Love and Death - The Story of Enrique Granados

A portrait of the Spanish composer Enrique Granados.

There are not many music documentaries made in Spain. Poorhouse already worked with filmmaker Arantxa Aguirre on her “A Rose for Antonio Soler”. Now she has come up with “Love and Death”, a portrait of Enrique Granados, which Poorhouse is proud to present at Avant Première.

This is a great love story with Amparo, the daughter of a well to do Catalan businessman, who bore the composer six children and, besotten with fate, they died together when their ferry was torpedoed by a German submarine in mid-Channel while they were on their way back from New York via Great Britain after a triumphant world première of Granados' opera “Goyescas” at the New York Met. We learn about studies in Paris, a life-long friendship with Ricardo Viñes and Pablo Casals, first successes as pianist and composer and the booming city of Barcelona in the last decades of the 19th century.

Highlights of the documentary are performances by Evgeny Kissin, Rosa Torres-Prado, Carlos Alvarez, Arcángel, Rocio Márquez and Nancy Fabiola Herrera. “Danza Oriental” choreographed by Maurice Béjart is performed by Julien Faveau and Elisabet Ros from the Béjart Ballet Lausanne while Patricia Guerrero stunningly interprets the ”Danza de los ojos verdes" in her own choreography. The treatment of archive footage, stills, paintings and postcards is most original.

Production year 2018
Duration 80 or 60 minutes
Director Arantxa Aguirre
Production Company Lopez-Li Films