A Patchwork Temporada pointing to new values (2021 Season Review Pt1)
Patchwork photo from www.babykaysappliques.com
As the time for Europe’s 2021 temporada to get underway approached, it was clear we would have another bullfight season affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The hopes were that this temporada wouldn’t be as threadbare as 2020’s. Indeed, with the EU’s vaccination programme getting underway in the Spring, there was a possibility that the calendar might be back to normal by late summer or the autumn.
It didn’t work out quite like that. A combination of factors - existing contract conditions, regional public health requirements, taurine ferias’ traditional link with crowded fiestas, and local politics - meant that we ended up with a patchwork temporada from beginning to end. A back-to-front one too, with Spain’s most important plazas holding their main ferias at the season’s end rather than in its early stages.
Pre-vaccinations, there was no possibility that traditional ferias could take place, and so we lost Valdemorillo, Olivenza and Las Fallas, while Castellón was put back to a later date. The empresarios campaigned for a 50% capacity limit to be permitted in plazas, but Andalucía’s refusal to allow this meant that Sevilla’s April feria was cancelled at short notice, Ramón Valencia opting to transfer the carteles to the city’s September Feria de San Miguel, by which time, hopefully, circumstances would have improved. Things were no better in France, where the Arles Easter feria was put back to June.
Individual corridas began to get underway at the end of March, but Nîmes’s Pentecost feria was postponed, Vic-Fezensac put back to July and there was no indication as to when Madrid’s Las Ventas would open its doors again. The remaining corridas left over from 2020’s Gira de Reconstrucción were held and plans laid for a further series in 2021. In the meantime, la Fundación del Toro de Lidia (FTL) announced that part of the Gira proceeds would be put towards a National League of Novilladas, consisting of various local ‘circuits’ and a focus on venues that had ceased to hold festejos in recent years.
At the end of April, la Comunidad de Madrid announced that it would be putting on a festival in Las Ventas on May 2 with a maximum permitted capacity of 40%. The event was a sell-out, the triunfadores being El Juli and the rejoneador Diego Ventura, each of them winning two ears. Shortly afterwards, Leganés hosted the first proper feria of the year, its Feria de Primavera consisting of a novillada and two corridas held over a weekend. But only the closing cartel - Enrique Ponce, Emilio de Justo and Juan Ortega with bulls of Núñez del Cuvillo - drew decent attendance figures.
With still no news as to when corridas in Las Ventas would get underway, la Casa Matilla announced an 11-event Feria de San Isidro in Madrid’s covered plaza of Vistalegre. Unlike the San Isidro feria as we’ve come to know it, this series was based largely on the top figuras and ‘commercial’ ganaderías. Although there were some highlights down on the sand, economically the feria was a disaster, only achieving anything like full houses (still, remember, limited to less than half of the bullring’s total capacity) on the two afternoons that Andrés Roca Rey appeared. Very late in the day, Matilla agreed that Canal Toros could televise the whole feria, but it was still a loss-maker. The reasons for the poor attendance - fears about being in a crowded indoor venue while the pandemic still raged? the high seat prices compared to those of Las Ventas? the unattractiveness of Palacio Vistalegre as a venue? over-familiarity with the combinations of toreros and toros? the ability to watch it at home on TV? - were not known, but it raised a major concern as to whether the public would return in numbers to bullfights after 15 months of very few festejos.
In fact, these fears were not realised. As other ferias (many of them shortened) occurred - Córdoba, Arles, Nîmes, Valladolid, Granada, Istres, Castellón, Alicante - it became clear that there was still a strong appetite amongst the public for los toros. Permitted capacities increased as the temporada grew in festejo numbers, and the public generally responded well.
