Calle de Francisco Salas
It recalls Francisco Salas, the bass-baritone from Granada who drove the revival of the zarzuela in nineteenth-century Madrid.
Behind this name are a deep voice and a stubborn impresario. Francisco Salas was born in Granada in 1812, in the Albaicín, during the French siege, and lost his father that same year. A passing tenor heard him sing, took him under his wing and brought him to Madrid, where he joined the chorus of the Teatro de la Cruz before turning twenty.
A prestigious bass-baritone, Salas did more than sing. Convinced that Spain needed a lyric theatre of its own, he urged composers like Barbieri and Gaztambide to write zarzuelas and, in 1856, joined them to raise a theatre devoted to the genre on the calle de Jovellanos. When his partners withdrew he became sole owner, and that venture ended up devouring his fortune.
His song Los toros del puerto, of 1842, spread by word of mouth so forcefully that Franz Liszt drew on its melody in a piano piece. He died in Madrid in 1875, ruined by the very theatre he had helped found.