🔥 The Tapa Weekend: July 21
A royal collection, a K-Pop festival and more cool photo exhibits.
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | July 21, 2023 | Madrid | Issue #17
🎉 Welcome to a new issue of The Tapa: Weekend Edition! An English-language newsletter about what to do this weekend in Madrid (plus memes because why the hell not).
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Here are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
We know. You are utterly devastated because the Reggaeton Beach Festival, which was supposed to take place this weekend, has been canceled (though the organizers say it’s on). Which means that there is a god and they have great musical taste. Anyway, it’s been a hell of a week (literally), there’s a national election on Sunday and we deserve a break. So here are a few cool things to do this weekend.
1. New museum alert: the Royal Collections Gallery
This is the big one, people! The Galería de Colecciones Reales has just opened right next to the Royal Palace and if there’s one museum you can’t miss this summer season, it’s this one. With more than 650 pieces distributed in two large exhibition rooms, the foundational wall of Madrid from the 9th century, and a temporary exhibition of vehicles and carriages, the Royal Collections Gallery is expected to become one of the city’s top tourist destination.
Built within the Palace’s grounds, the new building overlooking the Campo del Moro gardens offers a journey through the history of the Spanish monarchy and the artistic taste of each of its crowns, from the early reigns of the Middle Ages to Juan Carlos I. The exhibit displays Spain’s historical and artistic richness through five centuries of royal collecting so trust us when we say that there’s a lot to see.
Galería de Colecciones Reales. Calle de Bailén, 8, Madrid. Opens daily. General admission: €14.
2. Dominic Dromgoole’s El Perro del Hortelano
You may go to see this because it’s directed by über famous English playwright and director Dominic Dromgoole, who sounds like a character from the Harry Potter universe but in fact was the artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London for 10 years. And that’s OK. Dromgoole has adapted the classic 1613 play by Lope de Vega, El Perro del Hortelano, and it’s playing in the Cervantes Room at the Corral Cervantes theater this weekend.
It’s a comedy in verse about Diana, the Countess of Belflor, who becomes infatuated with her secretary upon discovering that he is courting a maiden. Despite not being of noble birth, jealousy consumes the Countess to the point of trying to seduce Teodoro by any means possible. You know, the usual 1600s stuff. It’s funny! Go see it.
El Perro del Hortelano. Corral Cervantes. Paseo de la Chopera, 10. Madrid. Through July 23. Check website for start time. Tickets start at €16.
3. Photo Exhibit: ‘Somebodies: Cunningham, Iveković, Woodman’
We already covered the 26th edition of PHotoESPAÑA a few weeks ago, but this exhibit at the Cerralbo Museum is definitely worth mentioning. "Somebodies: Cunningham, Iveković, Woodman" presents the works of artists Imogen Cunningham, Sanja Iveković, and Francesca Woodman, who use “the materiality of the body as a thematic, aesthetic, and experimental resource in their artistic research.”
Their artworks encompass a range of visual and conceptual concepts that span different times and contexts, and vary from “purely formal approaches to the body to the embodiment of positions of social criticism and political denunciation.” As the exhibit’s website explains, “they all express an artist’s constant instinct to use the body and the versatility of its expressive capabilities as an aesthetic sign throughout art history”. Dig it.
Somebodies: Cunningham, Iveković, Woodman. Cerralbo Museum. Calle Ventura Rodríguez, 17, Madrid. Through Oct. 1. Free admission.
4. Celebrating 50 Years of Chinese-Spanish Friendship
Here’s a history lesson for you: Back in March of ‘73, Spain and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations and this year marks the 50th anniversary of such an important event. So to celebrate this milestone, and in collaboration with the Chinese Cultural Center in Madrid, the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra is visiting Madrid for the first time to offer an amazing musical experience.
Conducted by Jing Huan and with renowned Jian Wang as the solo cellist, over 100 musicians will perform a combination of Chinese and Spanish music, starting with "Metrópolis," an orchestral tour de force “filled with lyricism and rhythmic vitality”. It will be followed by "Reflet d'un temps disparu" concerto for cello and orchestra by Chen Qiqang and "Tres sombreros de copa" by Manuel de Falla. Definitely a thousand times better than attending a reggaeton festival.
50 Años de Música y Amistad. Centro Cultural Condeduque. Calle del Conde Duque, 11, Madrid. Sunday, July 23. 10 p.m. Tickets start at €8.
5. KPOP FESTIVAL: KPOP LUX
Are you into K-pop? If so, we’ve got the perfect plan for you because the world’s biggest K-pop festival is celebrating its first edition in Madrid this weekend. The show will feature performances by top Korean pop bands and artists such as Ateez, Ive and Enhypen, all names that probable don't mean anything to many of our readers but for the true fans out there this is like Christmas.
K-pop began to emerge in the 90s as a mix of pop, rap, hip-hop, rock, and electronic music, combined with lots of choreography and a very distinctive aesthetic. Thanks to bands like BTS and Blackpink, this genre has seen a resurgence in the last few years and has now accumulated millions of followers worldwide. So now it’s your chance to see some of these legendary bands. Or if you’ve never heard of them, you can catch up with what the kids are listening to these days.
KPOP LUX. Civitas Metropolitano Stadium. Avenida de Luis Aragonés, s/n, Madrid. July 22, 9 p.m. Tickets start at €50.
👨🏻💻 Viral Story of the Week
🎸 A Spanish town has a dream—of The Boss
A small town named Peralejos de las Truchas has a dream—a big dream. Back in 1981, a few kids from the village in Guadalajara, about three hours east of Madrid, bought some Bruce Springsteen albums in Madrid…and fell in love.
Some 30 years later, they made it to a Bruce show in Madrid, in 2012. But not just that.
They got to the front row, and carried a sign from their town greeting Bruce. And Bruce noticed it!
The next year they named Bruce an adopted son and in 2019, they managed to have their town named a sister city to Bruce’s hometown of Freehold, N.J.
Weird enough so far? Well it’s gonna get weirder. The town is putting on a Bruce Springsteen music festival in October, and their goal is to have The Boss play it. And, as weird as that seems, they’ve gotten the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Julissa Reynoso, on the case.
On Thursday, she put out a video asking Bruce to come. “Please, Boss,” she says. Now, Bruce and Obama are big buddies, so maybe there’s an outside chance that Bruce will do a favor for an Ambassador appointed by Obama’s ex-VP?
If he comes, we’ll be there. The Alto Tajo area around Peralejos de las Truchas is fantastically beautiful, the concert would be amazing, and the whole thing would put Berlanga’s Bienvenido, Mister Marshall to shame!
🔔 A Message From Our Sponsor
Secret Kingdoms is your English bookstore in Madrid. It specializes in Spanish history and literature, contemporary and classic novels, books for children and young adults of all ages, history and historical fiction, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, poetry, biographies and much more.
Located on Calle de Moratín 7 — a few blocks away from the Prado Museum — and with over 20,000 new and used books, Secret Kingdoms has something for everyone.
Find out more at www.thesecretkingdoms.com
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