Making It Abroad: Bernarda Ramírez (Naples) and Petronila Jibaja (Lisbon)

Abstract

From earliest times, the life of actors or actresses was a sort of “escaparate” or showcase, always on display. Much like today’s gliteratti, they were both admired and looked down upon. If the acting profession was seen as morally reprehensible in general, the attitude toward women was no less critical. Given social norms that saw the female sex almost exclusively in terms of her body and the female actor in terms of her class, women ought to know their place and keep to it. That actresses were free to look, act, dress, and behave like their “betters” represented a threat to social and moral order, a threat as often condemned from the pulpit as confirmed in the news sources of the time. Nevertheless, then as now, a good scandal—one involving the highest levels of society and carried on abroad—could “make” one’s career. Two examples of “making it” abroad—a hundred years apart—are Bernarda Ramírez (1615?–1662) and Petronila Jibaja (1692–1763). Both were of humble origin, both were admired, favored, and kept by aristocrats abroad, and both returned to Spain with fame and fortune that they were able to maintain until their careers ended.

Keywords:

• Actress
• scandal
• Bernarda Ramírez
• Naples
• Petronila Jibaja
• Lisbon

Notes

1 Rennert incorrectly identifies Catalina Flores as an actress and refers the reader to the appendix of Cayetano Rosell’s edition of Entremeses, Loas, etc. de Quiñones de Benavente (1874, vol. II) for her story (Rennert 474).

2 Cotarelo offers a history of Spanish actors performing in Italy in the 17th century (30–34).

3 In 1659 Sebastián de Prado had a company with Juan de la Calle and represented autos in Madrid; in 1660 (he left Madrid on April 13) he took a company of players to Paris on the occasion of the marriage of María Teresa, daughter of Philip IV, to Louis XIV. He again had a company in Madrid and represented autos in 1661; in 1662 he managed one jointly with Escamilla and represented one of Calderón’s autos at Corpus. Famous in the role of galán, in 1670 and 1672 he was primer galán in Manuel Vallejo’s company, and in 1673 with Felix Pascual. In 1674, after the death of Bernarda, he retired from the stage, entered the Convento del Espiritu Santo in Madrid, was ordained a priest, travelled to Rome, and died at Livorno in 1685 (Paz y Meliá, Catalogo, no. 1846).

4 José Subirá describes a 1726 petition for funds to defray costs for “renovación, culto y decencia de la Capilla del Santissimo Christo de la Piedad” and the replacement of broken glass covering the portrait of the Virgen de la Novena, signed by the Mayordomos of the Cofradía, among whom were Petronila Gibaja and her son Antonio de Prado (159).

5 Fernando Domenech Rico claims that in 1717 following her return from Portugal, where she had been performing until 1715, Petronila adopted the surname Gibaja (or Xibaja or Jibaja) (par 1). However, Pinto’s use of the name “Gibaya Fontes” might suggest that she used Gibaja while still in Lisbon.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Paun de García

Susan Paun de García is professor emerita of Spanish at Denison University and past President of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater. She has written on María de Zayas, the seventeenth-century Comedia, and the post-baroque comedia de magia of the early eighteenth century, particularly the work of José de Cañizares. She has co-edited volumes of essays with Donald R. Larson (The Comedia in English. Translation and Performance. Tamesis, 2008; Religious and Secular Theater in Golden Age Spain, Peter Lang, 2017) and with Harley Erdman (Remaking the Comedia in English. Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation, Tamesis, 2015). Again with Donald R. Larson, she co-edited a critical edition of Lope de Vega’s La discreta enamorada (Liverpool UP, 2022).