Calle de Máiquez
Isidoro Máiquez (Cartagena, 1768 – Granada, 1820) was the most celebrated actor of the Spanish neoclassical stage. Granted a stipend by Godoy, he trained in Paris with Talma and introduced stage naturalism to Spain. His liberal politics cost him exile under Ferdinand VII.
The name recalls Isidoro Máiquez, the actor who changed how people performed on the Spanish stage. Born in Cartagena in 1768, the son of touring players, in 1799 he set off for Paris on a stipend from Godoy’s government to study under the great tragedian François-Joseph Talma. He returned in 1802 with a more natural delivery, far from the emphatic style that ruled the boards.
That same year he won over audiences playing Othello, the first time Shakespeare arrived with real weight on a Spanish stage. Goya painted him in 1807 in an oil now held by the Prado.
Politics cost him dearly. He took part in the uprising of 2 May 1808, and with the return of Ferdinand VII came exile, first to Ciudad Real and then to Granada, where he died in 1820. The Calle de Máiquez appears as a modern opening in the late 19th century, with no earlier name on record, and runs through the neighbourhoods of Ibiza and Goya between the districts of Retiro and Salamanca.
Its names
- Sin nombre anterior documentadoapertura moderna (segunda mitad 19th century)
Sources (5)
- Calle de Máiquez — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Isidoro Máiquez — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Calle de las Huertas — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Isidoro Maiquez y el teatro de su tiempo — Cotarelo y Mori (1902), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
- The Actor Isidoro Máiquez — Museo Nacional del Prado