Calle del Maestro Vives
The street honours Amadeu Vives i Roig (Collbató, 1871 – Madrid, 1932), a Catalan composer whose zarzuela Doña Francisquita (1923) shaped Madrid’s lyric theatre. The city assigned it this name on 6 August 1949. The street is 108 metres long and runs between the calles of O’Donnell and Duque de Sesto, in the Goya neighbourhood of the Salamanca district.
For years this street was a mere stretch of the calle de la Fuente del Berro. What turned it into a street of its own was a hulk: the new Royal Mint, built in the Salamanca Ensanche, which split the route and left this segment isolated and in need of a name. The city settled the matter on 6 August 1949.
The maestro was Amadeu Vives i Roig, a musician who began as a boy singing in the choir of Barcelona’s Liceo and in 1891, alongside Lluís Millet, founded the Orfeó Català. The success of La balada de la luz in the Madrid of 1900 launched him into a life between the two cities until he put down roots in the capital. Here he premiered what is still sung today: Bohemios (1904), Maruxa (1914) and, above all, Doña Francisquita (1923).
He died in Madrid on 2 December 1932, but his body did not stay. He rested at Montjuïc for more than eighty years, and in 2014 his remains were moved to Collbató. Three cities for a single maestro, and a Madrid street that exists because the Royal Mint split another one in two.
Its names
- Calle de la Fuente del Berro (tramo)Anterior a la segunda mitad del 19th century