Calle de Pedro Unanue

Behind the sign is a voice that fell silent early. Pedro María de Unanue was born in Ondárroa, on the Biscay coast, in 1814, and died in Trieste in 1846 before turning thirty-two. In that short span he became the first Basque tenor to conquer the great stages of Europe. He began singing as a child in the choirs of his homeland and came to Madrid meaning to enter the conservatory, which at first turned him away. The setback did not stop his career. He ended up performing across half of Europe, as far as St. Petersburg, where he shared the bill with figures such as Rubini and the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. Illness cut his path short at the height of his art. Madrid dedicated this street to him decades after his death, in the Palos de la Frontera neighborhood, a stretch of Arganzuela built up around the turn of the 20th century.