page_title: Pepita Embil
section_title: Zarzuela career in Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Pepita Embil / Biography and career / Zarzuela career in Spain
caption_attribution_description: English: Soprano Pepita Embil (mother of operatic tenor Plácido Domingo) in a production of the zarzuela, La del manojo de Rosas, in San Sebastián, Spain (March 5, 1942)
context_page_description: Josefa Embil Echániz better known as Pepita Embil was a Spanish Basque soprano who starred in zarzuela and operetta productions throughout Spain and Latin America. Known as the "Queen of Zarzuela," she is especially remembered for her son, the internationally famous operatic tenor Plácido Domingo, whose early career she helped to nurture. Embil began her professional career singing as a soloist in choirs, including the Basque national choir, Eresoinka, which based itself in France during the Spanish Civil War. While still in her twenties, she appeared in the world premieres of several new zarzuelas. She collaborated with some of the most prominent Spanish composers of the 1940s, including Federico Moreno Torroba, Jacinto Guerrero, and Pablo Sorozábal. In late 1948, she moved to Mexico with her baritone husband, Plácido Domingo Ferrer. In Mexico they ran a successful zarzuela company of their own, which toured throughout the Americas. Over the course of her career, Embil made several recordings, primarily of zarzuela music.
context_section_description: With the Spanish Civil War at an end, she moved to Madrid and sought work in the numerous zarzuela companies there. She joined a touring company led by composer Federico Moreno Torroba. She soon appeared in his zarzuela Sor Navarra in Pamplona with baritone Plácido Domingo Ferrer, whom she had recently met for the first time at Madrid's Café de Castilla, a gathering place for the city's artists and musicians. They married on April 1, 1940, and early the following year they had their first child, Plácido. A year and half later, the couple had a daughter, Maria José (1942-2015), known as "Mari Pepa."
  Embil was asked to join the company of the Teatro Calderón in Madrid periodically from 1940 to 1945. The soprano and some friends from the Teatro Calderón founded the Ases líricos, a zarzuela company that had many successes over the course of the next several decades. Many of the members of the company were among the best zarzuela singers in the country. She and her husband performed all across Spain as part of the troupe, which was headed by singer and impresario Antonio Medio. Embil soon became one of the favorite singers of several leading Spanish composers, including Moreno Torroba, Pablo Sorozábal, and Jacinto Guerrero.
  For her first season after the birth of her son, she worked with actor Salvador Videgain as part of the company of Maestro Quiroga at the Teatro Alcalá in Madrid. With that company, she appeared in numerous zarzuela productions, including the premiere of Quiroga's La reina fea in 1941. The following year she performed again at the Teatro Calderón, appearing in the premiere of Federico Cotó's operetta, El desfile del amor, with Antonio Medio. On the day before Easter 1943, she and Medio again sang together in the premiere of Pablo Sorozábal's zarzuela, Don Manolito, at Madrid's Teatro Reina Victoria. It was very well received. She also had a significant success in Sorozábal's Black el payaso. Together with Medio and under the auspices of Maestro Jacinto Guerrero, she performed in the premiere of Guerrero's Loza lozana at the Teatro Coliseum of Madrid later the same year. The two singers also appeared there in 1944 in the premiere of Jesús Romo's En el balcón de Palacio. It was only the composer's second zarzuela, coming two years after his promising El mesón del Pato Rojo. Embil sang the leading role, Lola la de Jerez, in the new zarzuela, which was an immediate hit. Her last world premiere in Spain occurred on November 22, 1944 in Guerrero's Tiene razón Don Sebastián at the Teatro Principal de Zaragoza. As a zarzuela written for two baritones—Medio and Domingo—it was considered a novelty. In May of the following year, she starred again in the farcical zarzuela at the Teatro Calderón. The genre was in decline by this time. Pepita Embil starred in some of the last great zarzuelas to be written.
caption: Embil in a production of the zarzuela, La del manojo de Rosas, in San Sebastián, 1942
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