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World-renowned tenor Placido Domingo has described himself as 'the defender and protector of zarzuela'. But what is it? We explore the background to this Spanish art form.Everywhere you turn at the moment there are shows, exhibitions and every conceivable type of celebration for the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' novel Don Quijote.
Tenor Placido Domingo champions the zarzuela
By contrast, it's easy to miss the fact that 2006 is a landmark year for Spanish culture for another reason.
Almost 150 years ago, in 1856, the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid opened its doors – the first space devoted to a uniquely Spanish art form which first started over 350 years ago.
Unlike Don Quijote, you may never have heard of zarzuela, let alone seen one. And some of your Spanish friends may also know little about it.
One of its biggest fans, though, is the world-famous Three Tenors star Plácido Domingo, is on a mission to change that.
The Madrid-born operatic genius has described himself as "the defender and protector" of the genre which saw its heyday in the 19th and 20th centuries.
In 2000, he told the Spanish daily ABC: "Zarzuela hasn't had any support of any kind. It has been marginalized and has always been ill-treated."
Domingo, who grew up in Mexico, cut his operatic teeth singing zarzuela since his parents had a zarzuela company and has continued to regularly perform the genre throughout his glittering musical career.
On his website, he devotes special attention to it, defining it as "a traditional Spanish musical genre which is frequently compared to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and the Viennese operettas of Johan Strauss".
Zarzuelas differ from opera in that they include spoken sections interspersed between the singing and a rather different tone.
For Domingo, although zarzuelas began in the 17th century to entertain Spain's King Philip IV and his courtiers, (performed in a pavilion surrounded by 'zarzas' - brambles) their plots tend to centre on working class or middle-class life and, whether romantic, political or tragic in theme, use "an ample sprinkling of popular Spanish humour".
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