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Cante: Estrella Morente. Toque: Pepe Montoyita and Manuel Parrilla.
Percussion: Bandolero and Antonio Carbonell. Chorus and palmas:
Angel Gabarre, la Globo, Antonio Carbonell and Remedios Heredia.
A touch of glamour
Maybe glamour isn’t a word you hear used too often
to describe an art like flamenco, but when it’s Estrella Morente,
that, among many other things, is what the young woman from Granada
gives her shows in general, and flamenco singing in particular.
She seduces with her wardrobe, her hair-do, her delivery, the way
she dances and projects in every single thing, and it’s devilishly
fascinating because the final product is sophisticated and elegant.
A flamenco singer for
today, with her
father’s influence and her own touch
Her performance opened the Caja de Madrid flamenco festival, and
she sang non-stop for nearly two hours, and she sang everything.
Alegrías, soleá, seguiriyas, taranto, granaína,
zambra, tientos, jaleos and those bulerías verses that characterize
her repertoire. A repertoire in which she mixed traditional cante
with festive styles, with her group’s solid backup, especially
from her uncle Montoyita and Manuel Parrilla; and where you could
see her knowledge of and devotion to old-style cante such as that
of Chacón or Niña de los Peines. A flamenco singer
for today, with her father’s influence and her own special
touch that she continues to cultivate, her command of high and low
registers, her way of fragmenting the cantes, her peculiar execution
of the embellishments and the way she displays her faculties which
at times comes off as eccentric, but which captivated the audience
because she does it with feeling and flamenconess.
There are those who like it better when she sings more traditionally,
and those who prefer her folkloric facet, such as when she sings
certain verses with the sweetness and passion she’s so famous
for, and there are those who like everything, which is why her fans
are so numerous and the show was sold out days ahead. “What
an artist!” was heard from the audience, because that’s
just what Estrella proves herself to be when she gets up to dancer
her tangos del ‘Cerro’ or the bulería ‘Moguer’,
two of the best-known songs from her first record and with which
she has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. After receiving
due ovation, the grand finale with bulerías, the famous ‘Cuatro
Muleros’, leaving all those present thoroughly enthralled….and
fascinated.
Photos: Rafael Manjavacas
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