A CHAT WITH LA GUERRERO
L A SENORITA ROSARIO GUERRERO, seated in her dressing room at the Palace, with a sweet smile on her mobile face, is scarcely the fierce, impulsive lady one remembers from at the Alhambra two years ago poignarding the luckless Don Jose; yet when her Andalusian eyes light up one sees the bright flash that betokens the force behind them, and which is never absent when genius is in question. And that something, closely akin to genius, can be claimed for the great Spanish dancer all who have seen her admit.
“I was born in Seville, Señor,” said she, in answer to my first question, “in Seville, the city of villas and orange-blossoms. Have you ever been there?”
“Yes, and envy you a childhood amid such surroundings.”
“When I was five years old, and that's just twenty years ago,” said Guerrero, lying back in her cosy chair and losing herself in reverie, “I used to play on the banks of the Guadalquiver, the sweetest river in all Spain, and dance to the castanets of the shepherd-boys. At eight I was a kind of leader among my playmates—whether deservedly or not I do not know.”
“You mean those who danced?”
“Those who danced, Señor?” This with a glance of surprise. “You have been in Spain and, therefore, should surely know that we all dance.”
I felt justly reproved, but urged her to go on talking in her soft Castilian speech.
“But what I have to say,” she pleaded, “my life-history has been so short. At eighteen, when I had completed my education, I went on the stage as a dancer only, but I had other and higher aspirations. Terpsichore is a charming goddess to worship, but Thespis tempts me more. I have, as you know, travelled all over Europe, winning good notices and making good money?”
She smiled and showed all of her white teeth.
“One has to travel far and change often to do the latter,” said she; then slyly added, “ Cambio de pasto hace becerros gordos ,” which I interpreted into Anglo-Saxon as changes of pastures make fat calves.
“You showed you were an actress in Carmen , in which ballet I was you at the Alhambra.”
“Ah, yes. I felt that I was in my element there; Bizet's music lends itself to my coloring. It is Spain, and the rattle of the castanets can be felt in the orchestration. Bizet was a Parisian by birth, but a Spaniard in feeling, or he could not have written the ‘Toreador Song.'”
And all the while that the handsome brunette is dashing along in this unconscious manner, unbidden comes the thought to the interviewer that she is reckoning him up in her mind of minds, weighing his worth, and wondering perhaps whether he will be able to convey to the world her singular personal charm.
“You seem to enjoy playing the part; at least, those in front thought so?”
“I revelled in it. I felt that I was Carmen, and, do you know, I verily believe that my Don Jose; was now and again really afraid of me. He once declared that he could see murder in my eye. So in this piece I am now playing, which is my own conception, when I dance in that magnificent dress I am convinced that I am a great lady; and when the brigand commands me to take off my pearls and I at first refuse, I feel for the moment as though I could strangle him. It is all so real I lose myself in my environment, which, although to me most natural, the critics say is Art with a big capital letter. How fond you English are of big capital letters.”
I acquiesced.
“You like London?”
“At this season of the years, yes, it is very beautiful; but your fogs, of which I have read so much—ah, it must be terrible.”
“After your sunny land, yes, they would not suit La Guerrero. And the Palace?”
“It is a splendid building and a stately and nice, so utterly unlike a variety hall. It would be the Grand Opera if the stalls were not so intensely sympathetic. Ah!” she continued, tapping her little golden dancing-shoe with her fan as if to emphasise her words. “I have been to Moscow, Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Paris, everywhere; the the Palace, London, is my ideal of an interior, though the outside does not appeal to me; and then the stage attention one gets, it is excellent.”
“You will soon be essaying fresh rôles ?”
“Perhaps; but”—this is a pretty move—“who grasps much compresses little. I have several scenarios being prepared for me, in one of which I shall enact three different characters, but nothing is settled. I have many countries to visit and tastes of nations differ so. What will please London may be distasteful to Dresden. One must not predict. My dancing, however, I hope, will see me through.”
At this point I rose to go.
“Stay.” Said the Senorita, as she reached from the dressing room shelf a prettily framed portrait of herself.
“For me?” I asked.
“Yes, in memory of Guerrero,” and then, with a graceful curtsey and a hand-shake, the scribe wasgiven is congé.
— Edgar Lee
Published in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News April 22, 1905