La Festa or Misteri d'Elx

Elche skyline by Albarranch

On this page you will find full information concerning el Misteri d'Elx, the lyrical drama from the late Middle Ages. Declared as a National Monument in 1931.

The Page at a glance:
Contents Origins Scene Music Performances El Misteri and the arts	Contents The "Misteri d'Elx" is that, represented, celebrated, made and lived in the Basilica de Santa María of this valencian city the days 14 and 15 of August of each year.
	Origins The festivity of Asunción de María The primitive Christian church began to emphasize determined dates of the liturgical calendar devoting them to commemorate passages of the life of Christ. Many of these celebrations were made extensive to the martyrs and to the Saints. María started to occupy a preeminent place to the point that, in parallel to Christ, were developed several festivitys related to her life. One of these was commemorating the Birth of María to the Skies, that is to say, the entry in the Glory after her death, in spite the perplexity that this last would cause amongst the Christians (for those which the lack of sin presupposes the nonexistence of the death). Test of this is the series of names that adopted the festivity: Slept, Pause, Rest, Migration, Deposition, Birth to the Heaven, etc. It will be between the century VII and VIII that the name Assumpcio de la Maredeu (Asución of the Mother of God) is adopted, and it is fixed the celebration to the day 15 of August. Narration of la Asunción Very soon it was introduced the usage of complementing the liturgy of these festivitys (Eucharist), with allusive ceremonies to the life of the Saint. Emerge thus the tropi, or small dialogues that are intercalate in the middle of the oficios or the ceremonial processions, as the slept, that are the precedent of the medieval religious theatre. Nevertheless, as neither the gospels, nor other texts of the New Testament, neither the tradition were indicating the manner in which was produced the death and assumption of María, the preoccupation by knowing this and other problems gave cause for a series of texts, written to the style "historical" and purportedly work of the "apostolic tradition", that we know under the Evangelios Apócrifos. In this direction, all the researchers of La Festa accept as source direct of inspiration the Sanctorum Legend or Golden Legend, drafted for Voragine of Jacobo before 1270, and very early translated to the Catalan, that is a synthesis of the principal Evangelios Apócrifos with character asuncionista: Book of the Rest, Liber Dorimitione Sactae Deiparae o pseudo Juan Evangelista; Transitus Beata Mariae del s-Meliton de Sardes Transitus W, Histira Euthimicaca, Transitus Beata Mariae del s-José de Arimatea, etc. The cult asuncionista in the Corona de Aragón The Assumption was the great festivity mariana in the Visigode and Mozarabic liturgy between the centuries IX and XI, and throughout the reconquest was reaching identical range in the galeroman. From S. XII, as indicates Aureli Argemí, the cult to the assumption overflow the enclosure of the shrines to be converted into popular devotion, very especially in the territories of the Corona de Aragon. Contributed to this a series of facts: the construction of shrines under the dedication of the Counts of Barcelona, and very especially of the king Alfonso I; the multiplication of the liturgical books; the constant reference to the topic on the part of the most important personages of the era: Infante Don Juan Manuel, San Vicente Ferrer, Eiximenis, Sor Isabel deVillena, etc. Spanish Dramas Asuncionistas As the sole drama asuncionista, La Festa is a direct consequence of this environment that reigned not only in Aragon (whose examples more notorious are those of Santa María de Estany, el Drama Asuncionista de Badalona, the Celebrations of Mallorca, Misterio de la Catedral de Valencia, the representations of Evened, Tortosa and Castellón); but also in Castille (the Coronation of Maria, that are represented in Fernando of Antequera, the Assumption that for the Cathedral of Toledo wrote the Arcipreste of Talavera, el Auto of the Assumption of the Corpus of Toledo, the three autos asuncionistas of the Codice of autos viejos, all preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional). Origins With respect to the date of creation of the drama ilicitano exist two ideas. The most ancient and fabulous, figures its origin in the S. XIII, it was subscribed by first time by Cristobal Sanz, author of a history of the city, at the beginning of the S. XVII, who, after confessing that he had not been able to prove it, it considers ... the first inhabitants of the Infante Don Juan Manuel (year 1276) had cellebrated it. He also adds other of greater antiquity at the conquest of the city by the king Jaime I (1265) ... though some mean that because [we] have gained to the Moors this villa such day of the Assumption, the inhabitants started to make it... In 1717 José Antón, General Attorney of the Marquisate of Elche, collected this last line, but added a miraculous aspect: the arrival to a beach to the term of Elche of a mysterious ark in May of 1266, that was containing the image of the Virgin of the Assumption and the Consueta, or book that it contains the letter and in occasions the music of the representation. This line was maintained in part mercy of a possible mistake of the composer Oscar Esplá, who asserted had been shown in 1224 a letter of 1266 in which was authorized the representation and that was guarded in the Archivo Municipal of Elche (despite it has been never seen neither so even cited). The transcendency of labor carried out by Esplá and his importance as composer, rejuvenated in the environments less illustrated the theory of its origin in the S. XIII. Nevertheless, since the end of the century XIX, when the first historians arrived to Elche and studyed the representation, the date of its accomplishment starts to be located at the end of the S. XIV, and thereinafter in the XV. At present, the totality of scholars of La Festa, from its multiple points of view: literary, theatrical, musical, ligüistic, iconographic, etc. agreed to date it in second half of the S. XV, without mphasizing the precedents existence in the own city.
