Fiestas
Carnival in Spain
By m.p.
Jan 31, 2008 - 11:53 PM

Carnival, that explosion of colour, music and celebration which takes place just before Lent, is believed to owe its origins to the pagan festivals which were held by the Romans to celebrate the end of the harsh winter and welcome in the Spring. There are a number of theories as to the origins of the name itself: from the ‘carrus navalis,’ a wheeled boat which was used to carry the high priest of the god of wine, Bacchus, or from the Latin ‘carne vale,’ farewell to meat.

The celebrations were later incorporated into the calendar of the Catholic Church as a festivity before the austerity of Lent, and now generally take place in the week before Ash Wednesday. One part of Spain which does not adhere to the Catholic calendar is Silió, in Cantabria, where they hold La Vijanera on the first Sunday of every year.
The Carnaval celebration in Spain was prohibited during the forty years of the Franco era and was not restored until after the General’s death in 1975. It only continued in Cádiz as a local festival, and in Santa Cruz de Tenerife as a Winter Festival.

Now, those two cities hold the most extravagant of Spain’s carnavales, both of which have status as a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest. The Cádiz carnival is believed to be the oldest in Spain, at least as far as the Christian celebration is concerned, closely influenced by the port’s trading links with Venice. The first documented evidence, however, was not until the end of the 16th century, when a reference by the historian, Agustín de Orozco, indicated that it was already a well-established festival.
It’s said to be the third largest in the world after Rio de Janeiro and Trinidad, and carries on for nine days of non-stop partying.

But that’s just the official carnaval celebration: preparations can begin up to a year ahead of the event, as locals work on their elaborate costumes, and the choirs and singing group rehearse to perfection.
Music is at the centre of the Cádiz Carnaval, and the heats for the choral contests - with more than a hundred entrants - take place in the Gran Teatro Falla before the official start, with four main groupings or agrupaciones: the coros, or choirs, which can have as much as 45 people, backed by an orchestra of lutes, guitars, and a type of mandolin; the comparsas are the most serious, around 14 members singing compositions satirical lyrics, usually backed by drum and guitar. They specialise in pasadoble; the quarteto, strangely enough, can be made up of anything from three to five members. Their performance centres on parody, accompanied by pairs of sticks beaten together; the most popular are the comic performances from the chirigotas, groups of 12 people accompanied by drum and guitar, performing satire on any number of topics whose main aim is to make the audience laugh. Only four groups of each type are included in the grand finale.
The first heats for the final are heralded with what have become traditional gastronomic fairs, ‘La erizada,’ ‘La Pestiñada,’ and ‘La Ostionada,’ where the carnival clubs prepare sweet pastries, sea urchins and oysters for the locals and tourists who come along to witness the open-air performances by the agrupaciones in their final rehearsals for the competition in the Gran Teatro Falla.

One of the biggest and most spectacular carnival celebrations in the world is held on the island of Tenerife, in the island’s capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Many say it is the best in the world after Rio de Janeiro. It’s marked by glamour, style, imagination and, without a doubt, extravagance, but most of all, perhaps ….. anything goes!
The first historical reference was in 1778, when Lope Antonio de la Guerra y Peña mentioned a carnival dance in his diary. It’s grown over the years, despite some restrictions during its history, and is now attended by tens of thousands. The Santa Cruz carnaval made the Guinness Book of Records in 1987 for the highest number of people attending a dance: 250,000 people danced to the legendary Celia Cruz.at the carnival ball that year.
The pre-carnival events are packed full of competitions to choose the winners for the best costumes, dancers, musicians and singing groups, with the big event on the night before the Grand Parade, the Gala to elect the year’s Carnival Queen. Each year has a separate theme, where the candidates for the title are bedecked in fantastically elaborate costumes – or perhaps constructions is a better word - which can weigh as much as 200 kilos. The 2007 event was marred by controversy, first, when the carnival was temporarily suspended when locals complained about the noise, and then at the Carnival Queen Gala, where the spectacle arranged by the choreographer and flamenco dancer, Rafael Amargo, was met with boos and whistling from the crowd.
One of the most popular events following the Grand Parade is the Entierro de la Sardina, the Burial of the Sardine on Ash Wednesday, which signals the end of carnaval all over Spain. A gigantic effigy of a sardine is paraded through the streets, accompanied by a funeral procession of mourners dressed up as priests or nuns, and the theatrical and extravagant mock grief of the wailing widows in black, many of them men dressed up in drag.