The Costa Rican zarzuela

Abstract

The zarzuela is a Spanish musical genre that had its origin in the XVI century. It is included in the performing arts and is basically divided into large zarzuela and small gender. The time of its rise and splendor was in the nineteenth century.

In Costa Rica it is known from 1850. Later they were recreated by some national musical composers since since its inception they had great acceptance for being stage-musical works expressed in Spanish.

Without strictly following a musicological or musical technical criterion, this work is more a collection of scattered data about national composers who dabbled in the field of zarzuela or modest scenic-musical works grouped as zarzuelas or as a small genre, so celebrated and liked in Spain. With the above it was wanted to demonstrate that in Costa Rica this musical genre had its exponents and that with very good tino they gave the Costa Ricans the best of their effort.