… And bullfighting came down to earth

An event like the one Morante starred in this Thursday leaves the body broken, exhausted, as knocked out as the bull itself that served as a figure in his masterpiece. The human soul is not prepared for such an intense and unexpected bombardment of emotions. The mysteries experienced become enemies of sleep and insist on fluttering in the head without any intention of letting go.

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And they are selfish and evil because they take away the desire to return to the ring to step on reality again, so often out of tune; but it must be done to honor the other bullfighters, human heroes who are not to blame for sharing their fantasies with an artist who is not of this world.

One more day, this Friday before the fair, the La Maestranza ring looks radiant, beautiful, and packed with people more interested in enjoying memories than in the hope of the present.

We must continue, even though the heart claims its right, but the question spreads through the stands: can one bullfight after what happened to Morante? Yes, it is possible; in a different way, of course, with more earthly and less magical forms, but it is possible.

Today little could be done, certainly.

It is true that the bulls from Domingo Hernández did not fulfill their duty: very poor in presentation and with excessive comfort in their heads. That, on the outside, and inside they contained a mixture of tameness, dullness, and total lack of breed — the luck of the varas was again a sham —, which did not contribute in any way to the display being present. Curiously, the defects of the bulls often spread to their matadors.

Thus, the animal that opened the ring, listless and dull, competed in apathy with Talavante, who moved around the ring as one who must keep a schedule. He always called outside the charge, and all that first work was dominated by sadness.

Tame and soft, also, the fourth, in which the bugles sounded for the start of the last third and nothing had happened. Nor afterwards despite the bullfighter sketching some forced smiles. The bull repeated with better rhythm, but Talavante was not able to make friends with his opponent, and all his work was bland and without grace. He looked at the clock frequently (that seemed to be the case, at least), and finished with his suit spotless.

Roca Rey, for his part, paraded the ear of his second because he is a lively, determined, and combative bullfighter, and because this audience in Seville is increasingly satisfied with less. It was not a prize-worthy performance either for its content or for the final pierced sword. That was the animal that moved the most and allowed the Peruvian bullfighter to show his repertoire, accelerated and lacking depth, but with great connection with the stands. Some isolated muletazos were meritorious in a set lacking harmony.

In some way, he made one forget the superficial and hollow bullfighting he displayed before his first. Many muletazos and none remain in memory. The music sounded at the beginning of his work, and soon fell silent, prey to general boredom.

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With Aguado, on the other hand, there was hope that the mystery would return to La Maestranza. A quite a veronica in Roca’s first bull was a prodigy of naturalness, and another, in his first, by chicuelinas, a monument to softness, but there the joy ended. The bull fled from his shadow, so Aguado did not bullfight, but chased his opponent all over the ring amid general despair. Tameness makes animals long for the pasture.

And the sixth appeared, tame like all, neither here nor there on the horse nor on the banderillas, but he was fitting in with the bullfighter in the final third, from less to more, although dropping his head in the initial muletazos, so there was much work, but little depth. Aguado had not yet found the way to lift the performance.

But here came the miracle of a fall without consequences — big, because it lifted him off the ground and gave the impression that it had pierced him in a thigh — and the scene changed. The best brushstrokes then arose, much cheered by an audience moved by the fall; he extended the performance excessively and would have cut the ear if two warnings had not sounded before the bull’s final fall.

In short, bullfighting came down to earth and what could happen, happened…