Miller’s Dance and Final Dance from The Three-Cornered Hat

Falla’s ballet The Three-Cornered Hat - a celebration of Spanish dance first performed with immense success by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in London in 1919 - is named after the official headgear worn by one of its principal characters, the Corregidor. Although Magistrate is the nearest English equivalent to the Spanish Corregidor, it is to be hoped that we have none like this particularly graceless example, who is not only stupid enough to have lustful designs on the beautiful young Miller’s Wife but also corrupt enough to imprison her husband to get him out of the way. The Miller escapes, however, and expresses his feelings in a virile farruca - a dance written by Falla in just twenty-four hours to comply with Diaghilev’s last-minute instinctive feeling that some genuinely muscular flamenco was needed at this point. Against opposition like that the Corregidor doesn’t stand a chance and he succeeds only in making a fool of himself - to the delight of the villagers who tease him mercilessly in a dance that ends the ballet in riot of brilliantly orchestrated Spanish melody and exhilarating jota rhythms.