Calle de Felipe Pérez y González

Felipe Pérez y González (Seville, 1854 - Madrid, 1910) wrote the libretto for La Gran Vía, the musical revue that premiered in 1886 with a score by Federico Chueca and Joaquín Valverde. Audiences demanded encore after encore, and the show sometimes stretched to four hours. He started in journalism at fourteen and never put down the pen. He wrote comic verse, collected folklore, and signed humorous pieces under the pen name Tello Téllez. In 1884 he moved to Madrid, joined the staff of El Liberal, and founded an illustrated weekly bearing the same title as his great hit. He was a lawyer, and when he was prosecuted over one of his articles he defended himself in court. The zarzuela that made him famous celebrated the future opening of an avenue that would split Madrid in two. His street, by contrast, ended up in the north, in the residential neighborhood of El Viso.