“No thought for bullfighting’s future”
Antonio Lorca, the bullfight critic of El País (whose writings are now largely confined to online posts), has written a blistering attack on the mundillo and has urged the formation of a new national body to safeguard the spectacle’s future.
The current fiesta de los toros, says Lorca, “ is a social, economic and cultural activity that appears like a headless chicken, lacking in form, structure and sense.”
He runs through the mundillo’s existing organisations:
The Fundación del Toro de Lidia (FTL) is dedicated towards combatting antitaurine measures, arguing against animalismo and organising la Copa Chenel and various circuitos de novilladas (I wonder how many of its members upon the Fundación’s formation thought that these were the roles it would carry out?). “The Fundación,” says Lorca, while acknowledging its assistance to novilleros and modesto matadors, “doesn’t want to know anything about la Fiesta’s internal problems - some of these more serious than animal rights - nor has it bothered itself with representing or integrating aficionados, and it has never been bold enough to denounce any of the several outrages committed by taurinos.”
Of ANOET (la Asociación Nacional de Organizadores de Espectáculos Taurinos, which claims its members run over 90% of 1st and 2nd class rings and over 100 3rd class rings), Lorca simply asks what this body does other than “issue a few press releases over the number of festejos that have taken place in the previous season or the problems of toreros’ prices.”
The three bullfight unions are also given short shrift: “They are characterised by a profound silence over any matter that seriously affects bullfighting, and only make their voices known when they feel their wallets are affected.”
Finally, Lorca claims that none of the five organisations representing ganaderos appear worried about “the current, depressing, situation of the bull.”
In summary, states Lorca, “The internal mechanism of bullfighting is a country without boundaries made up of kingdoms of large, small and minute gangs of thieves that work, for better or worse, to protect their particular interests and without regard for the present or future of the sector.”
Lorca is particularly worried about the influence of Las Ventas: “If Madrid puts on a Feria of San Isidro based on carteles of figuras, the rest of the empresas follow suit, and if Madrid suspends its semana torista, the ganaderos and toreros concerned can go and look for other occupations [...] The sad consequence of this situation is the Fiesta is left without a reserve of bulls and bullfighters; the ferias are drawn from a dozen ganaderías and matadors known by the general public, although there is a host of good matadors and ganaderías with few dates in their diaries that merit fair treatment”. The critic goes on to produce a long list of such toreros - Fernando Adrián, Paco Ureña, David Galván, Ángel Téllez, Borja Jiménez, Fortes, Ángel Sánchez, Ángel Jiménez, Álvaro Alarcón, Francisco de Manuel, Adrián de Torres, Curro Díaz, Manuel Diosleguarde, Manuel Perera, Francisco José Espada, José Fernando Molina, Daniel Crespo - then adds to these names others that have lost out through Madrid’s lack of a semana torista - Manuel Escribano, Sergio Serrano, Fernando Robleño, Rafaelillo, Rubén Pinar, Octavio Chacón, Sánchez Vara, Damián Castaño, López Chaves and Gómez del Pilar. He also points out that, by mid-August, matadors of the status of El Cid, Antonio Ferrera, Juan Ortega, Manuel Escribano, Rafaelillo, Joselito Adame and Javier Cortés, amongst others, have yet to be seen performing in Las Ventas. Ganaderos toristas, meanwhile, have had to offload their unwanted bulls to the organisers of street festejos.
“No one is thinking about the future - that’s the real problem,” concludes Lorca. His solution - a highly unlikely one to occur, it seems to me - is the formation of a new national federation or organisation that regulates tauromaquia (including the form carteles should take) and promotes it with an eye to the future as well as the present.