Out of balance
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, (1689-1755) was a French judge, historian and political philosopher. His writings are the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. Dividing political authority into the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, he asserted that, in the state that most effectively promotes liberty, these three powers must be confided to different individuals or bodies, acting independently.
In his new book ‘Montesquieu en el ruedo’, Alberto González Troyano, a professor in Spanish literature, asserts that three distinct powers operate in the mundo taurino - toreros, ganaderos and the public - and that, while inherently unstable and having to accommodate or reject changes over time, they have, until relatively recently, operated in such a way as to maintain a balance between the competing interests and secure the corrida’s continuation.
Much of the book looks at the history of bullfighting. González asserts that the original leading power of the three were the ganaderos. At this time, the main participant in the corrida was the toro bravo - the ganaderos chose which bulls would appear and in which order they would be fought by the contracted matadors. The epicentre of the corrida was the suerte de varas and the matador’s job was solely to kill his bull.
But, over time, beginning towards the end of the 19th century with Bombita deciding which ganaderías he would and wouldn’t face, things changed and the toreros became the main power. González indicates a further important change in toreros’ favour was the shift in toreo, originally viewed as an artisan activity, becoming regarded as an art form, a move he associates with Lagartijo and, later, Juan Belmonte: “Rural Spain also began to be hemmed in by a more urban population, with refined tastes, and the bull ceased to be the centre of the bullfight. What mattered above all was a type of bullfighting that would more easily reach an audience that was less and less knowledgeable about the technique of the lidia. A situation that illustrates very well the reception given to Belmonte ahead of Joselito, because it was easier to feel the emotions transmitted by the apparently more risky bullfighting of the former. For the cerebral and dominating toreo of the latter, it was necessary to be knowledgeable - to know about faenas and bulls. And when Belmonte's concept of bullfighting won the day, the bull became something secondary in the ring, more and more of a collaborator and less of an opponent. For this reason, the cogida and death of Joselito can be considered as a symbolic point of rupture with great repercussions.” In order for matadors to torear artistically, the fighting bull needed to be bred in such a way as to accommodate this new approach.
González even quotes Belmonte (through the words recorded by Chaves Nogales in the matador’s ‘autobiography’) to prove his argument: “The bull is in a period of decadence […] The poor animal is utterly dominated - the bullfighter does what he wants with the bull […] Following this path, the lidia will be fatally converted into a modern type of circus spectacle, lacking in substance. The beauty of the fiesta continues, but the dramatic element, the emotion, the sublime anguish of a savage struggle, has been lost and the fiesta is in decline [...] Today’s toros de lidia are a product of civilisation, a standardised industrial production, like Coty perfumes or Ford cars. The bull is made in such a way as the public wants it to be.”
The taurine historian Nestor Luján, whose writing in 1954 is quoted, summarised the situation as follows: “Originally, the public came to the bullrings to see a total spectacle - bulls with turbulent spirit, horses disembowelled, brave and knowledgeable toreros, problematic lidias involving growing maturity and strength as the brega proceeded […] They came to see all the bravery, the bold statement of the estocada, the colour, the light and everything involved in the bloodbath on the sand […] Today’s public attend corridas with totally different criteria; they come to enjoy the naturales of such-and-such a torero, the cape style of another, the art with the banderillas of a third. All of this is in relation to a completely different vision from that of olden times.”
González describes the changing tastes and opinions of the bullfight public over time, and, given the historical focus of the book, it is perhaps in this section where he explains why this book - based on a talk given in Paris some years ago - has been published now. In his view, today’s bullfight spectators, affected by the lack of informed coverage in the mainstream media, are more ignorant about the lidia than ever before, whilst the power of toreros over ganaderos is effectively institutionalised and the condition of the fighting bull weakened as a result.
“The commentaries of the knowledgeable [spectator] - at times picturesque, but almost always followed attentively - have disappeared, except in a tendido of a very few bullrings, in which they have miraculously been maintained and are listened to almost as archaeological relics,” González writes, “ There are also ganaderos who remain on the margins […] but they are minority existences that constitute sanctuaries […] in the face of a process that is rushing unstoppably, under the cover of a supposed modernization, towards another type of fiesta.”
Las empresas
To this reader, González has failed in his analysis - interesting though it is - to give sufficient weight to the practices of the bullring empresarios. He regards them as coming within the power of the public; he says they put together corridas that aim to reflect the public’s current interest, for on this depends spectator attendance and the consequent economic success or failure of each event. However, I would argue that the empresas constitute a fourth power in their own right.
This process has accelerated as empresas have become responsible not only for the management of bullrings, but the management of toreros as well. Putting on corridas nowadays has become an economic exercise in reducing costs in return for a reasonable income from ticket sales; hence negotiations between empresas and the apoderados (most of whom function on individual empresas’ behalf) as to the most suitable combinations of toreros and bulls for carteles.
In most cases, the public has very little say in the matter. The non-aficionado will attend all or part of a local feria simply because it is on, part of a tradition. They are presented with the names of the matadors and ganaderías, but very little background information on any of them. Name recognition is consequently important and in part explains the empresas’ current reliance on matadors who have been around for 20 years or more.
It is the power and actions of the empresas that are presently squeezing the life out of the corrida in Spain. The public in general is powerless and uninformed. Only triunfadores in one plaza (Las Ventas) have a chance of building a temporada and career on the back of their success - and even that can be difficult, as the experience of Fernando Adrián has shown. Nor does success in a particular plaza guarantee a return performance the following season, as can be seen by the omission of Daniel Crespo from the recently-announced carteles for El Puerto de Santa María. In the post-Covid situation of reduced numbers of corridas, and the empresas’ desire to stick with tried-and-tested money-making, opportunities for those who have taken the alternativa in the last five years are few and far between. The end result is a stultifying spectacle of veteran matadors facing ‘commercial’ toros in the main (it’s not in the economic interests of either these matadors, their apoderados or the empresas to have them up against more challenging animals with the greater risk of injury that involves) and the repetition of carteles that have been in place for a dozen years or more.