Memoir of the Spanish Civil War: A Political Reading of Roberto Gerhard’s Ballet Pandora

‘Pandora […] evoked affairs of our country’ wrote Roberto Gerhard (1896–1970) about his ballet Pandora (1943–50). But how does Pandora evoke Gerhard’s perception of the political situation in Spain? This chapter examines the way Gerhard articulates political discourse in Pandora that reflects the Spanish Civil War and its outcomes for Catalans by using thematic material drawn from Spanish and Catalan popular songs. It considers how Gerhard handles this material to show that his music brings out an alternative narrative that is superimposed on the one presented in the storyline conceived by the ballet’s choreographer, Kurt Jooss (1901–79). After the cuts made by Jooss while the ballet was on tour, Gerhard reworked Pandora’s musical material to derive a five-movement orchestral Suite version (1950) that was independent of the ballet. The overall structure of the ballet is nevertheless retained, and the broad strokes of the storyline can still be seen in the 1950 Suite. In fact, this ultimate Suite by which the composer hoped to re-establish his message highlights his own reading of Jooss’s storyline that referred to the Spanish political situation of the 1930s and 1940s.