We still had a patchwork season, though. Las Ventas reopened towards the end of June, but only for two corridas, and then closed again until the end of September. Of the other first-class plazas in Spain, Valencia remained shut; Pamplona’s San Fermín was cancelled; and San Sebastián, Bilbao and Zaragoza failed to hold any events, although Córdoba, Málaga and Sevilla did see action. The circumstances mentioned earlier meant there were some strange decisions - Colmenar Viejo held its feria, for instance, while nearby San Sebastián de los Reyes did not; Albacete had a week of festivities, while, down the road, Murcia’s feria was cancelled on health grounds. These uncertainties, combined with changing Covid regulations and travel restrictions, made it difficult for the foreign aficionado to plan trips until near the season’s end.
At the time of writing, the statistics for the numbers of events taking place have yet to be published, although burladero.tv reckon that some 560 festejos mayores have taken place, just 230 less than in the last full season of 2019 and nearly 500 more than occurred in 2020.
Finances
Economically, it remained a difficult season. Attendance limits rose to 80% of total capacity in some plazas as the temporada progressed, but several empresas said their aims were simply to maintain a presence of bullfights locally whilst keeping losses to a minimum or breaking even. Toreros’ costs were reduced (Manzanares had said before the season began that, if plaza attendance was pegged to 50%, he was willing to have a similar reduction applied to his earnings) while ferias were generally shortened to take account of people’s reduced spending power in the light of the pandemic. A lot of festejos depended on television coverage to improve their finances.
Calls for a new model of financing bullfights went unheeded, the hope being - amongst toreros at least - that 2022 would see a return to pre-pandemic conditions. Novilladas were kept going in part thanks to the FTL’s initiative, which certainly raised the profile of novilleros. Another FTL initiative, la Copa Chenel, put on in partnership with la Comunidad de Madrid, provided opportunities for local modesto matadors and minority encaste ganaderías.
A lot of the bulls fought were approaching six years old - a factor that didn’t seem to have the negative impact that some taurinos forecast at the start of the year. Perhaps this was because the toreros who secured most contracts were generally those with the most experience, or those with a track record of facing toros duros. 2021’s limited programme meant that life was still very difficult for los modestos and relatively new matadors and their cuadrillas. The situation of the last two years has caused a number of toreros to consider their future in the profession, one recent example being ex-matador and banderillero Sergio Aguilar. With commercial ganaderías often sweeping up the available carteles, life continues to be difficult for the smaller bull ranches too.
Lower down the ranks, the initiative of El Foro de la Defensa de las Novilladas to reach agreement on a more suitable economic model for novilladas in third and fourth category plazas met with displeasure from the main toreros’ unions. Some ugly threats against the forum members and individual toreros followed at Villaseca de la Sagra, where carteles were affected but the feria still went ahead. Although the threatened future actions were largely dissipated, we may not have heard the last of this discord, particularly as more Foro members are likely to put on novilladas in 2022.
New values
It is unusual for the leading matador in one year to retire during the next, but that is what happened this year with the sudden and unexpected withdrawal of Enrique Ponce in June. That, and the fact that the mundillo was emerging from the pandemic, meant that 2021 felt like the end of an era.
Who could have expected, then, that Ponce’s position at the top of the escalafón would have been taken by Morante de la Puebla? Or that two other toreros employing the sevillano style - Pablo Aguado and Juan Ortega - would accompany him in the top ten? In line with the increased playing of Spain’s national anthem at the start of festejos, there seemed to be a greater desire on the part of the public to embrace Spain’s traditions and to see artistic matadors perform.
Morante, too, deliberately took on a different approach from before, seeking out and mixing up a range of encastes rather than continuing with the handful of ganaderías chosen by the figuras in recent years. In doing so, his toreo and his self-confidence flourished and, by the year end, we had a figura of old - someone who could take on a variety of bulls and perform well with most of them. It was a much-needed breath of fresh air. Let’s hope that he continues to explore this path in 2022 and that others follow him.
The other new value that seemed to appear in 2021 (‘new’ in the sense of not being prevalent in recent times) was a focus on, and greater appreciation of, temple. Despacio toreo lay at the heart of Juan Ortega’s successful season - the sevillano has tripled his number of corridas in the last three years and moved from 41st on the escalafón to eighth. It also forms the core of the toreo of young Tomás Rufo, who finally took the alternativa this year and looks to promise great things for the future.