Los Gavilanes

2009

The three-act Los gavilanes ('The Sparrowhawks') shows Guerrero at his most distinctive. Ramos Martín's libretto is no literary masterpiece, but it does boast a well-constructed and unusually involving storyline not unlike Dürrenmatt's The Visit, and the composer grasped its theatricality with both hands. Beyond that, the poignant subtlety of the protagonists' situations clearly suited the composer's gift for gentle melody and sympathetic, pastel characterization. Guerrero's orchestral scoring, too, is efficient and even delicate as occasion dictates.

Above all, Los gavilanes has a consistent melodic inspiration and spontaneity which the composer perhaps never quite matched, despite the superior technical finish of later works such as La rosa del azafrán. Number after number hits the spot, the comedy numbers (never Guerrero's greatest strength) being as effective as more obviously stirring numbers like Juan's opening Romanza and Tango milonga; then there is the magically poised Romanza de la Flor for the tenor; with a high-lying line almost as hard to sustain as Nadir's famous aria in Bizet's Les Pecheurs de Perles, Gustavo's "Flor roja" is amongst the most perfect pearls in the zarzuela repertoire.