Manuel Penella

Manuel Penella Moreno learned his trade at home and on the road: first from his father, the composer Manuel Penella Raga, the first director of Valencia’s municipal music school for boys, and from Salvador Giner in Valencia, then across years of travelling with opera and zarzuela companies through Spain and the Americas. El gato montés, given in Valencia in 1916, made his name beyond Spain, and its pasodoble outgrew the opera altogether to become a standard of the bullring. Don Gil de Alcalá followed in Barcelona in 1932, and La malquerida was based on Jacinto Benavente. He worked in the early sound cinema as well. He died at Cuernavaca in Mexico in 1939, while supervising the music for a film adaptation of Don Gil de Alcalá. Don Gil de Alcala is a chamber piece, set in Mexico and scored for strings and two harps, and La malquerida dates from 1935. El gato montes has been revived repeatedly by Placido Domingo, who also recorded it for Deutsche Grammophon.