Antonio García Gutiérrez suddenly springs into fame…

Antonio García Gutiérrez suddenly springs into fame as the author of El Trovador ("The Troubadour"), which had been played for the first time on March 1, 1836.

He will never surpass this first effort, which places him among the leaders of the Romantic movement in Spain, and which is to eventually to become known all over Europe through Giuseppe Verdi's music (as the opera Il trovatore).

After having studied medicine in his native town near Cádiz, had moved to Madrid in 1832, and earned a meager living by translating plays of Eugène Scribe and Alexandre Dumas, père.

Lacking success, he had been on the point of enlisting.