At the beginning of the 20th century, Europe is living in peace and prosperity. The “Belle Époque” is an outgrowth of previous important historical events and developments. The networks that are created and which evolve funnel both people and their products, tangible and intangible. It is within this multi-layered world that sound recording and sound reproduction is invented. Early record labels send mobile crews literally all over the world to record local musicians. The range of the repertoire is endless. Cosmopolitanism in large urban centers favors polystylisms and polymorphisms. Colonialism, revolutions, conflicts, refugee flows; the theater, cinema, radio, photography, orchestras’ tours, but also circulations in all kinds of commercial channels in a world that evolves dynamically and anisotropically, form a complex network of “centers” and “peripheries” in alternating roles setting musical idioms in motion, both literally and figuratively. The networks in which the Greek-speaking musics participate, constantly conversing with their co-tenants, are magnificent. Discography has already provided important tools in understanding the relationships that developed between “national” repertoires. The result of this ongoing research is “Cosmopolitanism in Greek Historical Discography”.

One of these fascinating networks concerns the Spanish world, which, through a variety of paths, meets the Greek one. A key chapter in this influence was the unparalleled international success achieved by a Spanish estudiantina in 1878 in Paris. On February 28, 1886, the Spanish estudiantina gave a concert in Constantinople (Istanbul) and on April 26 and 29, 1886, in Athens (for the first Greek estudiantina, see Ordoulidis, 2021a: 88–100 and Ordoulidis, 2021b). The Spanish students mainstream the culture of semi-professional music bands, the culture of the banduria, the mandolin, the guitar, the “tuna”, that is, the street serenades, and the habanera. The latter follows a path that starts from the Afro-Cuban repertoires and ends up being appropriated by Greek musicians, finding its place even in the form of the manes (see, for example, the Smyrneiko minore (Smyrnaean minor), Gramophone 12574b). The network of the theater is a key environment for the circulation of music; and the relationship between the two (music-theater) is more than dynamic. In 1894, when the play of the then most popular zarzuela “La Gran Vía” was played for the first time, a new path that led to the appearance of the Athenian revue opened. Spanish songs started being adapted into Greek since then.

The cinema (as well as the theater too) traffics music on its own terms and plays a key role in diffusing it to places that are often far away. It also builds a special network that communicates with discography. The wide appeal of exoticism in the various musical theater genres and its gradual establishment as a prominent feature of mainstream pop culture are directly transferred to the flourishing film industry, which also borrows aesthetic standards from the theater. The cinema incorporated very early and very effectively the mechanisms of exoticism, and acted as a multiplier of the diffusion of the musicians who served it: popular plays were adapted into film scripts, and the newfangled cinema network further accelerated the spread of exoticism.

In Greece, since the 1930s, the import of films from Europe and the USA has brought the public into contact with a multitude of films of exotic content. A case point is the one of the film adaptation of the iconic Gypsy Carmen, who first appears in Prosper Mérimée's novel of the same name (first published in 1947, see here) and which gained widespread popularity with the famous opera "Carmen" set to music by Georges Bizet and libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, which was first presented by Opéra-Comique on March 3, 1875 in Paris (see premiere poster here). The legend of Carmen would travel a long way: from 1915 until today, it has been adapted to the big and to the small screen more than twenty times.

Carmen is the most recognizable character in Spanish exoticism and embodies all the characteristics of the exotic Gypsies of Spain who are represented as pre-modern and semi-exotic people motivated by honor, and an archaic way of life. Their life is characterized by an unconventional freedom dominated by passion and nostalgia. They constitute a primitive otherness that remains assimilated by space and time. They exist on the fringes of civilization or on the fringes of society, outside of common experience and refusing to conform to established social norms. They are depicted within but not as part of the West, within the modernity but not as modern.

Imaginary Spain is borderline medieval, a cultural amalgam of Gypsies, Christians, Moors and Jews. It constitutes the absolute exotic place where one meets almost all the characteristics of the East, the Latin world and the Gypsies. It is represented as a permanent spring and blooming landscape, often nocturnal, in which cities that are symbols of "Spanishness", such as Granada and Seville, are usually placed. As a matter of fact, Triana, Carmen's place of origin, is a neighborhood in Seville. The popularity of Gioacchino Rossini's opera "The Barber of Seville", although it takes place in a completely different context, probably played a role in its extensive use in exotic performances.

One of the most popular film productions in the interwar years, which was among the first centered on Carmen, was the Spanish-German production “Carmen la de Triana” (Carmen of Triana). It was screened in Greek cinemas in 1939, and was a Spanish-language version of the German film “Andalusische Nächte” (1938). Argentine-born singer and actress María Magdalena Nile del Río, known internationally under the pseudonym Imperio Argentina, starred in both films.

The success of the film in Greece was enormous and its impact was felt on the stage as well as in discography. In Thessaloniki, the revue "Carmen" was staged at the Mikados theater, produced by Giannis Velidis and based on the songs of the film with a Greek rendition of the lyrics (Zoumpouli & Koriatopoulou-Angeli, 2018: 14).

In addition to the film, the songs included in it are also very popular, characteristically outlining the dialectical, multi-layered relationship between various repertoires, cinema and aesthetic trends and currents. “Antonio Vargas Heredia”, “Los piconeros” and “Triana Triana” will be adapted (see here, here and here respectively).

The mention in Polymeris' autobiography is characteristic: "A singer of colossal talent contributed to the Spanish musical mania of the time, and not only that, since she was just as good as an actress too. It was Imperio Argentina, who played in a Spanish film, "Carmen", without Bizet's music, but to music written by a talented Spanish composer in the Gypsy style" (2003, p. 42).

Spyros Peristeris and Minos Matsas would boldly comment on this "gypsy mania" in the song "O Antonis o varkaris" (Antony the boatman), even using melodic phrases from the song "Antonio Vargas Heredia". "O Antonis o varkaris" was recorded twice, once with Markos Vamvakaris [Odeon GO3312 – GA7213, 275089 (repress) and Decca GO3312 – 31132 (repress in the US), Athens, June 1939] and a second time with Stellakis Perpiniadis (Columbia CG1942 – DG6480, Athens, 9-12/1939).

The beneficiaries of the song "Antonio Vargas Heredia" accused Peristeris and Matsas of stealing intellectual property from the beneficiaries of the original song. The trial was held in Athens probably in September 1939. However, the defendants are acquitted of the charges, even continuing to comment on the event.

Peristeris’ song "I Karmen stin Athina" (Odeon GO3364 – GA7230, Athens, 1939) pointedly and ironically describes the judicial attack against Antonis the boatman:

Carmen came to Athens, Imperio Argentina
to take the inheritance of Antonis the boatman

Then, Panagiotis Tountas would complete the narrative with the song "Tilegrafima stin Karmen" (Telegram to Carmen) (Columbia CG1958 – DG6493, Athens, 1/10/1939). In this song, exoticism passes through the filter of the folk-popular creator’s commentary, as the narrator goes to exotic Seville and makes Carmen forget “even Heredia”.

For more on the subject, see Zoumpouli & Koriatopoulou-Angeli, 2018 and Kounadis, 2007: 85-88.

Research and text: George Evangelou, Leonardos Kounadis and Nikos Ordoulidis