Calle de Ramos Carrión

Behind this street in Prosperidad stands Miguel Ramos Carrión, one of the great librettists of the Spanish stage in the last third of the 19th century. He wrote nearly seventy works over half a century, mostly comedies and zarzuelas, and some travelled across Europe translated into French, German, English and even Esperanto. His name is tied to melodies still hummed today. He wrote the libretto for La tempestad and La bruja, with music by Chapí, and for Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente, a Madrid sketch that captures the street fair, the earthenware jug and the city’s heat. With Vital Aza he formed a much-praised comic duo; together they adapted Jules Verne in Los sobrinos del Capitán Grant, a lavish production that filled theatres for years. In Madrid, where he premiered nearly everything and where he died, he was given a short, quiet stretch of Prosperidad, far from the bustle of the stages he filled with song and laughter.