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The 'Operación Triunfo' of Cante de las Minas, the most important flamenco festival

2022-07-04T10:55:32.825Z


The selective tests of the applicants to participate in the best financially endowed cante jondo contest are held throughout Spain in June and July


Fifteen thousand euros is an artistic argument.

The Cante de las Minas contest puts it on the table year after year to promote the songs of Levante.

It has ended up becoming the most important contest on the flamenco scene.

"This year we have had 460 registrations between singing, dancing and playing", they explain from the organization.

There is no other contest that comes close.

The event has been taking place since 1961 during the patron saint festivities of La Unión, in Murcia.

“In the program of festivals, the I Festival del Cante de las Minas stands out, in which the famous cante of our land will be performed, an important facet of Murcian folklore, currently in danger of disappearing”, said a newspaper of the time, echoing of a very Flemish and, in general, very vernacular plot: danger.

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Amparo Heredia 'La Repompilla', Mining Lamp of Cante de las Minas

His first 20 years seemed more like a professional league than a contest.

Year after year, basically the same group of singers competed for the prizes among themselves.

Enrique Orozco, Antonio Piñana, Pencho Cros, Bernardo el de los Lobitos, Manolo Fregenal, Manuel Ávila, Canalejas de Puertos Real, Eleuterio Andreu and a few others alternated prizes and second places.

However, despite this closed circuit structure, supported by various leading figures of the Franco regime, such as José María Pemán, it soon gained stature on the national scene.

Its purpose was clear: to incorporate Murcia into the standardized Flemish map, to make it "the ninth Andalusian province", as it was said then.

The pulse was thrown against Cádiz and Seville, hegemonic in flamenco.

In fact, the pulse continues and the presence of the "Betic" provinces is conscientiously minimized.

The selective tests, held each year in 15 Spanish towns and usually leave these provinces aside, even knowing that this forces an enormous number of singers coming from that area to travel that do not compensate for the allowances that the organization pays.

This year they are celebrated, for example, in Rojales (Alicante), Álora (Málaga), Ponferrada (León), Valladolid, Andorra (Teruel), Dénia (Alicante), Yecla (Murcia), Hervás (Cáceres), Lorca (Murcia) , Madrid, Torrevieja (Alicante), Alicante, Sagunto, Albacete and Viator (Almería).

Participants in the selection tests of the International Festival of Cante de las Minas.Juan Barbosa (Europa Press)

Beyond considerations about the beauty of Levante songs —the main object to be evaluated in the competition—, the argument that has turned this kind of closed group into the most requested flamenco competition is evident: it is the best paid, by far, of all existing ones.

For sticking to cante: 15,000 euros for the first prize, the Mining Lamp;

6,000 to singing by mineras, 1,500 to cartageneras and tarantas, 5,000 to songs from Malaga, Granada, Córdoba and Huelva.

Three prizes of 1,500 euros will be awarded to the Bajo-Andalusian cantes (relatives of the seguiriya, soleá, bulería and tango).

This is a perfect example of negotiation in the history of the arts.

And it has been a success.

Of course, mining cantes weren't at any risk of being lost, but they wouldn't have this current predicament if it weren't for the success of the contest.

One more peculiarity is the persistence that is usually required to win it.

Paula Rodríguez Lázaro, last dance prize (Desplante miner), who this Saturday went through the tests to accompany one of the contestants, did not need that viacrucis: "It was the first time that she introduced me."

However, it is exception.

Jose Antonio Romero Perez,

The Dog

(grandson and nephew of the respected cantaores Perro de Paterna and Cachorro de Paterna) has reached the final stages several times and was in the Madrid preliminaries on Saturday.

"Of course you have to insist, you're not going to win the first time!"

Romero has the exact profile of the winners of this contest: clear, in-tune and powerful voice, controlled cante with punctual, very measured technical embellishments.

One of the judges, José Cros, sentences without hesitation what is sought in the contest: “Purity, passion and singer”.

That is to say: mimetic capacity and vocal resources.

From the organization they insist: it is about whether the performances conform to the canon, not how well they sing or how much an interpreter likes them.

A singer and a guitarist participate in the selection tests of the International Festival of Cante de las Minas, in the Corral de la Morería, Madrid.Juan Barbosa (Europa Press)

José Plantón Heredia, son of the recently deceased Calli, a cult cantaor among fans, is, on the other hand, the first time he has performed.

His voice is the opposite of Perrito's: it's full of nasal harmonics, it's grainy, sweet and very apt for the unexpected pinch.

Only by tuning it is appreciated that he is the voice of a cantaor.

In general, he is not an award-winning cantaor profile at La Unión.

With certain exceptions (and we must not fail to remember the unfortunately deceased Víctor Quero,

Charico

, one of the great voices of his generation), these singers who are reminiscent of what is called gypsy cante do not have good luck in the tests.

The guitarist Marcos Serrato, who has also been presented on numerous occasions for the guitar prize, reaching the final phase several times, tries again.

Worth?

“I like this too much.

Playing there in Murcia is impressive”.

All the purism and territorial demarcation that are maintained in the contest they try to compensate with the parallel festival.

In this, cante bético has a central presence, as well as flamenco pop.

Through the years they have passed from Isabel Pantoja to Niña Pastori and from Antonio Mairena to José Menese.

It is the other hand of the negotiation, the left.

And it is that for an artistic field to be alive there must be something at stake and people willing to play who know the rules of the game (this is how the theory of social fields, already classic, by Pierre Bourdieu could be defined very broadly ).

If we use it to consider the world of flamenco, it becomes a clarifying tool: there is a lot of capital at stake and people willing to play who know, perfectly, the rules that govern the fields without being sociologists.

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Source: elparis

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