Analysis: The story of Concha Piquer, the Spanish singer known for her singular attitude and strength of will
In the dressing room of the El Pardo palace, in late 1940s Madrid, a woman said 'no' to Francisco Franco, the then dictator of Spain, and occupier of the palace.
"Good afternoon doña Concha. The Generalísimo Francisco Franco would like you to go to his palace to sing now."
"Has the Generalismo had his afternoon tea?"
"Yes, of course"
"Well, I have not, so tell him that I will be happy to go another day. Good day".
This exchange may seem unremarkable today, but no one at the time, especially a woman, said no to Franco. The woman was renowned singer, performer, and actress Doña Concha Piquer, known for her singular attitude and strength of will. She was an icon for voiceless women, a single mother and an adulteress who had a her love affair with a well-known married man.
Piquer had a singular ability to remain popular and break all of society’s taboos that governed women’s lives under the ultra-conservative and Catholic dictatorship of Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975. These institutions generated what was considered a good, and also a bad woman, which were enforced and reinforced through societal norms.
Piquer's voice was a mainstay on the radio reaching mainly women who were confined in their domestic spaces as wives and mothers and who celebrated the transgressions evident in some of Concha’s lyrics, such as in the chorus of the song entitled Romance de la otra
I am the other, the other
I have no rights
Because I do not wear a ring
With a date inside
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Concha Piquer's Romance de la otra
In this song, she appealed to her audience by sharing her personal experience as an unmarried woman, which at the time meant that she was without legal status. In a performance of the song, she appeared on stage dressed in traditional mourning attire, mirroring the first verse of the song: 'why is she wearing black if nobody has died?'.
When later asked the reason for this, Piquer replied that she wanted to show that women in her situation had no rights under the law and they were driven to loneliness and left to languish in pain. Again, the singer was pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable to publicly talk about.
Her presence on stage, and her voice on the radio defied societal mores by publicly taking claim of her situation in a system that would prefer her to suffer in silence. She shared her pain with her audiences, but also her bravery helping to shed light on a situation that otherwise would have been hidden.
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Interviews with Concha Piquer from RTVE's Cantares show
How did she get away with it? Why didn’t she end up like other celebrities of the time? Such as the Malaga-born and openly gay singer and performer Miguel de Molina who was nearly beaten to death and emigrated to Argentina to escape?
Piquer knew how to play the game. She gained respectability by negotiating with ideas rooted in class and gender stereotypes. Despite the fact that her first language was Valencian and she only learned Spanish at later age, she sang with a very well-studied Andalucian accent becoming the epitome of Spanishness. She used musical forms rooted in Andalucian tones that were well recognized by the audiences and she dressed with very bright and evocative Andalucian objects: mantilla, mantón, flowers, jewels, fans and castanets. In this way, she represented a kind of "authentic" body of (Spanish) national tradition, appealing to Franco’s cultural intentions of highlighting Andalucian folklore as inherently Spanish.
We can also say that Piquer was an ambiguous character, difficult to define. On the one hand, she was brave and independent, one who refused to jump to attention in response to the most powerful man in Spain, a proud single mother, and an adulteress in the cultural definitions of the time. On the other hand, she appeared to be complicit with the regime. This is because coplas were appropriated by the regime which highlighted their traditional and nationalistic undertones as representations of the new Spanish popular culture.
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Concha Piquer performing in 1923
In post-Franco Spain, Piquer was sidelined and viewed quite negatively. As a result, the complexity of her life and what she represented had to wait many years to be properly recognised. Since the late 1990s, her story has been told in a myriad of publications; the latest being Carla Berrocal's graphic novel about her life Doňa Concha: La rosa y la espina (Doña Concha: the Rose and the Thorn) (2021).
The title of this novel summarises how she was and still is perceived: a beautiful rose, a sophisticated and a fashion referent, but also a difficult woman, complex, disruptive, and, at times, unkind as her many biographies suggest. But there is something that everybody agrees on: she was an icon, a role model for future performers and an important contributor to Spanish popular cultural heritage.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
