Antonio Videgain
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Antonio Videgain | |
|---|---|
| Born | Antonio Videgain García 10 March 1869 |
| Died | 9 February 1944 (aged 74) América |
| Occupation(s) | musician, composer, director, producer, businessman |
| Years active | 1884–1944 |
| Spouse | Virgilia Reparaz (1867–1938) |
| Children | Antonio Videgain Reparaz |
Antonio Videgain García (10 March 1869 – 9 February 1944) was a Spanish conductor and composer, who dedicated his career to writing zarzuelas, such as A vuelo de pájaro[1] and El vals coqueto.
Although the details of his early years are not entirely certain, Videgain was born in Jerez and spent his childhood and adolescence in Madrid. He began music lessons with his father and continued his education with Ruperto Chapí and Tomás Bretón. By the age of 12, he was already playing among the first violins of the Teatro Principal orchestra in Cádiz. Thirteen years later, he became the director of an operette (musical) and zarzuela company, making his debut in Gibraltar with a production of Jerónimo Giménez.
A scholarship permitted Videgain to enrol at the Conservatoire, where he received the first prize for harmony and counterpoint. After graduation, he traveled to Argentina and then returned to Spain, settling in Madrid. In 1892 he was born Antonio Videgain Reparaz his son, was a famous singer of zarzuela in Argentina, Uruguay, Panama and Chile and sang in EEUU (Puerto Rico) in the 1930s. In 1899, he was named director of Teatro Romea de Murcia, and shortly afterwards, of the Teatro de la Zarzuela.
Ruperto Chapí commissioned him to write the openings to his zarzuelas, but they are lost. As a conductor of the Sociedad de Conciertos de Cadiz, Videgain helped cultivate the tastes of audiences in Cadiz for symphonic music. According to "those who have seem him conduct and have transmitted to us the memory of his performances of great strength and great enthusiasm. he obtained with imperceptible gestures what he wanted from the orchestra." Videgain also collaborated with the leading authors of sainetes (a comic genre found in Spanish theatre), including Salvador Videgain Gómez, Antonio Reparaz, the Quintero brothers, Joaquín Arqués, and Rafael Calleja, also writers to obtain the libretti for his zarzuelas. He co-wrote the music of a number of his works with others conductor, who hailed him the "musician of impossible" because of his sense of rhythm and easy melodies.
He died in Argentina.