	Scene The Heaven The great linen located to the height of the ring of the dome fulfils the double function of representing the sky and to conceal the mechanisms that permit the ascent and decrease of the air appliances. Its antiquity is possibly soared one way or another to the same origin of the current representation, supposed that already in 1530, the document more ancient than in the present time is known on the representation already seems to indicate the air movements presence. The linen, furthermore separates the celestial actions from the earthly, and possesses a peep-hole designated door to the heaven that is opened and closed in three occasions to give place to the air appliances. The Grenade Receive this name the appliance intended to transport the Angel with the palm toMaría to indicate her the transit. In its current structure, the device will correspond to the second half of the S.XVI, and by its form as well as by the same name recalls mechanisms of the era, used so much in Spain: boxes, worlds, balls... Until a little while ago was thought that the grenade term was of a great modernity, product of having altered the traditional color (blue) for the current (red), being considered the cloud term as more ancient and correct. Modern investigations have centered the hypothesis of the appearance of the name in the S.XVI, possibly because of the transformation of an steamier appliance, and built possibly with cotton, paper, fabrics in its external features; in favour the current most compact and strong. The Araceli The Araceli enters scene in two occasions, an in each session. In the first decrease the angels to carry the soul of María to the heaven, and to order to the apostles that organize a procession and bury her body. In the second, in the great final scene, in the one which the angel with the soul is substituted by the image of Maria, she is crowned to half of her ascension to the Heaven by the Santísima Trinidad. The araceli is not an appliance exclusively ilicitano it recalls plastic compositions of the end of the S. XV and above all beginning of the XVI. The Corridor Receive this name the great corridor that, traveling in all its extension the building, puts on communication the cadafal with the principal door of the shrine. Its importance is large so much from the scene as symbolic point of view. Respect to the first, it is the only physical element that permits that all the church is converted into a dramatic action framework; an second the walkway is the road that permit communicate what is earthly with what is divine, it is the symbolic representation of the spiritual road that accomplish all the personages. Maria also accomplishes its pilgrination for the Passion of Jesus, it means, that she carries out the ideal of the christianity, to experience the Passion of Jesus. The Cadafal With this name is designated the platform on the one which takes place a great part of the representation. It is located in the central section of the cruise, though being introduced in part in the choir in order to make coincide the spulcher with the shaft of the Door of the Heaven It is totally coverd of wood to conceal to the public the hollow that it remains below, where they change statues by actors, etc. The term cadafal appears already in the first news on representations in the interior of the shrines with an invariable meaning: dais or platform where it takes place the dramatic action. In Elche, the cadafal is in words of Quirante Santacruz "the area of María. Contain the places that they are hers exclusively, her house and her sepulcher. In him, the Virgin experiences all the process of sacralization and glorification that contains the work, it is theonly one point where celestial personages and lands live together".
	Music El Consueta The term "consueta", mix of the words Consuetudine and Ordinatio allude to the manuscripts of the liturgical ceremonies. Those manuscripts used to contain precious annotations on scenic movement, music tones, and scene tricks. Pieces You can listen to parts of "El Misteri" by clicking on the following links: Ternari Coronació Cant de Maria Magrana
	Performances Normal The 14 is the "La Vespra", this first session represents the death of María, surrounded by the apostles. The day 15 "La Festa", the argument of which is the burial, assumption and coronation of the Virgin. The same day, at 10 o'clock, the "Misteri" takes the street: the procession of the "soterrar" (to bury) of María, with songs of "La Festa" and participation of the actors. Before, there has been a whole series of actions that approximate us to these days of August and to the world of "La Festa". The 6^th of August, in the Room of the Council, takes place "la prova de veus", in order to select those which will sing "El Misteri", fact by the council to prove the municipal adscription and not ecclesiastic of "La Festa" ilicitana. The 10^th of august , at six o'clock of the afternoon, in the basilica, is accomplished "la prova de l'àngel", by means of which are chosen the resistant infants to the dizziness and, therefore, able to descend from the dome, in the interior of the air appliances. Extraordinary The days 11^th, 12^th and 13^rd take place the so called "Ensayos generales", that are extraordinary representations. and, thus, each year, from centuries..
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