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SOLD OUT: A new musical based on Celestina

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.

24th Festival Celestina (24th-28th of August 2022, La Puebla de Montalbán): PROGRAMME RELEASED

The 24th Festival Celestina will be taking place between the 24th and the 28th of August 2022 in La Puebla de Montalbán (Toledo). This is the first in-person edition of the festival since the COVID19 lockdown, so that everybody is looking forward to it more than ever. This is particularly noticeable in the brand new website of the festival, which is a significant improvement with regard to the old web page. The programme can be downloaded in PDF format here.

José Juan Morcillo Pérez (IES Andrés de Vandelvira, Albacete) will be giving the usual lecture at the Museo Celestina on Friday, 26th of August 2022, at 20:00. The topic is “Fernando de Rojas, autor de la novela jurídica Lazarillo de Tormes“, in which I suppose that the speaker will be defending his thesis that Fernando de Rojas is the author of Lázaro de Tormes.

There will also be an educational event on Thursday, 25th of August 2022, at 20:00 at the Museo Celestina. In it, Ignacio Arcos Gil (IES María Pacheco, Toledo) will use the radio adaptation of Celestina of the Cadena Ser radio programme Un libro, una hora to introduce the audience to key aspects of the work.

The traditional underground theatre plays will also return: En busca de Calisto y Melibea (for children), Escuela de Celestinas (age 16+), ¡Redención para Pármeno! (Reflexiones sin cabeza) (age 12+), Antinomia (general audience), Moldes que escupen fuego (En la imprenta de Juan de Lucena) (general audience), Las hermanas Celestinas (general audience), Melibea a las nueve. Un viaje de cuento (for children) and La Rueda (general audience). Tickets for the underground plays can be bought at the official website of the festival.

Outside, at the Plaza Mayor, the theatre play Francisco Hernández de La Puebla (Periplo y testamento) is programmed for the first day of the festival. The monologue El Lazarillo de Tormes by Rafael Álvarez “El Brujo” will be taking place on Friday, 26th of August 2022, at 22:00. The next day, at the same time, the play La grande enfermedad (Peste y milagro en Montalbán) will be staged. On the final day, on Sunday, the play will be La Celestina by Albacity Corporation.

As usual, during the festival there will be a medieval fair and the Jornada de la Tapa taking place. And, as usual, I will not be able to attend. Traditions do not get lost.

Open access publication of celestinesque interest

As usual, the Centro Virtual Cervantes has made the conference proceedings of the VI Congreso Internacional Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita, y el Libro de buen amor «Mujer, saber y heterodoxia: Libro de buen amor, La Celestina y La Lozana andaluza» available online. There are several contributions of celestinesque interest:

Celestinesca 45 is out!

Issue 45 of Celestinesca is out and I did not want to leave 2021 without announcing it in the blog. As this year I will not be making a balance of the past twelve months, the best way to close 2021 is with these six articles of celestinesque interest, ranging from María Jesús Lacarra and Ana Milagros Ruiz Jiménez’s identification of an unknown edition with the imprint “Sevilla, 1502” to Marlen Bidwell-Steiner’s review of the motif of blindness.

The full issue it open access at the official website of Celestinesca.

«Contarte he maravillas…», International Congress in homage to Joseph T. Snow, Madrid, 25th-29th of October 2021 (BNE-UCM)

From the 25th to the 29th of October 2021 the International Congress in homage to Joseph T. Snow «Contarte he maravillas…» will be taking place at the Biblioteca Nacional de España (25th, 26th and 29th of October 2021) and the Universidad Complutense (27th and 28th of October 2021). Almost hundred specialists on the topics most studied by Joseph T. Snow, that is, Alfonso X, the Libro de buen amor, and, of course, Celestina, will reunite to celebrate Snow’s 80th birthday.

Organised by Ricardo Pichel and Ruth Martínez Alcorlo (Universidad de Alcalá), with the logistical support of Álvaro Bustos Táuler and Amaranta Saguar García (Universidad Complutense), and the technical support of Belén Almeida Cabrejas and Víctor Caballero Gómez (Universidad de Alcalá), this congress promises to be one of the most important events of international hispanomedievalism of the post-pandemic era. Of its almost hundred participants, one half will take part in person and the other half remotely, a mixed format that will make possible the participation of friends of Joseph T. Snow that, due to health problems, a full agenda or, simply, distance, are not able to travel to Madrid. In addition, the sessions will be streamed via Youtube, more precisely, through the Youtube channels of the Biblioteca Nacional de España and the Universidad Complutense, respectively. And, the most important bit: thanks to the funds contributed by the projects “HERES. Patrimonio textual ibérico y novohispano. Recuperación y memoria” (Atracción de Talento de la Comunidad de Madrid, Ref. 2018-T1/HUM-10230) and “IcoCel. La tradición iconográfica de Celestina: materialidad y recepción de las ediciones ilustradas en la Edad Moderna” (Atracción de Talento de la Comunidad de Madrid, Ref. 2018-T1/HUM-11717), and by several other sponsors, this event is totally free of charge. It is only necessary to register via a form.

Due to the huge amount of papers on Celestina, I will not be detailing them below, but linking the programme (if the PDF Viewer does not work, you can check it at the official website of the congress).

See you there!