bodas de sangre

Blood Wedding.... Bodas de Sangre.... Lorca's super-dramatic play about lost love. It's powerful stuff, maybe rather florid and over-emotional for current tastes, but an essential read ( and view) for anyone who wants to go beyond Lorca's poetry, and wants to know about Spanish theatre and its influences.

As well as that, of course, it has all the advantages to language learners of the "play" format... IT'S ALL SPEECH "..... which has got to be good. PLUS you can actually tape yourself reading some of the play...

There's LOADS of stuff on the web about the play... in fact it's all a bit overdone... study guides, the significance of colour in the play, loads of theories, notes for students, the entire text, what to read next.... too much!

I've got the Hispanic Texts version, edited by H. Ramsden, who I like to think is the fish and chip magnate but probably isn't. When you think about it, combining running zillions of salt and vinegar emporia with being Emeritas Professor of Spanish at Manchester University would be a big ask.

This has good background information about Lorca, without swamping you with too much theorising.

Also, there are loads of video clips, but by far my favourite is this .... it tells you all you need to know, and it is a production I would love to have seen...


Once you've watched that dramatic intro, you can scroll along the choices along the bottom to see various productions and scenes from the play, but the sound is usually a bit duff.


Vetusta Morla are the bees knees... here's a beautiful acoustic version of Boca en la Tierra...



and here are the words..

Nos dejaron las balas
y un enjambre de abejasése fue su tesoro y una noche oxidada.

Nos alzaron en brazos
descubrimos planetas
nos creímos tan fuertes como héroes de guerra.

Y en mitad del relámpago llegó el mal de altura
fuimos sed en el aire pero boca en la tierra.

Ahora alumbras las horas
con guiños que se escapan
cubriendo el recuerdo con bandejas de plata.

Y nos echamos tanto de menos
que nos da por despegar
en avenidas de pegamento, clavados por las rodillas.

Y en mitad del relámpago llegó el mal de altura
fuimos sed en el aire pero boca en la tierra.

La antena está abierta esperando una señal
la señal que no llega a esta sala de espera es una eternidad.
Y el tesoro perfecto lo cubrió la tormenta
con aviones cruzándose en la noche más negra.

Y en mitad del relámpago llegó el mal de altura
fuimos sed en el aire pero boca en la tierra.

Fuente: musica.com ( thanks)
Letra añadida por joserayab ( and thanks to you too)

............................ Telón.....................................

NOTE...I don't know how that flanders panel picture got there... I must have picked the wrong picture... sorry.