Calle de Julián Gayarre

This street was born without a surname. In the register it was simply calle A from 1 January 1880, one of many letters ordering the new development south of the Retiro. Its present name did not arrive until 1 January 1898. It begins at the Avenida de la Ciudad de Barcelona, brushes past the Royal Tapestry Factory and ends in a slightly crooked cul-de-sac, split between the neighbourhoods of Los Jerónimos and El Pacífico. The man who lends it his name came from the Roncal valley, the son of Navarrese shepherds. He began singing almost by chance in the Pamplona choral society, where Hilarión Eslava heard him and called him “a true diamond”. It was no mere courtesy: Gayarre became one of the most celebrated operatic voices of the 19th century and crossed borders singing at La Scala and the Teatro Real. He kept returning to that Madrid stage until the night of 8 December 1889, when his voice failed him in the middle of The Pearl Fishers. Twenty-five days later he died, just short of his forty-sixth birthday.