LA PETENERA (A SPANISH SEPHARDIC TALE)
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This is the third time he’s produced La Petenera (A Spanish Sephardic Tale), which sets the poetry of 20th-century writer Federico Garcia Lorca to flamenco music. The Lorca poem from which the musical work takes its name, Utrera explains, is based on a Spanish tale of a beautiful Sephardic woman who refused to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition. Utrera’s introduction makes the story sound extremely promising: La Petenera was from a well-to-do philanthropic Jewish family who had lived in Spain for over 800 years. Despite the pressures of the Inquisition, she refused to leave. Outwardly she converted to Christianity to protect herself, but inwardly she held fast to her Jewish convictions.
Being beautiful and wealthy, La Petenera was the object of many a man’s passion. But she never married or took lovers, because doing so would have betrayed her beliefs. Those who couldn’t have her were often spiritually destroyed. Ultimately, La Petenera was murdered by a jealous suitor who decided that if he couldn’t have her no man could. Lorca’s poem is a surrealistic homage to this archetype of Andalusian women: spiritually complete, strong-willed, intelligent, and beautiful.
