Del teatro a la ópera: María Lejárraga y José María Usandizaga

Abstract

This work focuses on the relationships established between literature and music within a
singular work: Saltimbanquis, a modernist play written by María Lejárraga in 1905. Only three
years later, Santiago Rusiñol wrote an adaptation of it in Catalan entitled Aucells de pas. This is the
literary material that was gathered by the musician José María Usandizaga to create the operetta
Las golondrinas, which subsequently turn into opera. María Lejárraga worked both with Rusiñol as
with Usandizaga on their respective versions. This article proposes an approach to these works
according to the relations of intertextuality, between literature and music, that occur between them.