Miguel Fleta, the best tenor in the world

On December 14, 1919, in the city of Trieste, at the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi, a young Spaniard, born and raised in the fields of Huesca, amazed the world with his voice.

James Joyce, who lived in that city, must have read in the press the name of that peasant from Huesca who later, in 1923, and in the New York Metropolitan, was acclaimed again and again by an enraged public.

Spanish culture has unforgivable oversights, that's what I thought after seeing the excellent documentary that Germán Roda has filmed about the life and work of the Aragonese tenor Miguel Fleta.

I remember that when I went to study in Zaragoza, at the university, I found that one of the main arteries was called Avenida del Tenor Fleta.

I thought then that Tenor was a person's name.

Nobody got me out of my mistake until much later.

Few people actually know

Who was Miguel Fleta?

However, in the late 1920s he was unanimously considered the best tenor in the world.

More information

'La bohème' in homage to Miguel Fleta

Miguel Fleta was born on December 1, 1897 in Albalate de Cinca, province of Huesca, and was the youngest of 14 children.

By destiny he touched the field, the goats, the potatoes, the tomatoes, the flies, and underdevelopment, ethical and aesthetic.

However, he had a gift, which he believed at first linked to the jack.

He learned music in the rondalla of his town, then in Zaragoza, where he participated in a jack contest and did not win.

The circumstances of his life give for a romantic novel.

Fleta was an unpredictable son of the Aragonese deep field, like his compatriot Luis Buñuel.

Only Buñuel was lucky and Fleta was not.

He ran away to Italy with Luisa Pierrick, his singing teacher at the Liceo de Barcelona.

And with her he had two children.

They couldn't get married because Luisa was married.

A colossal period scandal.

Lots of life entering the heart of Fleta.

And it is then, hand in hand with Luisa, when she dazzles the world.

No one had ever heard such a voice.

Not only was he a voice of incomparable natural portent, but Fleta imposed his own style, his own personality, which earned him disagreements with important musicians of the time, such as Toscanini or Giacomo Puccini himself, who saw how Fleta stole the limelight from them.

He was an innovator who touched the hearts of the public.

In Italy he was known as Michele Fleta and he was thought to be Italian, where else was he from?

like Toscanini or Giacomo Puccini himself, who saw how Fleta stole the spotlight from them.

He was an innovator who touched the hearts of the public.

In Italy he was known as Michele Fleta and he was thought to be Italian, where else was he from?

like Toscanini or Giacomo Puccini himself, who saw how Fleta stole the spotlight from them.

He was an innovator who touched the hearts of the public.

In Italy he was known as Michele Fleta and he was thought to be Italian, where else was he from?

His performance in the world premiere of Puccini's

at the Scala in Milan in 1926 is remembered as a portent. Unfortunately, no recording of the

sung by Fleta survives, but there is memory that his interpretation of said aria was legendary.

We cannot remember it, but there are countless recordings of Fleta that the Spanish public is unaware of.

However, this is the time for the whole of Spain to recover its Caruso.

This 2022 is the centenary of the premiere of Fleta at the Teatro Real, a debut that was a success of popular acclaim.

Fleta was the Elvis Presley of Spain in the twenties and in 1922 all of Madrid fell at his feet, including King Alfonso XIII.

Fleta would marry his second wife, Carmen Mirat, in 1927 in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca, packed with people who wanted to see his idol.

It was that same year when his physical difficulties began, due to pharyngitis.

What followed was a decline that in another country would have been seen as a twilight or a dignified decadence, and here as a “you could see it coming”, or a “it wasn't that bad”.

The Spanish civil war devastated his life.

He died in 1938, of uremia, in A Coruña.

Fleta was not an intellectual.

He was an artist.

He joined the Falange Española, a mistake he would pay for with the disappearance of his name from Spanish culture.

For me, Fleta is another of the greats of what is called the expanded generation of 27.

And he is one of the greats for a simple reason: he was the best tenor in the world.

He is our heritage and we are not here to squander heritage.

We are not so rich that we can afford to forget him, because once, for millions of hearts scattered throughout America and Europe, Miguel Fleta was beauty and life.

And although those millions of hearts stopped decades ago, we owe them memory.

And we owe Fleta gratitude, because he came from nothing, from the atavistic, abandoned and wild, Adamic and biological people,

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