Margarida Xirgú

In 1902, she made her debut at the Salón Asiático in Barcelona in the play *Lo nuvi* by José Feliú y Codina. In 1903, she performed at the Ateneo in *Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino* by Ángel de Saavedra. In 1905, he began contributing to *Gent Nova* in Badalona.

She made her professional debut with Josep Santpere’s company, and in November 1906 she was hired for the first time by the Teatro Romea in Barcelona to play the role of Blanca in Ángel Guimerà’s play *Mar i Cel*. In 1910, she formed her own company and premiered, among others, the plays *Andrónica* and *La reina joven* at the Romea Theater in Barcelona, which earned her great prestige on the Catalan stage.

Between 1909 and 1916, he starred in a few films, but he would not appear on screen again until 1938, in the Argentine film “Bodas de sangre,” written by García Lorca.

He made his debut in Madrid in 1914 at the Teatro Español, where he performed plays by Valle-Inclán, George Bernard Shaw, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and Alejandro Casona (*La sirena varada*, 1934). In 1933, he performed at the Roman Theater in Mérida, marking the start of the Extremadura Classical Theater Festival.

At the age of twenty-two, she dared to play the role of Salomé in Oscar Wilde’s play; Wilde was a well-known homosexual at the time.

In the play, Margarita danced the dance of the seven veils with her bare midriff, and although the gentlemen found the performance a real treat, it caused a huge scandal.

The play, the author, and the actress were labeled as indecent, and the show was pulled from the lineup.

But Xirgu didn’t back down and continued with other plays, proud and stubborn, scandalizing the timid bourgeois women.

But above all, she starred in nearly all of the major plays by the poet Federico García Lorca—whom she described as her “fetish”—including *Mariana Pineda* in 1927, with sets by Salvador Dalí; in 1930, *La zapatera prodigiosa*; in 1934, *Yerma*; in 1935, *Doña Rosita la Soltera* and *El lenguaje de las flores*; and the revival of *Bodas de sangre* with set design by Caballero.

The author and the actress-muse forged a deep friendship and a shared defiant attitude toward a society that both applauded and condemned them, depending on how boldly they defied social norms.

Her husband died in Havana in 1936, shortly before the start of the Spanish Civil War, and she embarked on a tour of South America performing plays by García Lorca.

She went into exile in 1939 following Franco’s victory, living in Argentina, Chile, and finally Uruguay, where she staged plays by Spanish authors. She remarried in 1941 to her friend Miquel Ortín.

In 1945, Lorca’s final play, *The House of Bernarda Alba*, premiered at the Teatro Avenida in Buenos Aires.

She acted and directed at the Comedia Nacional de Uruguay at the Teatro Solís in Montevideo, where she was appointed director of the Municipal School of Dramatic Arts in 1949 (which bears her name). Actors of the caliber of Amelia de la Torre, Cándida Losada, Enrique Diosdado, Alberto Closas, and Sancho Gracia were trained under her guidance. She obtained Uruguayan citizenship and remained in that country for the last twenty years of her life.

In 1988, nineteen years after his death, the Government of Catalonia requested the repatriation of his remains, which now rest in his birthplace.

Since 1973, the Margarida Xirgú Award has been presented in her honor to the best female performance of the Barcelona theater season. The award is presented in her hometown, Molins de Rei.

Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov drew inspiration from Margarita Xirgu’s tour for his chamber opera “Ainadamar” in 2004.