «Celestina en serie: propuesta de tipología para la narrativa actual»; Christine Orobitg (Université Aix-Marseille), with her paper «Melibea à la lumière des féminismes contemporains : une réflexion autour des notions d’objet et de sujet, de la volonté et du consentement»; Thomas Faye (Sorbonne Université), who will talk about «La Célestine et la bande dessinée : entre décentrement et annexion, une héroïne difficile à mettre en case ? », and Enrique Fernández (University of Manitoba), with a paper on «La presencia escénica y la caracterización de famosas actrices que interpretaron el personaje de Celestina».
The full programme can be downloaded by clicking on the poster above or from the official website of the Université Bretagne Sud. There is no information on who can attend the event or if the event will be streamed on-line, but if you are in France it might be worth asking the organiser.
First of all, thanks to everyone who wrote to me to inform me about the auction, which will take place on the 26th of January 2023 at the Spanish auction house El Remate, based in Madrid.
According to the catalogue, the 16th- and 17th-century Celestinas that will be auctioned belonged to a bibliophile that has been collecting Celestinas for over 60 years. His collection includes copies from the following editions:
Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… Sevilla [but Venice], [Juan Bautista Pedrezano], 1523 (Sev1523). Starting price: 25.000€
Celestina. Tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea… Venice, Gregorio de Gregorii, 1525 (V25a). Starting price: 18.000€
Celestina. Tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea… [Venice], Pietro de Nicolini da Sabio, 1535 (V35). Starting price: 5.000€
Celestina. Tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea… Venice, Bernardino di Bendoni, 1543 (V43). Starting price: 3.500€
La Célestine… Paris, Nicolas Bonfons, [¿1578?] (Par78c). Starting price: 3.000€
Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… Venice, Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari and his brothers, 1553 (Ven1553). Starting price: 5.000€
Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… Tarragona, Felipe Roberto, 1595 (Tarr1595). Starting price: 9.500€
Celestina. Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… [Anvers or Leiden], Oficina Plantiniana, 1595 (Plant1595). Starting price: 4.500€
Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… Sevilla, Fernando de Lara, 1596 (Sev1596). Starting price: 4.500€
Celestina. Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… [Anvers or Leiden], Oficina Plantiniana, 1599 (Plant1599). Starting price: 3.000€
Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… Madrid, Andrés Sánchez, 1601 (Mad1601). Starting price: 2.500€
Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea… Madrid, viuda de Alonso Martín, 1631 [1632] (Mad1631-1632). Starting price: 2.000€
La Célestine ou histoire tragicomique… Rouen, Charles Osmont, 1634 [1633] (Rua1633-1634). Starting price: 1.500€
Maybe there are affluent collectors among the followers of this blog that can afford such prices! I absolutely cannot. But there are a few things I am curious about, in particular, if the auctioned copy of the Venice, Gregorio de Gregorii, 1525 edition is composite (with both roman and arabic numerals or not). I suppose that, if it were, it would be stated in the catalogue, but this is the trickiest edition of the Italian translation of Celestina with which I had to work. What I know for sure is that it does not belong to V25c (printed by Francesco Caron for Gregorio de Gregorii and, thus, with the printer’s mark and the types of the former but the colophon of the latter?).
Another thing I am curious about is how prices are determined. For example, why does the copy of Plant1595 cost 4.500€, when there are no less than 43 known copies in public libraries, and the 17th-century editions, which are much more rare, cost respectively 2.000€ and 2.500€? Why are the illustrated editions of the Italian translation much cheaper than Gregori’s, if they are all rather common (more than 30 copies in public libraries for V25 and V35, and over 15 for V43)? I do not understand how the market works.
In any case, I am always surprised by how many collectors own Celestinas. For such an important and researched work, one thinks that all surviving copies are kept by public institutions, but no. How many 16th- and 17th century copies are lacking in my censuses? Will they be complete some day?
A few fortunate people in Zaragoza were able to buy tickets for today’s performance of Celestina: Un musical joven, which is sold out.
I do not know what kind of musical this new version is, if it is remotely linked to Brad Bond’s Celestina: A Tragic Musical Comedy or not. But, according to the descriptions I have been able to find on the internet, it is a musical by young actors conceived to make Celestina attractive for a young audience.
If it does, I do neither know, because I have not been able but to watch the trailer at the corresponding Instagram account and it does not give much information on the show. However, I would be very glad to hear more on this project.
The script and adaptation is due to Jesús Gacías, a mathematician, componist and actor himself, in collaboration with Guillermo Alcalde for the music. Choreography by Alicia Soravilla. The cast has been chosen among young actors of the city of Zaragoza (open casting at the end of 2019) and they have been working on this project since then. The musical was first staged on the 29th and 30th of June 2022 and this is the second time it is performed in Zaragoza after its initial success.
By the way, it might be interesting to remember that, besides Brad Bond’s and this new musical version, there is one less Broadway, more traditional sung version fo Celestina by Molto Vivace, which was also mentioned in this post of 2019 and of which you can see a summary here.
