The Esmorzar Estellés stages Estellés’s oratorio for Víctor Jara

The Col·lectiu Carcalí held a new edition of the Esmorzar Estellés on Sunday 25 October, this year dedicated to «Oratori per la mort de Víctor Jara», the stage and poetry text that the Valencian poet Vicent Andrés Estellés wrote in the 1970s. The piece was performed by members of the collective itself, who afterwards shared the traditional breakfast of coca salada.

Estellés wrote the oratorio under the impact of General Augusto Pinochet’s coup in Chile in September 1973 and of the murder of the Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara. The text is part of Oratori del nostre temps (Tres i Quatre, 1978), the volume in which the poet from Burjassot brought together three stage oratorios, dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, the painter Josep Ribera and Jara himself, together with the play «Joc d’infants. Tragèdia en un acte».

Víctor Jara, one of the leading voices of the Chilean New Song movement, was detained by the military and murdered on 16 September 1973, five days after the coup. His death marked a generation of artists and turned him into a symbol of resistance to repression.

The event combined the stage performance with a shared meal, as is usual in a gathering that the organisers place in the carrer Vicent Andrés Estellés, one of the streets in the municipality named after the poet. It closed with a traditional dance in the same street, which the video accompanying this report shows.

Sources: Col·lectiu Carcalí and the volume «Oratori del nostre temps» (Tres i Quatre, 1978).