Zarzuelas and Other Short Musical Plays for the Court, 1650-1690

Abstract Zarzuela is the genre most strongly identified with Spanish national musical theatre, and (as opposed to opera and semi-opera) it has survived and flourished beyond the later seventeenth century. The zarzuela was probably invented by Calderon. It originated as a form of court theatre for Philip IV, perhaps as an alternative to semi-opera. The weighty and complex nature of the semi-opera, and the considerable demands that it placed on the performers, may have deterred Calderon from exploring that genre further.