{"id":5280,"date":"2006-10-14T23:14:35","date_gmt":"2006-10-14T23:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/the-elche-mystery-play.html"},"modified":"2006-10-14T23:14:35","modified_gmt":"2006-10-14T23:14:35","slug":"the-elche-mystery-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/the-elche-mystery-play.html","title":{"rendered":"The Elche Mystery Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a must-listen – well, perhaps for some of you. Today’s Early Music Show on BBC3 featured a program recorded in August on location during the Elche Mystery Play in Spain.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Host Catherine Bott and expert David Ward give background, context, descriptive narration of the goings on with, of course, loads of marvelous music – evocative and organic. <\/p>\n

What it is:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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The play is performed in the Basilica of Santa Mar\u00eda every 14th and 15th August with full dress-rehearsal performances taking place earlier on the 11th,12th and 13th. It narrates the Dormition, Assumption and Coronation in Heaven of the Virgin Mary. The play has survived due to the determination of the citizens of Elche past and present. After the performing of plays in churches was banned by the Council of Trent, Elche obtained a Bull from Pope Urban VIII<\/span> to keep the play alive. <\/p>\n

Such has been the determination of the citizens of Elche that the Play is now the last surviving example of this type of drama. The Mystery Play\u2019s music, including monody and polyphony, uses Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque melodies. It is performed by a non-professional adult choir and a children\u2019s choir whose innocent voices represent the Virgin and the angels. <\/p>\n

However, the really distinguishing factor of the Elche Mystery Play is its complex medievally-inspired production, dividing the scenic space into horizontal, worldly space and vertical, aerial space and using aerial equipment that converts the whole into a spectacular experience. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A Guardian article from 2004<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

The drama unfolds on both horizontal and vertical axes, with scenes played on the andador, a ramp running the length of the central aisle from the west door to the high altar; on the cadafal (the main square stage) at the transepts’ crossing; and, most spectacularly, on the airy space below the basilica’s dome. <\/p>\n

Some have seen the play as a precursor of opera, for the text is entirely sung, its music a mix of 13th century chant (with strange Moorish tweaks) and intense polyphony and choruses from the renaissance and way beyond. <\/p>\n

Early in part one (la vespra), Mary kneels on her tomb and in an unbroken, open-throated voice that would never win her a place at the nine lessons and carols sings a melismatic lament for her crucified son. The impact of a boy of perhaps 11 or 12 impersonating, with no girly obviousness, the grieving mother of God is extraordinary, especially when she tells John, the beloved apostle, of her imminent death and he describes his grief with almost operatic intensity. A little later, James meets two other apostles and they sing, in the play’s first polyphony, of the mysterious way in which Christ’s followers have been reunited. It is a heart-stopping moment.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(The program is available for online listening for about a week after the original broadcast, which was today.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a must-listen – well, perhaps for some of you. Today’s Early Music Show on BBC3 featured a program recorded in August on location during the Elche Mystery Play in Spain. Host Catherine Bott and expert David Ward give background, context, descriptive narration of the goings on with, of course, loads of marvelous music –…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Elche Mystery Play - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/the-elche-mystery-play.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Elche Mystery Play - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a must-listen – well, perhaps for some of you. Today’s Early Music Show on BBC3 featured a program recorded in August on location during the Elche Mystery Play in Spain. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}