Frederic Soler, "Pitarra"

Theatre activity in the mid-nineteenth century

The figure of Frederic Soler i Hubert, born in Barcelona on 9 October 1839, cannot be seen separately from a whole generation in the theatre that was born, to put it in literary terms, in the early 1860s and subsequently eclipsed by the fame and prominence achieved by the man who for a hundred years was regarded as the "founder of Catalan theatre". In order to explain how this generation appeared and the reasons why its members adopted Catalan as its language for the stage, one must offer some details as to the way in which a stage production functioned in the mid-nineteenth century.

The theatre performances announced in the entertainment sections of nineteenth-century dailies were not confined to a performance of a work of three, four or even five acts, always in Spanish – even when the subject or author were Catalan – but they also included an opening symphony, a dance or one or two short pieces – sainets (one-act farces) – that padded out the main attraction, which was the play itself, originally written in Spanish or adapted. It is in these brief, secondary, almost always anonymous sketches which, before the 1860s, were also mostly in Spanish, that one first finds a more prominent use of Catalan, thanks to the success of such pieces by Frederic Soler and other members of his generation.

As for the main play, it was not only Spanish in its language but also in authorship. The Hispano-Moroccan War, however, decisively changed this situation. The prevailing patriotic mood inspired some Catalan playwrights to write works, still in Spanish, but dealing with Catalan matters alluding to the events of the times. La rendición de Tetuán (The Surrender of Tetuan), a drama in five acts by Ramon Mora, and El presidiario de Ceuta (The Convict of Ceuta), a comedy by Antoni Altadill are good examples of this patriotic furore. Works in Catalan alluding to the same theme, for example the four one-act plays by Antoni Ferrer i Fernández, which were performed in the Liceu under the general title of Catalanes en África (Catalans in Africa), and the bilingual comedy A Tànger, catalans! (To Tangier, Catalans!), also by Ramon Mora, were still one-act topical pieces, which is to say sainets, which had a totally subsidiary part in the show as a whole. In the heat of the same patriotic frenzy, Antoni Altadill began to write in 1860 Don Jaime el Conquistador (Don Jaime the Conqueror), which was later to be the target of a satire by Soler. Other authors who would afterwards write exclusively in Catalan, tried their luck in Spanish, in other genres: in 1863 J. M. Arnau wrote the very successful comedy based on magic (El castillo de los encantados – The Castle of the Bewitched), while Francesc de Sales Vidal, whose bilingual comedy Una noia com un sol (A Girl Like the Sun) premiered in the Teatro Circo in 1861, had received good reviews, strove to stage in Barcelona more ambitious dramas in Spanish, these including La marquesa de Javalquinto (The Marchioness of Javalquinto) and Tempestades del alma (Storms of the Soul). Nonetheless, he did not succeed in this endeavour until 1866 when he had already made his name as a Catalan playwright. It could not have been otherwise. The language of culture of all these playwrights, and of prestigious theatre as well, was Spanish. One revealing detail is that they signed the production in Spanish with their own names while, with only a few exceptions, plays in Catalan or bilingual works were anonymous or signed with a pseudonym because they regarded these works as a mere finishing touch or light entertainment.

Frederic Soler, "Pitarra"

More versatile than the other members of his generation, Frederic Soler, self-educated of necessity since he had left school before the age of fourteen to work as a watchmaker's apprentice, combined his profession as a watchmaker with writing light-hearted pieces for workshops and flats, venues for gatherings of students wanting some fun, and home-performed plays – a common type of entertainment in private houses of the nineteenth century – which were staged in the home of his future father-in-law Don Bernat de las Casas. If he wrote completely irreverent parodies for the students' amusement (for example Don Jaume el Conquistador (Don Jaume the Conqueror), a scathing lampoon of Altadill's previously-mentioned work, or L'engendrament de don Jaume (The Begetting of Don Jaume), a spoof on a fragment of Catalan history, which Soler sets in a nineteenth-century brothel, portrayed in an acute, merciless comedy of manners), for the residence of Don Bernat de las Casas he produced such satires as La botifarra de la llibertat (The Sausage of Freedom), Les píndoles d'Holloway (Holloway's Pills) and La pau d'Espanya (The Peace of Spain, 1860) where he mocked, with a scepticism that was not remotely combative, the patriotic ardour shown in the works of Ferrer i Fernández, and poked fun at all the dramatic literature that came in the wake of the Hispano-Moroccan War. By no means alien to the way of thinking of the members of his generation, however, Frederic Soler was well enough satisfied on seeing how well his light entertainment worked in those gatherings of family members or friends to be encouraged to write more ambitious works. His linguistic choice was once again Spanish, but more diffident, or less sure of success than Arnau or Vidal, he signed his works with the pseudonym "Miguel Fernández de Soto". Continue reading...