Company

Original idea, libretto and direction: Paco López
Choreography: Javier Latorre
Music: Manuel de Falla, Mauricio Sotelo and Juan Manuel Cañizares
Music Recording: Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid (ORCAM)
Musical Direction: Manuel Coves
Set and Costume Design: Jesús Ruiz
Lighting Design: Nicolás Fischtel (AAI)
Set Production: Ferrán Decoración, Spechio Piuma, Iberia Inkyet, 
Peroni, Pinto’s and May Servicios for Espectaculos, SL
Wardrobe Production: Ana Lacoma, Josep Ahumada, González, 
Maty and Adame
Footwear: Gallardo
Flamenco Musicians of BNE

Music Editor: Mauricio Sotelo, El loco. © Proyecto Sotelo.
Manuel de Falla, El sombrero de tres picos. © Chester Music.

FIRST PART

PROLOGUE
LONG GROVE HOSPITAL, 1941.

Dawn, after a sleepless night in the psychiatric ward – one more for Félix and his ghosts: Karsavina, Diaghilev, Massine. El sombrero de tres picos: his failure. Dancing as the Miller: his obsession.  Madness is a place without boundaries, without time. The visit of the White Lady: at last, death, so longed-for. And memory: the return to paradise lost.

1. A JOURNEY BACK TO THE ORIGINS.

SOMEWHERE IN SOUTHERN SPAIN

The first decade of the 20th century. A celebration of life in the south, one day at the end of spring. Happiness, confusion and commotion. The game of flirting, of falling in love. Félix is a member of the group, somewhere among the shining crowd.

DECLARATION OF FAITH

The party dissipates. The rhythm becomes heavier, more ritualistic. A halo of light surrounds the Old Bailaor. Félix watches him, the disciple who awaits the teachings of the maestro, the young Félix Fernández waiting for a lesson from Mr. Molina. Félix, discovering his only passion, his only true faith.

2. IN A CAFÉ CANTANTE

1916. One night, in Novedades. The café: lively, happy. The stage: dimly lit at first, but coming to life: the spectacle is starting. The guest artist dances alegrías. Diaghilev, Massine and Tamara Karsavina join the audience: expectation mounts. Félix, oblivious in his ritual trance, lost in thought, dances a farruca. Then, the demand. Diaghilev beckons Félix over: he wants to recruit him for a new, grandiose project: the London premiere of a Spanish ballet.

SECOND PART

3. EL SOMBRERO DE TRES PICOS

THE BALLETS RUSSES

London, 1919. The Ballets Russes company is rehearsing. Félix interrupts, corrects them. Everyone observes and comments: Félix, already unravelling in a strange, unfathomable world. His exclusion is manifest. Massine, the Miller, dances with Karsavina: happiness abounds as the evening draws to a close. Félix bursts on stage: he is the Miller. Diaghilev is present at the rehearsal: the decision is made. The gaze – the mind – of Félix transforms reality, the identity of the characters: Don Quixote beset by giants, not by the blades of windmills. After the farruca, an icy silence. Felíx is left alone: unhappy and marooned in a hostile, empty world.

THE DISENCHANTMENT

Infinite desperation is a theatre stage: Félix wanders along it, lost and empty. Fleeting hallucinations: the Millers, both male and female. He hears the hubbub of the audience coming from the theatre. At the same time, Félix is a wandering shadow on the streets of London.

22 JULY 1919

On stage at the Alhambra Theatre, El sombrero de tres picos premieres. Félix, lost in the night, tries to stop hearing that strange, terrible music, and to forget that he is not appearing in the premiere, which must be finishing around now. But the magistrate’s men are chasing him: they have escaped from the stage, and confront him in the dark streets.

NIGHT OF GHOSTS

Félix escapes and, in his insanity, in the hallucinations of his memory, appears once again on stage at the Alhambra Theatre. A night of ghosts, of shifting masks: Félix, lost in a labyrinth that melts into mercury. A final apotheosis: the company receives the acclaim of the audience. In his imagination, the success of the premiere alongside his own desperate screams.

4. FÉLIX, EL LOCO

THE FARRUCA

Phantasmagorias: the Old Bailaor, the White Lady. Félix is in the church at Saint Martin-in-the-Fields. Moonlight streams through the rose window, casting a radiant circle onto the floor: the altar, the stage, the world. Fanfares ring out, the oil lamps are lit. The moment has arrived. Félix dances his farruca: the pain of living, reality in opposition to desire.

MADNESS, BURNING DARKNESS

Afterwards, Félix is plunged into an icy silence: there are no smiling co-performers, there are no spectators in the empty chairs, there is no theatre in London, there is no premiere for a madman. The Old Bailaor has arisen: he wants to remind him of the only truth. The scene is abruptly interrupted. Some London policemen appear, the magistrate Diaghilev’s insatiable goons. They arrest Félix, and toss him like a ragdoll into a filthy cell in the asylum in Epsom.

EPILOGUE
LONG GROVE HOSPITAL, 1919-1941

Félix is alone, infinitely alone. Madness is a place without boundaries, without time. At Long Grove, time passes, yet does not pass by. He looks around: all his ghosts have left the theatre of his failure. The White Lady seems to be waiting to accompany him on his final voyage. Massine, that Massine: he, Félix, is the Miller… A tap drips in the night. Rain. The music fades. Darkness.