Calle de Francisca Moreno

This short stretch links the calle de Alcalá with the calle de Goya, within the Ensanche that the Marquis of Salamanca began to build from 1860. When the council first named it, in 1885, it had no name of its own: it appeared as “calle Particular”, the label for private streets still unnamed. In 1887 the council decided to dedicate it to Francisca Moreno. She came from a family that had made music its trade: her father played the violin for the chamber of the Infante Gabriel de Borbón, and her sister Benita debuted at La Fenice in Venice. The two sisters sang together in Barcelona and Madrid, billed as “leading sopranos”. The moment that tied Francisca’s name to this street forever was a performance on 29 September 1816. That night the two sisters sang Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri in Spanish before the court gathered to celebrate the arrival of Isabel de Braganza in Madrid. The date has its own merit: it was one of the first times that opera was staged in Spain.