(From Tycho. Revista de iniciación en la investigación del teatro clásico y grecolatino y su tradición)

GLORIFICACIÓN NACIONAL Y PROPAGANDA FRANQUISTA: ATLÁNTIDA EN EL FESTIVAL DE MÉRIDA (1966)
Vasileios Balaskas

(Trans.) The search for renewal of the Mérida Festival that began in the middle of the years
60 reflected sociocultural advances and the attempt to overcome production saturation
culture of the time. Despite this, the Franco dictatorship continued to maintain control
propaganda that exalted the discourse of Spanish glory that crossed time and
space. The national mechanisms of repression and propaganda made it possible to popularize this
narrative in cultural terms appropriating nuances of classical antiquity and
Spain of the Golden Age. In these circumstances, in 1966, the authorities decided to put into
scene in the Roman theater of Mérida Atlántida, scenic cantata by Manuel de Falla and Ernesto
Halff ter, based on the Catalan epic poem L’Atlàntida (1877) by Jacinto Verdaguer y Santaló.
The work includes mythological elements and historical events such as the battle between Heracles and the
giant Geryon, the Garden of the Hesperides, the Atlantes and the Titans, Isabel I of Castile, and the
colonization of the Americas. Atlántida represented a Hispanic pastiche that starred
two legendary figures, Heracles and Christopher Columbus. In this context, the staging of
Atlántida in Mérida reflected both the nationalized perception of culture and propaganda
ideology of the dictatorship.

[api.follow.it]

The source poem: "L'Atlàntida ... an 1877 poem in Catalan by Jacint Verdaguer. It consists of an introduction, ten books, and a conclusion, dealing with the wanderings of Heracles in the Iberian Peninsula, the sinking of the continent of Atlantis, the creation of the Mediterranean Sea, and the discovery of the Americas." [en.wikipedia.org]

(See also [es.wikisource.org].))

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2024 10:36AM by Hermione.