Last Monday, at an event in Madrid about bullfighting, its social relevance and artistic significance in the 1920s, beginning with the premature death of Gallito and with the Generation of ’27 as a great cultural milestone, the maestro Luis Francisco Esplá He reflected: “Love without ritual is sex; Food without ritual is nourishment; “Religion without ritual is just superstition, and bullfighting, without all the ritual that is linked to it, is wild nonsense.”
That is the crux, there is the detail, in the ritual. The Minister take note and stop touching the sides.
At the call of the bullfighting rite and a poster of figures, Las Ventas once again filled up to the clock, even with the memory of the convulsion caused the previous afternoon by David Galván and his rapturous and luminous bullfighting. And who else suspected that the unpredictability of Alejandro Talavante, the artistic brand of Juan Ortega or the Castilian sobriety of Tomás Rufo could provide reasons for joy and remembrance, with the bulls of Puerto de San Lorenzo as necessary accomplices.
Alejandro Talavante has had no less than four afternoons in Las Ventas, today’s the first, and the one who opened the square weighs 611 kg, who came forward and with little desire to attack when he was presented with the cape and who was taken care of on the horse . Juan Ortega’s takedown of Veronica had an average finish with the seal of the Trianero.
Crutch folded on the left and once open, batches of closely gathered naturals, linked and with long strokes, with a colossal finishing trench. After a single series on the right, back to the left the level of the task rose again, although with the bull, which exuded class and nobility, now to a lesser degree.
The bullfighting epilogue from below was beautiful and when it was time to kill the bull he came walking, Talavante withstood the challenge and halfway between them he buried his sword high up. The handkerchiefs came out, the usía showed his and the bullfighter from Extremadura moved his ear between applauses. Things started well.
Just two glimpses of his much-sung – and long-awaited – Veronica bullfighting allowed the second to Juan Ortega, who then took two long punches, perhaps excessive. An initial trench, a brilliant change of hand and the occasional temperate right hand were the little that Ortega was able to get clear in the muleta task against a bull that was passing by and thus, of course, the emotion is a chimera.
The third was seriously serious and the capotero’s salute to Tomás Rufo’s feet together was magnificent, before a third of rods that did not seem to sit very well with the one from Puerto de San Lorenzo.
Despite this and the dying attacks, Rufo insisted on prolonging an impossible task and some reproached him with olés de chufla. The sword also went down.
The weakness of the fourth was protested while the first thirds passed like a formality and everything was now at the expense of what Talavante could do with it. And what he tried to do was conditioned by the bull’s motor skills, which made him charge with a certain lack of coordination. There was nothing to scratch and he went for the sword. Six more bulls await him in the coming days.
The afternoon was spent in protests, it was the fifth’s turn, meow! included, and between one thing and another we were left without seeing Juan Ortega’s cape. Shouts of “bull!, bull!”, the third of rods a drill, a wave of green handkerchiefs in the 7, the user who decides not to take out his own of the same color and fights while singing.
The meows continued! when Juan Ortega took the crutch and drew a trench of clamor. He did it again later and the bull grabbed him badly by the left thigh, although without taking hold. Ortega, in pain, continued doing his thing, drew several rounds that were caresses and the olés prevailed over the protests. Half effective lunge and final ovation, not without disagreements, of course.
While Juan Ortega passed among applause through the alley on his way to the infirmary, to be checked by the doctors, the sixth, second of Tomás Rufo, came out, who with his elusive behavior did not give reason for hope in the thirds prior to the crutch. Despite this, the Toledo right-hander went to the media to toast the public. On your knees the start with a long and temperate series of rounds.
Once standing, the bull looked for flat terrain and Rufo stood up to him there and by leaving the crutch on his muzzle he achieved commendable series for the two pitons, while the bull – who wanted to leave – and the bullfighter – behind him – toured the I roll from lay to lay until I end up finding myself, at the hour of the final fate, in the place where the meek die, the door of the bullpen.
The public rewarded the effort with a standing ovation.
