The Italian opera was introduced into Spain by Charles III. The country has not produced any very eminent operatic composers, though opera is a popular entertainment. In the drama Spain excelled at one period above all other countries. The plays of the nation were exceedingly numerous in the palmy days, ranging from sacred representations, or miracle dramas, to farce. Many of the subjects were historical; but with the decline of taste, the drama lost its Greek simplicity, and became the vehicle of complicated intrigues and artificial plots. Cervantes, as dramatist, endeavoured to check this corruption of taste, but the pressure of poverty forced him to follow the conventions of the hour, and to write on a level with the intelligence of his audiences.
Lope de Vega wrote about eighteen hundred plays. Much of his work is hasty, extravagant and bombastic. Calderon wrote with more directness and simplicity of style, and spent far more pains upon his compositions. Augustin Moreto produced thirty-six plays, which rank high from the literary point of view. De Castro, de Roscas, and de Solis are three of the more esteemed comedy authors of a later period, whose pieces were played in Madrid.
Galdos, who is the author of several novels and plays, resides in Madrid, in the Paseo de Areneros. Doña Emilia Pardo de Bazan, the most powerful of the women writers of Spain, says: “The life of the playwright in Madrid is more active, agitated, and arduous than other branches of the literary career, which languish and sleep for want of stimulus.” Most of the dramatists of the nation live in Madrid, or spend part of the year there. Among them are José Echegaray, now the leading playwright, Guimerá, Eugenio Sellés, Dicenta, Vital Aza, Abati Ricardo de la Vega, Garcia, and Paso.
Poets living in Madrid are Emilio Ferrari, Grilo, Manuel del Palacio, the Marquis de Cerralbo, the Duke de Rivas, Eduardo Benot, and Melchor de Palau. There are also several writers of humorous verse, such as López Silva, Pérez de Zúñiga, and Luis de Tapia.
The great novelist, Armando Palacio Valdés--who, in his novel, “Froth,” gives a true picture of Madrid manners--lives in the city occasionally. Here, too, reside Father Luis Coloma, Blasco Ibañez, Baroja, José Ortega Munilla, Antonio de Hoyos, and several other writers of fiction. Doña Emilia Pardo de Bazan lives in Madrid.